The latest: Tasks for the 'Designated Commo' Guy
As the title implies, these are the basics for helping your circle of friends get up to some level of functionality in comms. Important point from the post:
This is difficult for me. Non-comms (amateurs, military, etc.) people often equate a "just want it to work" sentiment as if it were a home theatre system or an app on their iPhone.
While I appreciate that from a consumer level, if instead we think like airplane pilots or sea captains, there's a great deal of ownership and understanding involved. By understanding aerodynamics and meteorological basics, pilots are able to cope with problems. Most anyone can learn to drive a car, but a considerably narrower set of people fly aircraft.
My point is, radio comms as an avocation is only as good as your efforts. I suppose in these hypothetical tactical groups, if you have a dedicated "comms guy", who does understand the theory and is handy with a soldering iron, it's feasible to distribute pre-programmed HTs to your people.
I'm not sure that we can ever build up the perfect commo shopping list that removes the need for the theory and experience that real situations would likely require.