Month: January 2026

Going Off Grid In The Tropics – Part 2, by Conan Stevens

(Continued from Part 1.  This concludes the article.) To give a vivid image of what it is still like here, the next smaller village over where my girl grew up still has a single electrical wire held up by bamboo poles with a 3W LED bulb dangling off every 100m (330 ft) or so for street lights, and house wiring running off that same single wire. But the sand roads were concreted over a few years ago, so there is improvement happening. As you can imagine in the tropics solar power works great, in dry season we have full batteries …


Editors’ Prepping Progress

To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make both long-term and short-term plans. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities and planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, ranch improvements, bug-out bag fine-tuning, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year.  We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in your e-mailed letters. We post many of those — or excerpts thereof — in the Odds …


The Editors’ Quote Of The Day:

“These are the words of the covenant, which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb. And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land; The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles: Yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to …


Preparedness Notes for Friday — January 23, 2026

On January 23, 1643 the New Model Army led by Thomas Fairfax attacked the royalist garrison and captured Leeds for the Parliamentarians in the English Civil War. — January 23, 1812: A magnitude 7.8 earthquake shook New Madrid, Missouri. — Today is a the birthday of Larry Dean Olsen. (January 23, 1939 — December 26, 2018.)  He was born in Wendell, Idaho, on January 23, 1939, to parents Dean and Lola Olsen and he grew up in Jerome, Idaho. Larry was widely recognized as the father of modern primitive survival education. He was the author of the international bestseller “Outdoor …


Going Off Grid In The Tropics – Part 1, by Conan Stevens

Have you ever thought about going off-grid in the tropics?  No? Well, me neither, yet that’s where I find myself. First up, though I have had food stores and access to water as a habit for over a decade I have only been living (mostly) off-grid for a year. So I’m not very experienced and still learning the ropes. But I thought my experiences here might be a curiosity and possibly be interesting reading for others. I originally moved to Thailand to work in the action film industry, 21 years ago.  Since then I saw that the country started modernising, …


Economics & Investing Media of the Week

In Economics & Investing Media of the Week we feature photos, charts, graphs, maps, video links, and news items of interest to preppers. The thumbnail below is click-expandable. Economics & Investing Links of Interest As reported by the leftist Washington Post: How tech billionaires spurred an exodus from California. Spot silver broke out again to $94.77 per Troy ounce on Monday morning. By Tuesday afternoon, it was at $95.57. And just after Thursday’s Comex market close, it touched $99.64. This morning, it was $100.41, in Asian trading. That was another all-time high. Gold was at $4,968.70. (Another all-time high.) A …



Preparedness Notes for Thursday — January 22, 2026

On January 22, 1506, the first contingent of 150 Swiss Guards arrived at the Vatican. — January 22, 1840: New Zealand Company settlers arrived aboard the Aurora at Te Whanganui a Tara, which became Port Nicholson, Wellington. — And on January 22, 1990, Robert Tappan Morris was convicted of releasing the 1988 Internet worm, or Morris worm, one of the oldest computer worms distributed via the Internet. — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 122 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include: First Prize: A Gunsite Academy Three-Day Course Certificate. This …


Thoughts on the Morality of Lethal Self-Defense, by Mr. Wobbet

Introduction The recent shooting death of Renee Good has resulted in a lot of discussion about whether or not the shooting was justified. Those discussions are important to our society and are illuminating when everyone engages with respect for each other. I project that most regular readers of this blog will land on the side of “legally justified self-defense”. But whether or not it is legally justified is not what I want to address in this missive. I think, especially if my projection of my audience is accurate, that what I want to address is even more important. What is …


The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods. This column is a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from JWR. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats, and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. In today’s column, growing feral pig populations. Feral Pig Crop Damage: $1.6 Billion MarketIntel reports: Feral Hogs vs. Farmers: The Damage Price Tag. Here is an excerpt: “Feral hogs are a …


The Editors’ Quote Of The Day:

“They have plundered the world, stripping naked the land in their hunger . . . they are driven by greed, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor.  …They ravage, they slaughter, they seize by false pretenses, and all of this they hail as the construction of empire. And when in their wake nothing remains but a desert, they call that peace.” – Tacitus, Roman senator and historian


Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — January 21, 2026

On January 21, 1789, the first American novel, “The Power of Sympathy” by William Hill Brown was published by Isaiah Thomas. — January 21, 1974: The price of gold hit a record $161.31, and silver hit $3.97 per Troy ounce, in London. — A USB Archive Stick Update: At last count, we had just 62 of the standard waterproof 2005-2025 SurvivalBlog archive USB sticks still available to order. And all of the sticks in the limited edition keepsake tins sold out in the first two weeks of January. The mailings of both types should begin on Friday. They will be mailed …


The Elenco AM/FM-108CK Radio Kit – Part 2, by Mike in Alaska

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) C45 INSTALLED UNDER PCB (LEFT) IC1 SOCKET PINS IDENTIFIED (RIGHT) There will be many other such steps in this process, so I’m now going to fast forward to pages 9 through 14 after completing all the installation of parts in those pages and report on the tests that are part of the process up to that point. (NOTE: the top of page 12 indicates that if you don’t have the audio generator and the oscilloscope to skip to part 1B) I chose to do the tests and report my findings for the …


SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

Our weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters. — At Instructables: A Simple Trash Can Faraday Cage. o  o  o A useful article that was originally posted in 2016 and updated in 2024: Proper underground propane tank installation. o  o  o Why Does So Much of America Look the Same Now? (A hat tip to D.S.V. for the link.) o  o  …