Category: Home Power

Electric Golf Carts as a Retreat ATV Option

Jim, A good friend put a lift kit on an electric golf cart. It will go anywhere a 4-wheeler [all terrain vehicle (ATV)] will go; it is drop dead silent; and will go about 24 mph without alterations. I got to thinking: Why not retrofit a PV charging cell on the golf cart’s roof to trickle charge the batteries. An engineer buddy told me that it was very feasible to accomplish this with the additional thought that a redundant solar charger at ‘base’ would increase the time needed to maintain a full charge. I believe that such a unit would …


The Next Pandemic: Starvation in a Land of Plenty

At the dawn of the 21st century, we are living in an amazing time of prosperity. Our health care is excellent, our grocery store shelves burgeon with a huge assortment of fresh foods, and our telecommunications systems are lightning fast. We have relatively cheap transportation, and our cities are linked by an elaborate and fairly well-maintained system of roads, rails, canals, seaports, and airports. For the first time in human history, the majority of the world’s population will soon live in cities rather than in the countryside. But the downside to all this abundance is over-complexity, over-specialization, and lengthy supply …


Letter Re: Observations on the Recent Oklahoma Ice Storm

Jim: Well, I just got back online. I had to go up to the roof and thaw the wireless [Internet] antenna with a heat gun. It seems the ice grounds out the antenna. It was an easy fix with my heat gun for heat shrink tubing. More precipitation is on the way but colder. It will probably just be snow. We never lost power but were ready anyway. I have friends with no power and they have been without power for days and no idea when it will be back on. The further out you live, the less chance of …


Letter Re: Alternatives for Water Pumping, Sans Grid Power

JWR: T his is the first time that I have put forth any input to your blog. I love the site, and it’s a daily read! I heard on the radio news that the cattle ranchers in Colorado and Kansas are panicking because they have no power, and thus they cannot pump water to water their cattle. I had just finished reading this article, when I heard that on the radio. I think the cattle ranchers would have been very happy to have this information as would any of the survival-minded among us that may have to pump water for …


Letter Re: Advice on Small-Scale Grain Growing, Harvesting, and Processing

Hi, I love your survival site. I was wondering about finding low cost or fairly low cost equipment to harvest, thresh, winnow and hull grains such as wheat, barley, millet, oats, etc. Also low cost equipment to extract oil from seeds such as sunflower seeds. I’ve done an extensive search on the Internet and can find very little that is meant for a family or small group of people. Manual (hand power) or electric/gas/diesel are all of interest. Being able to process and use grains is extremely important but I don’t know of any sites that sell survival equipment that …


Letter Re: Is Radio Direction Finding a Potential Threat for Survivalists?

Mr. Rawles: Hey, I was just wondering what everyone with radios is planning in order to conceal the location of their transmissions from people who could potentially use the signal as a beacon to guide them right to your antenna. It might be fairly difficult to build a tracker, but I suspect there are pre-made devices to direction-find a fairly strong signal (e.g. ham radio). Thanks, – James D. JWR Replies: The only people that have effective radio direction finding (“DF“) equipment and the requisite expertise to operate it are A.) The NSA and a few other government agencies such …


Letter Re: First Hand Observations on the Recent Pacific Northwest Wind Storm

Background: I am an 11 year veteran peace officer and survivalist, or in more politically correct terminology, a POP – Preparedness Oriented Person. I work in a moderate sized city in the Seattle area. On 14-15 December, the Tacoma-Seattle-Everett metropolitan area suffered one of the most deadly and damaging windstorms in recorded history. The storm easily eclipsed the last major deadly blow on Inaugural Day, 1993. That storm had been identified as a “once in a century” type storm. At the peak, over 1 million people did not have power. This storm was modeled and forecasted with accuracy five days …


Letter Re Maglite Flashlight LED Conversions

I just purchased a Maglite Brand LED conversion for a two D-cell Maglite.[These replace the original filament light bulb holding “head” of the flashlight.] It was $20 at a Lowe’s [hardware store] in Oregon, with no sales tax. These take only three minutes to install. The focus feature still works great, but the best feature is that it is very bright, almost blue/white. Much better battery life and outstanding bulb life, not affected by dropping. All in all, a very good conversion for one of the best lights made. They also have them for 3 D-cell , and 4 D-cell …


