Category: Communications & Receivers

My Solar-Powered Ham Shack Setup, by BMB

There are many things we need to prepare for before the ball drops, (SHTF, TEOTWAWKI, or whatever term you want to use) like water, food, shelter, bullets, medical supplies, aetc. But another item I feel is very important is communication with my family group. This article is about how I got into amateur radio, how I setup my basic solar-powered ham radio shack, and how I stay in practice with my equipment in my shack. I had been interested in Amateur Radio (a.k.a. “ham” radio) since I was a little boy, more than 50 years ago. I will soon be …


Storing Valuable “How to” Digital Data, by Slate Creek

I am constantly collecting data from the web and I save it to several USB memory sticks that I carry with me daily. If I’m in the office and happen to run across something of value I often pull the USB stick out of my pocket and save a copy. I have sub-directories organized on my stick such as “Food Storage”, “Water Supply”, “Topo Maps” or “Ham radio related” and then sub-category that into say “Antenna Builds”, “Local Repeaters” or “Radio Manuals”. I’m not advocating saving everything on a USB stick because nothing beats having the piece of paper in …


Our Practical Uses of Amateur Radio – Part 2, by Mr. & Mrs. Alaska

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) For my husband’s volunteer work with Civil Air Patrol, joint service MARS (military association radio system) and SHARES (a program of homeland security), we have quite a bit of copper wiring strung high in the birch and spruce trees of our property, as well as a large log periodic antenna attached about 70 feet up the metal power tower he built at the highest part of our land to hold the wind turbine, solar panels, and satellite dish. Our location has several advantages for HF radio use.  Obviously, we have no HOA …


Our Practical Uses of Amateur Radio – Part 1, by Mr. & Mrs. Alaska

For nearly two decades, SurvivalBlog has featured many excellent articles about ham radio, written by authors who were very knowledgeable about the engineering of radio communication. The following article is far less technical. The intended audience is people who have not explored the value of radio communications because they are not sure why or how they should.  Maybe some old amateur radio equipment languishes, dusty and ignored, in a corner of the attic. My husband and I utilize walkie-talkies as well as local, regional, and national radio communications every week at our remote home in Alaska.  We have gained friends, …


Transformative Tech: The AR, The Glock, and The Smartphone

In this brief essay, I’ll be discussing three relatively new technologies that have been nearly as transformative to modern society as Gutenberg’s 1448 invention of the movable type printing press. The AR The Armalite Rifle (AR) family of selective fire and semi-auto rifles, pistols, and shotguns have become ubiquitous in the early 21st Century. They have been produced for the U.S. civilian market since 1959. There are an estimated two million new ARs produced each year for private use by American families. There are now roughly 20 million in residential closets and gun safes. Many of those ARs have changed …


A Nuclear Attack Quick Actions Checklist – Part 2, by Anon-6

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) – To filter air: Need to get fresh air into the shelter without pulling in fallout particles In rack 1 is everything you need to set up an air filter system that pulls in filtered air Checklist with step-by-step pictures is on the clipboard Instructions are also written on the plywood board that will go in the opened movie room window slot (board already has 12” holes in it for the small yellow industrial fan to pull air into the movie room through one of the furnace filters) [Rack 1 contains a …


A Nuclear Attack Quick Actions Checklist – Part 1, by Anon-6

I’ve been a prepper since 2012 and was born in the early 60s. I started prepping when Obama was reelected and realized we’re on our own to protect our families from the hazards of a dangerous world. One of my first purchases was a 1-ounce silver Eagle that stays in my pocket to this day as part of my EDC kit – a small metal cigar case that works nicely (maybe a future article on that). From there, research and then purchasing food, water storage, comms, medical supplies, guns, and getting trained. Fast forward to late 2022 and early 2023. …


One Way to Get Started in Ham Radio, by Reltney McFee

Simply in case anyone was wondering, this is by no means “the” way to begin. Rather, this is a sort of discussion of how I got into Amateur (“Ham”) radio. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, I was attracted to CB radio, although, being a teen, my budget to act on that attraction was, well, scant. I had a CB walkie-talkie, and would chat with a friend similarly equipped, a couple of blocks away from me. Once I moved out of my parents’ home, I started working, for Da City’s EMS, and from time to time would note that …


A Local Disaster Network – Part 5, by J.M.

(Continued from Part 4. This concludes the article.) Cloud Dancing Next, we’ll set up the Nextcloud application. Assuming your laptop and Raspberry Pi are still connected to your GL.iNet router and it has Internet access, open up a web browser on your laptop and enter the following address: ‘http://nextcloud.local’ – depending on your operating system and browser you may get a warning that says the connection isn’t private – just click to proceed anyway (or click on ‘Advanced’ and then ‘Proceed’). The first screen that will pop up is the following:           You’ll notice that there …


A Local Disaster Network – Part 4, by J.M.

(Continued from Part 3.) Cloud Server Next, we’re going to set up the operating system and Nextcloud cloud application that runs on the Raspberry Pi server. You’ll need to download two or three pieces of software to accomplish this – a utility for loading the Raspberry Pi’s operating system image onto the microSD card, the actual Raspberry Pi operating system/application image file, and a tool for uncompressing the compressed operating system/application image file after downloading it (if you don’t already have something like WinZip or 7-Zip installed). For the Pi’s operating system/application we’re going to use an image called NextCloudPi …



A Local Disaster Network – Part 2, by J.M.

(Continued from Part 1.) There are two additional items required to run a Raspberry Pi – a microSD card for storage and a power supply. I’ve set up, configured and run dozens of Raspberry Pis since they came out in 2012, and 90% of all of the problems I’ve ever encountered with them are the result of either a bad microSD card or inadequate power supply, so you don’t want to cheap out on either. For the microSD card I strongly recommend using a SanDisk MAX ENDURANCE model of at least 64GB, but bigger is always better, so get a …


A Local Disaster Network – Part 1, by J.M.

There have been a number of articles on SurvivalBlog on the use of mobile devices like cell phones and tablets in survival/disaster scenarios (including one I wrote – ‘Tactical Technology for TEOTWAWKI’ parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). In that article, I briefly introduced the idea of setting up and using a home server/network infrastructure for a disaster scenario, which can provide you with a lot of options for planning, organizing, coordinating, sharing, and communicating information among your team, family, group, or community. In this article, I’ll discuss one possible approach for configuring such an infrastructure for disaster situations. …


Long Term Storage of Household Batteries, by OhioGalt

Several years ago, I began purchasing Lithium Batteries in AA and AAA sizes for long-term storage in case of some event where batteries were not readily available. I was also using them in several trail cams around the property because they would last roughly 10-to-12 months before replacement. I recently went to buy another couple of 48-packs and found the price had significantly increased. The cellular cameras I use offer a rechargeable lithium pack and comparing to lithium AA I found I could pay for the rechargeable pack in less then two sets of AA lithium batteries. Unfortunately, you cannot …


A Low Power Communications Station in a Bucket – Part 5, by Tunnel Rabbit

(Continued from Part 4. This concludes the article.) RTL-SDR and SIGINT The photo at left shows a 2.GHz panel Yagi (a directional antenna) that was installed on a field expedient 30-foot wooden pole that is stabilized with guy wires. It is for use with a RTL-SDR dongle and a laptop to detect the signals controllng the movement of line of sight (LOS) drones that would emanate from the direction of the most likely avenue of approach. Its range of detection would be greatest when placed above the top of trees. In the world of radio, ‘Height is might’.) The link …