Category: Contest

Identify And Secure Your Retreat Like An Engineer, by JAD

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Area assessment and planning is a key component of determining where to establish your secured retreat location. Establishing a retreat is not enough; you need to have clear objectives for what that area will accomplish for you or for those in your network. In order to establish your secured area and to determine the objectives necessary to allow it to function, you must assess and plan. Your planning must consider varying threats, uncertainty in threat duration, and likely enemy strength. Effective planning requires beginning at a macro level and reducing the scope until all details are captured. The work in …


Hidden Storage For Strategic Tools and Security Items- Part 2, by Old Bobbert

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Today, we are continuing with instructions for making a hidden storage area in your bedroom closet. Temporary Wood Screw Handles Again, the two long wood screws, which are protruding about 1-1/2 to 2 inches, will be your only handling devices. Go easy with them. They both recently finished a remedial bite-back class for wood screws lost in the big city. Free the Piece of Drywall Hold one of the two wood screws continually, while you finish the cutting and finally free the piece of drywall. Gently re-position the cut-out piece of drywall out of the way and on the closet …


Hidden Storage For Strategic Tools and Security Items- Part 1, by Old Bobbert

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The following are some hints and instructions on making a storage space for locating your backup strategic tools and varied security items within your home. This space also makes them nearly impossible to find and confiscate. While reading, please note that my strong belief that we are usually far too serious about most everything even remotely classed as preparedness activity has strongly influenced how this article has been worded. Every word has been considered both for humor potential (very subtle and low key) and for serious value. This article, as titled above, will be presented to the readers with as …


Tires As Part Of Basic Vehicle Preparations, by D.K.

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It’s easy to overlook an important item, such as tires, for those planning different bugout scenarios, getting home after an event, or just driving home from work. I was reminded of this during a recent trip moving my daughter to California. We rented a 5’ X 8’ U-Haul trailer, hooked it up to my Chevy Avalanche, drove it to her apartment, and loaded it for the move the next day. She had bagged up trash, and as I was taking it out I noticed some 8” zip ties. I pulled them out of the trash and threw them in the …


A Proposal for a Better System for Sleeping in the Wilderness, by ACC

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In my youth, I was a pretty avid camper and hiker. I spent many a night in a sleeping bag with a pad of some type underneath. Some of the pads were foam, others were inflatable. Probably the best over the years was the Thermarest brand, which is a self-inflating type. However, they were only an inch or so thick, and the ground was always hard. I learned that comfort was relative. If you hike ten miles with a 30-pound pack beforehand, you can sleep in pretty austere conditions. Looking For A Better Sleep System However, now that I’m in …


The Couch Prepper, by J.S.

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There are many types of preppers, including the couch prepper. How many of us “preppers” have sat behind a computer screen and researched the newest and greatest AR-15 accessory that will ensure our survival for the coming “collapse”? I’m sure most faithful readers of this site have put into practice some form of prepping. Maybe that means you have bought a few extra cans of food or purchased that first firearm and some ammo to go along with it. Or maybe you fall in to the camp of focusing on a certain aspect of prepping (i.e. that amazing gun collection …


What We See And Believe Is Not Always Reality, by Old Bobbert

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Let’s talk about reality and what we see and believe, but just for a moment imagine this scenario. Visualize the following presumably safe evening event at your home one day soon. A Grateful Situation…Somewhere You are reflecting on the terrible situation in (name any major city, state, or area) and you are very grateful that your home area is not severely affected by that power grid outage somewhere else in the country, specifically about 1,000 miles away from your home. Your area power system is functioning just fine. You’re feeling really bad for that area as you watch the video …


Preventing Failure to Communicate- Part 5, by JMD

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We’re continuing to evaluate how to prevent a failure to communicate when we do not have wireless electronic communications available to us. We’ve been exploring our options. Yesterday, I wrote about the different types of communications and types of interference to communication. I wrapped up yesterday’s part of the article by introducing what you should do to prepare. The first part, of course, was plan. Let’s take a look at the second part and conclude the article with the subsequent steps to prepare. Document Once you’ve got a good handle on your requirements and solutions, you should create a couple …


