Category: Communications & Receivers

Letter Re: Phone Line Power for Emergencies

Mr. Rawles, I found this web page interesting: Free Hidden Electricity. Essentially this site has provided some basic information on how to tap the small amount of electricity available in our land lines to use for charging batteries or powering a lamp should the power go out (and not the phones) in a small emergency scenario. Within the discussions that follow the post are some legal and contractual concerns and a link to a retail lamp product you can currently purchase for this application. – Tanker JWR Replies: There are some ethical issues raised by this Instructable video, since telephone …


Two Letters Re: Betavoltaic Batteries

Jim, Here is an article describing the challenges associated with betavoltaic batteries. The recent buzz over the 30 year battery, while intriguing, is overly optimistic. As stated in the article I linked to, betavoltaics currently have low efficiency, require heavy shielding, and the energy absorption media tends to degrade due to the high energy bombardment. I think it would be great if they could overcome these issues, but it looks like it may be 30 years before we see anything like a 30 year battery. – Mark D. in Utah Mr Rawles, Firstly I would like to say that after …


Letter Re: Digitized Data for Your Bug-Out Bag

Jim, First, thank you for the work you have done. Your blog site will surely save many lives. Also, thank you for your books. I’ve just started on “Patriots” and am thoroughly enjoying it. I’m very new to ‘long-term’ survival and much of the political and economic machinations that are going on that potentially may lead to SHTF. Living in hurricane country (Florida) I’ve always been better prepared than the average family and I’ve maintained my preps year round due to fears of terrorist attacks and bird flu pandemics. However, I’m completely shocked, horrified actually, about what I’ve learned over …


Two Letters Re: Lantern Battery Disassembly

Jim: On Saturday 22 September 2007, you posted a web link from T.A. in Indiana for a video on how to take apart a lantern battery and get 32 AA batteries out of it. I tried that with a heavy duty Ray-O-Vac and it had four cells approximately the diameter of C cell batteries but longer. Before people stock up on 6-volt lantern batteries thinking they will break down for AA batteries, they need to disassemble the brand they intend to buy to see how it is put together. The battery in the video appeared to be a bargain brand …


Two Letters Re: New Scanner Technology — An Emerging Threat to COMSEC

James: Regarding the “signal stalker” technology: This type of thing has been available for years in the form of frequency counters. Perhaps the best known in the ham/scanner community is the Opto Electronics Scout series. These units let you scan for radio transmissions and will store the last detected frequencies in memory for later recall. This is a handy feature if you are visiting a race track, for instance and want to find out the frequencies in use while you tour the pit area. They also sell a cable that will interface to various scanners, allowing you to immediately tune …


Letter Re: New Scanner Technology — An Emerging Threat to Retreat COMSEC

Jim: I was not aware of this until last weekend. I visited a friend of mine who lives up in the hills. I brought with me a [older] handheld 2 Meter radio that I got for free when I bought a Kenwood 50 watt [2 Meter Band] mobile radio. Anyway, this handehld has crystals in it. It works excellent and can be used ether simplex or to bring up major repeaters. I did not know that or what frequencies it had. Now for the story. My friend showed me a new type of handheld scanner from Radio Shack. It has …


Letter Re: Hawaii-Specific Disaster Preparations

Jim, Greetings from another SurvivalBlog newbie. I discovered your site back in the spring of this year and all I could say then was “Wow! I think I’ve found a home!” I’ve been lurking here ever since. I’d been wandering in the wilderness of flame-filled newsgroups and not-quite-filling-enough survival/self-reliance publications since the days of “Survival Tomorrow”, nearly thirty years ago. Back then, I mostly spent time just collecting information on various survival topics while making only small, half-hearted preparations. At last, here is a site that has revived my slumbering interest in the disaster preparedness movement and inspired my wife …


Letter Re: Counting the Potential EMP Attack Casualties

Jim, I don’t understand why the discussion on your blog regarding EMP assumes only ground based and aircraft altitude detonations. It seems to me an equally likely attempt will be a ballistic missile detonation at maximum altitude, such as with a Scud or Chinese one, launched from a freighter off the east or west coast of the US. Al Qaeda is known to own a fleet of freighters which are not well tracked (stolen in hijacks or even purchased outright). Iran, North Korea, Syria, and [Dr. A.Q.] Khan’s rogue network are all working hard to develop a nuclear capability and …


