The 3-3-3 radio plan: channel 3, every 3 hours, for 3 minutes

The 3-3-3 plan is a listening schedule for when the phones are down: turn your radio to channel 3 at the top of every third hour, and listen for at least 3 minutes. It exists to solve one specific problem - two people with cheap radios and no way to coordinate still end up on the same channel at the same time.

The plan itself

• Channel 3, on whichever license-free service your radio speaks: CB channel 3 (26.985 MHz), FRS channel 3 (462.6125 MHz), or MURS channel 3 (151.940 MHz).
• Every 3 hours, on the clock everyone can reconstruct without being told: 12:00, 3:00, 6:00, and 9:00, day and night, local time.
• Listen for 3 minutes before you switch off. Call if you have traffic; otherwise just listen.

One thing the plan's own simplicity hides: those are three different frequencies. CB, FRS, and MURS radios cannot hear each other, so "channel 3" only connects people whose radios speak the same service. The convention covers all three because all three are the radios preparedness-minded people actually own; it does not bridge between them.

Where it comes from

The plan was published by the RadioMaster Reports blog in 2013 and has spread through the preparedness community since. AmRRON, a volunteer emergency-communications network, organizes its Channel 3 Project around the same channel-3 convention with a denser monitoring schedule of its own. Neither is a government standard, and no agency monitors channel 3; it's a community convention, which is exactly what makes it work between strangers who've never compared notes.

What it solves

• Rendezvous without coordination. A meeting time and place on the air, known in advance by anyone who's heard of the convention. If your family's radios are separated with no plan, this is the default worth having memorized.
• Battery arithmetic. A radio listening around the clock kills its batteries in a day or two. Eight 3-minute windows total under half an hour a day, which stretches the same batteries across weeks.

What it doesn't solve

• A schedule is not a network. Nobody may be in range when you call. Everyday reach for these radios is a few miles, set by terrain and antenna height, and no listening plan changes that. Where a phone works, 911 comes first; this plan is for when it doesn't.
• Channel 3 belongs to everyone who read the same plan. In a real regional emergency, expect other traffic there. That's the convention working; just don't expect a private channel.
• Low power is the deal. The license-free services cap at a few watts. The plan inherits every range limitation of the radios it runs on.

Make it yours

The generic plan is the fallback for reaching strangers; a family should write its own version down. Which radios you own, which channel is yours, which times you'll listen, who the out-of-area contact is. The Family Comm Plan Builder prints it wallet-sized in five minutes: put your own quiet channel on the card as primary, and note channel 3 with the 3-hour schedule as the fallback when the primary produces nothing.

On the gear side, any FRS pair covers the family end; the Midland T71VP3 (Amazon) is the same starting pair the family radio guide names, and channel 3 works the same on all of them.