No Fuel Off-Grid Communications

you're absolutely on the right path in regards to the wired field telephones and Probably still the second most secure means of communication between fixed locations. Couple of things, not to bust or rain, just something to think about. Popular Communications seem to be very much along the lines of a Beofang radio in VHF/UHF for the multiple services available to us civies. Ham, MURS, GMRS, FRS, FRS is very inexpensive, not so powerful as to broadcast your location much farther than say a mile depending on your terrain at least who is holding down the fort while you're out doing perimeter security has a way to alert you when you're between wired check in locations?? A typical police scanner and shortwave receiver if not already on hand should also be able to alert you of any low level communications in your area. I'd program the FRS/GMRS and MURS channels in the first few memories. The reason is so you know what you're listening to, second, unmodified handheld radios in these services tend to be two watts or less, they don't broadcast very far and if you're picking them up they are in your "backyard'. So any signal in the first memory channels on the scanner is an alert, any signal on memories 40-45 could be city, town, county emergency services (ems police fire etc) memories 50-100 could be known prepping/militia frequencies. 101+ air ports, control centers (like Chicago Center, LA Center,) and CAP channels. Most military units use Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS) which is an encrypted and trunked system. Police departments have also been switching to encryption for some if not all of their radio Communications. If you're thinking of utilizing a scanner, don't skimp on price, many areas are using digital voice instead of analog and just like cable or satellite TV the analog scanner can't decode the digital signals. I highly suggest a digital scanner capable of trunking, P25 phase 2, as well as the VHF AM airband. Hopefully this helps.

just to communicate between group members if regular comms go down. Right now 4 miles is the max but we only have a couple members. I guess I would get the baofeng for listening, but because of the liscencing I was hoping to find something else for sharing info.