Letter Re: Counting the Potential EMP Attack Casualties

Dear Jim: Your site is excellent. It is on my list of daily reading. Your book is also excellent. I’ve also taken the 10 Cent Challenge. Under scenarios you mention minimal deaths in an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack. You posit the EMP would disable flight controls. Published information indicates that 3,624 domestic commercial flights were airborne during the attacks on 9/11/01. If that number is relatively accurate and it is multiplied by 267 (average) passengers per plane (not including flight crews) you get 967,608. If a number of these aircraft are in/near terminal control areas (cities), wouldn’t their ensuing impacts …


Letter Re: The Importance of Stocking Up on Batteries

James: I have been corresponding with an infantry soldier (E-6 [pay grade]) in Iraq named Ray that I met through AnySoldier.com. BTW, thanks for running that free ad for them on SurvivalBlog. All those “forgotten” soldiers need our real support–not just a “Support Our Troops” yellow ribbon magnet on the backs of our cars. In the last 8 or 9 months I have sent more than 30 “care packages” in [Priority Mail] Flat Rate boxes to [AnySoldier.com addressees in] Iraq and Afghanistan. In our e-mails, one of the things that Ray mentioned a couple of times really impressed me: It …


Letter from David in Israel Re: QRP Radio Kits

James While the tuna tin theme is cute, for the price there are much better QRP rigs out on the market than I see at the QRPme.com web site. (Theirs are about the worst). The kits they shown here all look like they have the smallest transistors possible and are only able to make miracle DX on very special occasions as I suspect they would be hard pressed to kick out a whole watt. The other downside is that they are not transceivers just transmitters. I still think the best deal for the money is from Small Wonders. There is …


Letter Re: GMRS Versus 2 Meter FM Transceivers–a Field Test

Jim: I recently went for a drive with both my Uniden GMR 1058 handheld radio (GMRS/FRS [band, and according the manufacturer’s literature] boasting a 10 mile range) and my newly-acquired ICOM IC-V85 FM [2 Meter band] Transceiver. I had my wife (with one of each as well) on our porch and here are my results. As I drove though the hilly and wooded terrain, immediately the GMR radio was picking up other kids and families and taxi drivers also talking. At 1/4 a mile the sound quality became unintelligible and communication was impossible. If no one else was on the …


Letter Re: Computers – A Cache of Spare Parts For Your Guns

Greetings, As the British would say, it was one of those rare moments of ‘serendipity,’ but I was watching “The Postman” the other night on cable [television], and decided to field strip and clean a couple of rifles while doing so. As I was reassembling my CAR-15 in particular, I told my wife, as I charged the bolt – and felt everything moving as it should in a rightly reassembled firearm – that, “guns are a lot like computers these days – either you put them (back) together the right way, or they simply won’t work at all.” The very …


Low Power Amateur Radio Transmitters and Transceivers, by David in Israel

I have been playing with my ham radio stuff for years but I wish I had started out in high-school with a high frequency (HF) low power (QRP) radio kit instead of playing with 2 meter handhelds and repeaters. I would have had a better grasp on circuit and antenna design and gotten into Morse code more quickly. For about $15 or less a transmitter kit around the size of a silver dollar can be made that can be picked up by a larger station sometimes hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Moving up form there are transceivers which …


Four Letters Re: EMP Preparedness and Countermeasures

Dear Mr Rawles: I have been enjoying your SurvivalBlog very much. I am new to these kind of web sites but have been of a preparedness/survivalist mindset all my life. I served in the US Navy for seven years as an Avionics Technician on both fixed wing (FA-18 Hornets) and rotor wing aircraft. Part of my training encompassed electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and its effects on aircraft and how to properly maintain and repair them so as to not compromise their ability to withstand EMP should it occur. Now that I have been out of the military for some time I …