Radio and intel

A handheld radio is how the county talks. Use it from your inventory to switch it on and turn the dial. Stations carry music, bulletins, faction chatter, weather, distress calls and rumors. Batteries run down.

Stations worth knowing

• 88.1 FM, Haven's community band: news, and directions for new arrivals.
• 119.3 VHF, Sandy Shores Weather.
• 121.5 VHF, Guard: distress calls.

Other bands turn up as you explore, and a frequency card marks a station you haven't found yet. Some traffic is encrypted and needs a decoder.

The signal log

Everything said about a place goes into the Signal log on your radio: who said it, how long ago, how sure they sounded, and your record with that source. Choose Mark the map to pin it on your field kit map, or Write it down with paper and a grease pencil to make a note you can give or sell.

Verifying claims

Not everything on the air is true. Relays get garbled, old news goes stale, and some factions lie on purpose to get you killed. Go and look: when you reach the place, the log marks the claim as true, a lie, or simply out of date, and it remembers which sources lied to you.

• Watch the source. Some bands lie readily, and your own record with each one builds up over time.
• Listen to how it's said. Liars hedge more: "Last I heard, anyway."
• Check the details against the map. An honest voice names real neighboring places.
• Notes are handwritten, and each writer's hand is their own.

Signal

A handheld reaches about four kilometers over open ground. Close by, a voice comes through clean. Further out you'll hear more hiss, words that drop out, and crackle. Past its reach, the squelch never opens and you hear nothing at all. Height helps a lot: from a hilltop, a roof or an aircraft you can talk several times as far. Being deep inside a building takes a lot off the range, being underground cuts it to almost nothing, and a thunderstorm at either end makes everything rougher.

A radio can't send and receive at once. While you hold talk you won't hear anyone else, and if two people talk at the same time, both come through garbled. Wait for the squelch tail before you answer. Weak relays and far-off stations sound rough in the same way.

Push to talk on your own voice is N, Z changes how far it carries, and CAPS talks on the radio when you're tuned. The dead hear you talking too.