Letter Re: Some Good Things Prompted By SurvivalBlog

Jim, The following are some things SurvivalBlog.com has prompted me to do since I began reading it: I’ve had no debt for 20 years, but my meager holdings are now about 1/3 precious metals. Is lead considered a precious metal? 🙂 My freezer is full of elk, whitetail deer, and caribou. I added to my long-term foods during your Safecastle special, but I’m now reviewing the viability of my existing stocks. Like the realtor’s mantra of “location, location, location”, a survivalist’s creed should be “Rotate, rotate, rotate. “ A 10 KW Generac generator is ready to be wired to my …


Letter Re: Mobile Solar Power Systems

JWR, Here’s an item some of your readers may be interested in, Mobile Solar Power, it’s a mobile solar power setup and looks like it would fit in with a number of different scenarios. I spoke with the owner a few days ago and he said he will size the equipment to fit your needs/specifications. It appears to be made with high quality equipment and the owner said the batteries have a 10 year warranty, but with care, may last up to 15 years, otherwise the remainder of the equipment should have a life much longer than that. This solar …


Letter Re: Communications for Disasters–Are Scanners Useful?

Jim, A very good shortwave portable is the Sony ICF-2010. It is an older portable from the 1980s but is a very strong performer with its synchronous detector. It is often found on the used market and eBay. One fact that many sellers don’t know is that you need to have fresh AA batteries in them for memory retention or the unit will not even function. Many sellers believe that their radios are broken when in fact only need fresh batteries. The unit can be run of D cell batteries or via an AC adapter. Another thing that “goes wrong” …


Letter Re: Communications for Disasters–Are Scanners Useful?

Hi Jim. I concur with your answer to the post regarding communications and scanner monitoring for disasters. I chose to and recommend implementing both multi-mode and redundant communications. Being that it may be virtually impossible to replace never mind repair most receivers and transceivers it is imperative to have at least two multi-band radios. Some good general coverage models that are still available are the venerable Radio Shack DX 300, DX 302 the DX 400 and the DX 440. The DX 400 and DX 440 are Sangean-made [chassis] in Radio Shack cases. All three radios are quite sensitive, wide band …


Letter Re: Communications for Disasters–Are Scanners Useful?

James: The hot thing in scanners right now is digital trunking. Most public-safety services use this approach, without scrambling or encryption. Analog scanners are useless, but the new generation of scanners include direct support for digital trunking. I recently bought a Uniden/Bearcat BCD 396T, which totally restored my ability to listen to common public-safety traffic where I live. Some more sensitive government agencies use encryption on top of digital trunking, but there’s no strong survival-oriented motivation to listen to their transmissions. Unless you’re trying to survive an FBI manhunt, I suppose. In an emergency, being able to monitor fire and …


Letter Re: Solar Charged Walkway Lights –An Option for Battery Charging

Jim: The discussion about cannibalizing tiny solar walkway lights prompted me to once again remind everyone about one of my favorite tools. Northern Tool & Equipment sells a 5-watt folding solar panel that folds down to the size of a paperback book for only $35. They come with a nice wiring kit that also allows multiple panels to be piggybacked for more power. They’re tough and well-made, with the small panels fit into a ballistic nylon type of carrier to make it fold. One of these lives in each of our Bug Out Bags (BOBs), along with a small battery …


Three Letters Re: Build Your Fallout Shelter From Barter Goods, by Mr. Yankee

Hi Jim. Just felt the need to re-emphasize the point you made with regard to Mr. Yankee’s ideas about an improvised fallout shelter. First, I applaud his view that one should not count on being able to pull together an adequate expedient shelter when the need arises. As simple in theory as it seems, in practice, few would end up with a shelter they would want to rely on to save the lives of their loved ones. Second, as far as the point you made, Jim, it is indeed very important to over-engineer any sort of structure that will be …