Two Letters Re: A Dedicated SurvivalBlog Amateur Radio Net?

Jim: A good frequency for two-way radio communications is the little-used [amateur] FM radio band on 220 MHz. (See: http://wireless.fcc.gov/220MHz/)  Very few scanners cover it–only the most expensive scanners do which most people won’t buy. The reason scanners don’t cover 200 – 300 MHz is because its [mainly] used by the military. For example, the control tower at Moffett Field Naval Air Station is on 301.something MHz. In my research, I noticed that there are only two repeaters in Idaho that are on 220 and they are both in Boise. Outside of the big cities 220 is hardly used.  One …




From David In Israel: A Dedicated SurvivalBlog Amateur Radio Net?

James: It might be worthwhile to have a dedicated SurvivalBlog radio network. We could set up something on several HF bands. I am thinking it would be nice to have a way for SurvivalBlog readers to contact one another, even if and when the Internet and/or the phone system goes down. I think that there may be some interesting news will be coming from here [in Israel].  OBTW, the new year is 5766 from the creation of the world, the world is being closely judged for the next few days as Hashem re-coronates himself as the true King over kings. …




Letter from Mrs. Victor Re: Initial Results of the Ten Cent Challenge

>RE: Note from JWR: Many thanks for your support Thusfar, we’ve had seven responses >to the SurvivalBlog Ten Cent Challenge. Special thanks to David M., who pledged $100. Come on people!!! Pony up for a valuable resource like this! Seven people? On a site with over three million hits? I’ve been a lifelong survival/self-sufficiency buff, thanks to my upbringing. I felt that I was totally s**t-together and was operating in a fairly low level maintenance mode with my preparedness supplies. Since finding survivalblog.com I have: 1. Heard about, found and ordered Jim’s book Patriots. 2. Heard about, found and obtained …




Ten Cent Challenge

Today, I’m starting the SurvivalBlog “Ten Cent Challenge.”  If you value what you read on SurvivalBlog, then please help support our efforts, and help pay for our ever-growing bandwidth costs. (We recently had to upgrade our ISP account again, this time from a “Gold” to a Platinum” bandwidth plan.)  I challenge every regular reader to donate just 10 cents per day to support the blog. ($36.50 per year.)  If you don’t feel that you don’t get 10 cents worth of  information and entertainment out of the blog each day, then you can pass and forget that we ever asked–donations are …




Notice–Post Removed: From Fernando in Argentina–On Surviving Argentina’s Slow Slide Collapse

A lengthy letter from Fernando in Buenos Aires was originally posted on SurvivalBlog back on November 8th, but I just removed it.  Why?  Because Fernando just confirmed in an e-mail to me that the copyright to his article has been purchased by John, who operates Frugal Squirrel’s Forum. The letter is still available there. (See: http://www.frugalsquirrels.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=044387;p=0) OBTW, I highly recommend Frugal’s site and forums. Since I have deep respect for copyrights there are no hard feelings on my part. I trust that the folks at Frugal’s will forgive me if I in some way infringed unknowingly by posting what I was …







Archives of JWR Radio Interviews on Pandemic Preparedness Available

For two successive weekends, I was interviewed by Dr. Geri Guidetti of The Ark Institute on her shortwave/webcast radio show. The topic of both of these two hour interviews was family preparedness for a potential influenza pandemic. These interviews are available for free download from Republic Radio in a variety of audio streaming formats at: http://mp3.rbnlive.com/Geri05.html




Letter Re: A SurvivalBlog Discussion Forum?

I’m interested in discussing topics with like-minded folks. If this can’t be done, do you have any favorite forums? – C.D.R. JWR Replies: I’m sorry to report that I have neither the time nor the patience to moderate a forum. (I moderated one for Dr. Gary North back in the late 1990s, and it quickly degenerated into a “flame war”, with far more flame posts than serious posts on preparedness.) I recommend that anyone who is interested sign up at The Claire Files and start frequenting the “Gulching/Self-Sufficiency” Forum. You might start out with a thread titled: “SurvivalBlog Readers–Check In!” …




Letter From Mr. Sierra Re: My SurvivalBlog T-Shirt as a Conversation Starter

Jim, Excellent Survival Blog T-Shirt! It arrived in the mail the other day and I wore it to work and my fellow employees wanted to read the quote on the back. My boss said he always wanted to see if he could survive on a remote State of Maine island with just some parachute cord, a fish hook, a tin can, matches, fire starter and space blanket for a few days. I said why not try something a lot easier, and just shut the electricity off on some Friday night at your house, and turn it on again on Monday …




From David: SurvivalBlog’s American Expatriate Correspondent in Israel (First Article in a Series)

The first topics that come to mind are European survival and poverty, and Arab/Jewish poverty survival. We must work down to the basics of the survival pyramid and forego the night vision goggle and satellite phone fantasies until we cover our basics… …like staying fed and housed! Not so romantic, but I don’t know how to to stir fry an image converter tube. I suppose I should first enlighten you to my personal survivalist philosophy. I started out as a survivalist while living in a rural area outside Portland, Oregon in high school spending summers and weekends either working at …




A Special Request From Jim:

I’ve been amazed and gratified that this blog has already has already had 1,960+ unique blog accesses and a total of 29,395 page hits. That’s not bad for a site that is just three days old… I’m asking a favor: Please send a brief and informal announcement to all of of your family, friends, or co-workers that have an interest in preparedness, self-sufficiency or related survival issues. Let them know about survivalblog.com. Please help spread the word! Just remember, if they get motivated and squared away, they will be one less person knocking on your door in need of charity …