Preventing Failure to Communicate- Part 4, by JMD

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We’re continuing to evaluate how to prevent a failure to communicate when we do not have wireless electronic communications available to us. We’ve been exploring our options. Yesterday, I wrote about various channels of communications. Today, we’ll move into various forms of communications to consider. Electronic In the beginning of this article, I mentioned that it was about alternatives to wireless electronic communications. However, that doesn’t rule out wired forms of electronic communication. Wired communications tend to be point-to-point, are very hard for anyone to intercept, and can send large amounts of information. The biggest disadvantages are that they require …


Preventing Failure to Communicate- Part 3, by JMD

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We’re continuing to evaluate how to prevent a failure to communicate in the event that our normal, electronic communications equipment are not available to us. We are exploring our options. Yesterday, I wrote about common content items and encoding. Let’s continue. Medium The medium defines what carries the communication through the channel. For written communication, the medium will usually be paper. For most signal-based communications, the medium will be inseparable from the channel. In the case where communications is sent by a flashing light, light is the medium. Channel The channel is critical to all communications. It determines how the …


Preventing Failure to Communicate- Part 2, by JMD

We’re continuing to evaluate how to prevent a failure to communicate in the event that our normal, electronic communications equipment are not available to us. Yesterday, we looked as some definitions and began defining our own communications requirements. With that in mind, let’s move forward. Options Now that you’ve (hopefully) thought a little bit about what your communications requirements might be, let’s take a look at some possible options for the various elements. Sender/Recipient As I mentioned earlier, the best starting point for figuring out a communications strategy is by making a list of everyone it will need to support. …


Preventing Failure to Communicate- Part 1, by JMD

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Communications failure can be prevented, though it may not be in the form we’re expecting. Ever since the earliest cavemen grunted at each other and painted pictures on their cave walls, humans have been communicating in one form or another. Communications are critical to any multi-person activity. Many people consider having radios and other electronic communications devices a core part of living a prepared lifestyle. Virtually every survival- and preparedness-related forum or blog has one or more sections dedicated to this. Things like shortwave radio communications, protecting your radios from EMP, powering your radios in a grid-down scenario, et cetera. …


Earthquake and Power Out Experience in the Philippines- Part 2, by S.B.

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A Good Neighbor We charged the neighbor’s cell phones. So at that point, they let us run the generator all night! The generator ran from 6pm to 6am and then ran out of gas. It used 25 liters of gasoline. So here that equates to about $20 a day for gas. If it runs for a month, it will be expensive; $20 times 30 equals $600 per month. Ouch! At this point I tried to shut generator off before it ran out of gas. I was afraid the voltage will vary a lot when it does last couple revolutions before …


Earthquake and Power Out Experience in the Philippines- Part 1, by S.B.

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This was my experience with a mild earthquake and a power outage in the Philippines. Amazingly nothing was damaged by the quake. I expected some things to tip over. Latest reports say it was a 6.5 quake. The epicenter was about 15 miles away. It was stronger than other quakes I have experienced here in the past eight years. Also, immediately after the main quake, there was a long slow side to side rocking motion for several seconds. I never felt that before. We also had 10 or more aftershocks. A local man who is about 50 said it was …


A Response to Going Analog, by M.G.

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Selectric Typewriter Security Issues Back in the 1970s IBM was required by at least one of its customers to make some options available for Selectric typewriters because they discovered the Selectric design was susceptible to electronic eavesdropping that could determine what the typewriter was printing. As it turns out, mid-’70s electronics were capable of detecting not only the unique electronic signature of individual typewriter motors but also measuring the load incurred by that motor during character selection from the main power feed outside the building. So, it’s possible that even using a mechanical electric typewriter for written communications may not …