Preparedness guide · CommunicationUpdated 3 September 2026
Your phone is fully charged. The network is still gone within half an hour.
In a blackout, the mobile network dies long before your battery does. What that means for the moment you want to know if your family is all right, the authorities have written down themselves.
The short version
- Mobile masts have battery backup for around 30 minutes, up to 2 hours at most. Then the network is gone, regardless of your battery.
- Radio keeps broadcasting: Austria's public broadcaster is prepared to stay on air for at least 72 hours in a complete power failure.
- The city of Linz officially advises agreeing on a meeting point for when no means of communication works anymore.
- Receiving news and reaching your own family are two different problems. The official list only covers the first.
The Austrian Chamber of Commerce writes about mobile phone masts during a blackout: they have “a battery supply that typically works for around 30 minutes (up to 2 hours is possible), depending on the type of battery backup and the load on the cell”.
Austrian Chamber of Commerce, blackout FAQSo the problem is not your battery. The problem is the mast. A power bank changes nothing about that.
Now think through what that half hour means. Your child is at school. Your partner is at work. Thirty minutes after the power drops, there is no call, no message, no way to know if they are all right. Not for an hour. Possibly for days.
Not the dark is what people describe afterwards as the worst part. The not knowing.
The authorities have already admitted it
Official blackout advice of the city of Linz, verbatim:
“Agree on a meeting point where you will find each other when no means of communication works anymore.”
Read that again. The official advice is not a technical solution. It is: agree in advance where to walk to, because the assumption is that you will have no way to get in touch.
That gap between full bars and total silence is what this chapter closes. In two directions.
Receiving and reaching are two different things
Austria's public broadcaster ORF states it has taken measures to keep its radio programmes on air in a crisis for at least 72 hours, even during a complete power failure. The question is not whether anyone is broadcasting. The question is what you will receive it with.
Everything on the official stockpile list is about receiving: crank radio, sirens, broadcasts. Nothing on it lets you reach your own family. That gap has no official solution. Only a meeting point.
Your phone is dead after a day. Your kitchen radio runs on mains power. And whoever listens in the car will, after a few hours, have a car that no longer starts.
The three options every household has
1. Power banks and full batteries
Useful for everything else. Useless for this: a charged phone on a dead network is a flashlight. The mast fails, not your battery.
2. A meeting point, as the city advises
Sensible, and you should agree on one either way. It also means walking across town to find out if your child's school has even let the children leave.
3. Equipment that needs no network at all
A radio that receives the national broadcast without the grid. Two-way radios that talk directly to each other, without a single mast in between.
Exactly here is where NORDVAND begins. First receiving, then reaching.
Part 1 · Receive
The NORDVAND R1
The radio keeps broadcasting. Even when the whole country goes dark. Transmitter stations run on backup generators, regional studios can operate in island mode, and the programme carries the one thing you cannot get any other way in a blackout: official information.
The R1 receives it without the grid. Hand crank for power from muscle, a solar panel for slow top-up in daylight, a battery compartment as second reserve. FM, MW and shortwave, for when regional transmitters fail. Plus a flashlight, a reading light, an SOS signal and a USB output for an emergency charge of your phone.
What the R1 honestly cannot do
A hand crank generates little power. You crank for minutes of radio, not hours. The built-in solar panel keeps the device topped up in daylight, but it will not charge it quickly. The USB output is enough for an emergency call or a message, not for fully charging a dead phone. Anyone who promises otherwise has not tried it. Exact figures follow with the manufacturer's data sheet.
Delivery in 5 to 12 working days. 90-day returns.
Part 2 · Reach
The NORDVAND K1
The K1 is the way to each other that the meeting-point advice assumes you do not have. Two radios that talk directly to each other. No network, no mast, no SIM card, no contract. When one transmits, the other hears it. No more technology stands in between.
PMR446: licence-free and cost-free across all of Europe. 16 channels, maximum 500 mW ERP. Charges over USB-C, including from the crank radio or in the car. Belt clip and headset included.
Why two are not enough. One radio on its own is a paperweight. Two connect two people. A household with children needs four: one stays at home, one goes along, two are with the kids. The official advice to agree on a meeting point only becomes unnecessary once everyone carries a radio.
What these radios honestly cannot do. Starting with the range.
Almost every manufacturer prints 5 or 10 kilometres on the box. That applies with a clear line of sight, mountain to mountain, nothing in between. In a city with buildings, reinforced concrete and trees, it is realistically a few hundred metres to a few kilometres. That is why we print no kilometre figure until we have measured it ourselves. Count on: within an apartment block, between the house and the shop, within the same neighbourhood. Not to the school on the other side of town.
Also: a two-way radio does not replace a phone and does not reach emergency services. The 112 emergency number cannot be reached over PMR446. The channel is open: anyone with a radio on the same channel can hear you. And both sides must be switched on and set to the same channel, or nothing happens. Agree on that while there is still power.
Delivery in 5 to 12 working days. 90-day returns.
Why this chapter has two devices
The R1 receives: the country keeps broadcasting for 72 hours. The K1 transmits: you reach your own family. Everything on the official stockpile list is about receiving. Nothing on it lets you reach the people you actually worry about.
Three things, kept apart
What the authorities advise
A radio that works without mains power, and an agreed meeting point for when no means of communication works anymore. Both quoted and linked above.
What NORDVAND offers
A supplementary way to keep receiving and to reach your own household: a crank radio and licence-free two-way radios. Not a replacement for official instructions or emergency services.
What NORDVAND does not claim
No range figure until we have measured it ourselves. No access to 112 over PMR446. No runtime figures without a data sheet. No connection to or endorsement by any authority cited here.
Water, light, communication. You have covered the first three gaps.
That is further than most households in Europe ever get. The next chapters, food, self-sufficiency and sanitation, are in preparation. We only sell what we would rely on ourselves, and we are not there yet.
ADVERTISEMENT. This article is published by NORDVAND and promotes NORDVAND products. The recommendations cited are quoted with their sources. There is no connection, partnership or endorsement between those institutions and NORDVAND. In an emergency, always follow the official instructions of the authorities.