The Great Revision-Thoughts about Ham Radios

Many thanks to Flo for her encouragements!
Ok, so here's the scoop, and the reason I haven't posted in a week.
This whole fiction apocalyptic adventure began when I asked myself: If the power grid went down, or say, Washington D.C was taken out by terrorists, how long would it take us, back in the boonies, to find out?
I started writing a fiction novel about that idea, exploring it. We've been without power for days, and we'd just sorta figure it was the same thing, a tree down, equipment failure, whatever. It might be a week before we ever found out for sure.
As I wrote the book, I thought about all the skills we would need to help us survive the thing. I ended up buying a woodstove, figuring out a passive water system, bought a solar shower.

One thing led to another and a second book, and third, evolved. They call these little 22,000 word books novellas. I explored what would happen if say, my man was killed by bad bears, and I was out here alone to deal with enemy factions.

I am from the north, and not so comfortable with weapons, I'm admitting that right now. I'm working on my self defense skills.

Then, I thought about a very dark side, like a woman could go rouge, became indifferent or even fascinated by bloodshed, after going through hell defending herself and her family. People might turn into cannibals. It would be easy to prey on the weak human element instead of actually hunting, fishing, or making gardens.

When these smaller books were finished, it occurred to me that the government issues should be dealt with. What if the feds could recover, move the headquarters, enact martial law and try to take back their power?

Bottom line, I've been doing a revision, and all four books have been compiled into this one, hence no blog for nearly a week. Sort of regrouping, using my initials as a pen name for fiction.
Book two involves the feds getting ready to retake the control. I've been researching ham radios. How else would the citizens tell each other the feds were coming, going to come down hard on local governments trying to help their own people survive a shit hits the fan scenario? The Greeks and Romans sent runners. We had a pony express before telegraphs. Boat people could bring news, like the mountain men did in their great rondevous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio

The ham radio thing is in my mind, and I'm looking at this old time skill in a new way. Is it a dying skill? Our modern wifi and satelite communications are power dependent, we need the grid for them to work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_homebrew
According to this link, ham radios can use as little as one watt of power, totally do able with solar or ethanol survivalist skills.

How about carrier pigeons, would they be used as well to relay information, warning of the military action against non-compliants? How far would the military go to retake the country? Probably heads would roll.

I've uploaded this revision, and I think its way better, and flows. It should be available tomorrow, an e-book.

Links at at the right sidebar if you're interested. It's only $2.99.