How We Research and Write Our Guides
Our editorial standards, how we check products, and what we leave out.
Prepped Gear publishes buying guides, comparisons and checklists for emergency and off-grid gear. Before you take our advice on a radio or a go bag, you should know how we get to it.
Who We Are
We are a small team in North Carolina that uses this gear. We run LoRa mesh nodes and keep the kits we describe. We are not a large review publication with a test lab, and we do not pretend to be one. What we offer is careful research, specs you can check, and plain language about what each product is good for.
How We Research Products
Maker specs first. Power output, battery capacity, frequency bands, weight, lumens, run time, pack volume. We take these from the manufacturer's site or documentation where it exists, and from the product listing where it doesn't, and we say which.
Live listing checks. Every product is checked against its current Amazon listing before it goes in a guide and again when the guide is revisited: whether it is in stock, who sells it, and whether the listing matches the product we mean. If a listing is a third-party reseller or a bundle, we note it.
Hands-on use where we have it. Mesh radios and voice radios are the part of this site we use the most. When a claim comes from our own use, the guide says so. When it comes from the maker, the guide says that.
What we don't use. We do not quote star ratings or review counts, and we do not rank products by them.
How We Make Recommendations
"Best" depends on the job. Our guides match products to situations (a first mesh node, a repeater on a hill, a car kit for an ice storm) rather than publishing one ranked list. Every product has a weakness, and we put it next to the recommendation rather than at the bottom of the page.
What We Don't Do
We do not run a test lab. We do not accept free units, sponsored placements or pay-for-ranking deals. We do not cover every product in a category, only the ones that compete on specs and availability. We do not give medical advice; where a guide touches first aid, it points to training and to the makers' own instructions.
How We Handle Affiliate Links
Some links are affiliate links and may earn us a commission. The guide is researched and written first; links are added after. A product that pays nothing still gets recommended if it deserves it, and a product that pays well does not get recommended if it doesn't.
How We Keep Guides Current
Listings go out of stock and models get replaced. We re-check the products in each guide on a schedule and update the guide, including its date, when something changes. If you spot something out of date, we want to know.