On this day in 1976 the song “Convoy” by C.W. McCall was the #1 song on the U.S. pop charts. That song is credited with creating a boom in interest in CB radio that lasted for several years.
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And on January 10th, 1776 is the day that North Carolina Governor Josiah Martin issued a proclamation calling on the king’s loyal subjects to raise an armed force to combat the “rebels”. This ultimately led to Colonel Donald McLeod leading the men on an assault on the Patriots that ended with fifty of his men dead and 880 captured. The Patriots lost only two of their number.
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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest
Today we present another entry for Round 86 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The more than $12,000 worth of prizes for this round include:
First Prize:
- A $3,000 gift certificate towards a Sol-Ark Solar Generator from veteran-owned Portable Solar LLC. The only EMP Hardened Solar Generator System available to the public.
- A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,095 value),
- A course certificate from onPoint Tactical for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses, excluding those restricted for military or government teams. Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
- DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
- Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
- A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
- American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
Second Prize:
- A gift certificate from Quantum Harvest LLC (up to a $2,200 value) good for 12% off the purchase of any of their sun-tracking models, and 10% off the purchase price of any of their other models.
- A Front Sight Lifetime Diamond Membership, providing lifetime free training at any Front Sight Nevada course, with no limit on repeating classes. This prize is courtesy of a SurvivalBlog reader who prefers to be anonymous.
- A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
- A $300 purchase credit for any of the products from EMPShield.com
- A Three-Day Deluxe Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $190 value),
- Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
- An assortment of products along with a one hour consultation on health and wellness from Pruitt’s Tree Resin (a $265 value).
Third Prize:
- Good2GoCo.com is providing a $400 purchase credit at regular prices for the prize winner’s choice of either Wise Foods or Augason long term storage foods, in stackable buckets.
- Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
- A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
- Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
- Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
- Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances.
Round 86 ends on January 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.
CB’s with SSB is not intelligible when received by the common CB’s that does not have the SSB feature, so it is a sort of built in voice scrambler. A CB with single side band (SSB) transmits with the equivalent of 12 watts, instead of 4 watts for standard CB’s. This is a 150 percent increase in out put, or a gain of 4.5 Dbd. Unfortunately, a 150 percent increase in transmission power does not produce an increase in it’s range 150 percent. What ever the increase in range, it is a significant improvement. However it is yet inadequate for point to point transmissions, a reflector wire can be added to create a 2 element yagi. This would double the RP (estimated radiated power) from 12 watts to 24 watts. And it would prevent the signal from traveling in the opposite direction of the receiving station. It also will reduce or block unwanted traffic, and noise that is coming from the rear side (behind) of the reflecting wire. To further reduce this noise and interference, and also increase the range and improve security, orientate the antenna horizontally to the ground. This may require increasing the antenna to height of at least one 1/2 wave length in height, or higher to avoid interference from the radio waves that bounce off the ground and out of phase with the antenna. This could garble the signal and reduce the range. Install as a high as possible to avoid this problem, and the because of the height alone, the signal will travel further. A 2 element yagi direct connect yagi is easy and cheap to make, but if you have $159.00, it easier to buy one such as this:
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=2&pub=5574933636&toolid=10001&campid=5337839255&customid=&mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eebay%2Ecom%2Fb%2Fcb-beam-antenna%2Fbn%5F7024870889
Installed, it should look like this, and operate like this if on a TV antenna rotator:
https://youtu.be/yyCEjriZRYU
Because this 4 element yagi has a gain of 13.15, if fed 4 watts from a CB, the estimate radiated power would be about 81 watts. If fed a SSB signal that is 12 watts, then the ERP is 149 watts. As it is a horizontally polarized, and a directional antenna, it would be very hard to DF, or be intercepted.
Until recently I had forgotten how big the song “Convoy” was back in the day. It was quite an anthem against onerous government regulation.
For an interesting account of some aspects of the 70s “Energy Crisis” read Thomas Sowell’s “Basic Economics”. It covers the farce that was the energy crisis among other things. Sounds as if Jimmy Carter was bought and paid for. A good read.
The “Oil Crisis” was a direct result of our support of isreal in the 73 war that prevented their defeat. The oil nations embargoed us and nearly destroyed our economy,if the Saudis had joined we would have been severely hurt(one of the reasons we still kowtow,but now it’s petrodollars)
CB’s with SSB is not intelligible when received by the common CB’s that does not have the SSB feature, so it is a sort of built in voice scrambler. A CB with single side band (SSB) transmits with the equivalent of 12 watts, instead of 4 watts for standard CB’s. This is a 150 percent increase in out put, or a gain of 4.5 Dbd. Unfortunately, a 150 percent increase in transmission power does not produce an increase in it’s range 150 percent. What ever the increase in range, it is a significant improvement. However it is yet inadequate for point to point transmissions, a reflector wire can be added to create a 2 element yagi. This would double the RP (estimated radiated power) from 12 watts to 24 watts. And it would prevent the signal from traveling in the opposite direction of the receiving station. It also will reduce or block unwanted traffic, and noise that is coming from the rear side (behind) of the reflecting wire. To further reduce this noise and interference, and also increase the range and improve security, orientate the antenna horizontally to the ground. This may require increasing the antenna to height of at least one 1/2 wave length in height, or higher to avoid interference from the radio waves that bounce off the ground and out of phase with the antenna. This could garble the signal and reduce the range. Install as a high as possible to avoid this problem, and the because of the height alone, the signal will travel further. A 2 element yagi direct connect yagi is easy and cheap to make, but if you have $159.00, it easier to buy one such as this:
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=2&pub=5574933636&toolid=10001&campid=5337839255&customid=&mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eebay%2Ecom%2Fb%2Fcb-beam-antenna%2Fbn%5F7024870889
Installed, it should look like this, and operate like this if on a TV antenna rotator:
https://youtu.be/yyCEjriZRYU
Because this 4 element yagi has a gain of 13.15, if fed 4 watts from a CB, the estimate radiated power would be about 81 watts. If fed a SSB signal that is 12 watts, then the ERP is 149 watts. As it is a horizontally polarized, and a directional antenna, it would be very hard to DF, or be intercepted.