Extending Battery Life, by D.P.

Many preppers believe that batteries should play a prominent part in their preparations. For a variety of reasons, they are probably correct in that assumption. From what I have read on this blog they also generally believe that their batteries will reach end of life (or at least have a greatly diminished capacity) after 3-5 years. This is understandable but not necessarily correct. Since deep cycle batteries are not cheap its also an expensive assumption. This submission deals with how to extend the useful life of various types of rechargeable batteries.

There will be an emphasis on DIY [from very simple to complicated, so just pick your level …] and sustainability. I believe that there will not be a quick path out of the troubles before us. Whether society collapses overnight or in a more managed descent, historical time patterns suggest we’ll be lucky to regain today’s ‘normal’ (= go to store and just buy whatever you need) by 2020. In the meantime we may have to work with what we have on hand. So preppers should have an ‘I am in it for the long haul’ mentality. Along those lines: if I can build it, I can fix it! … and help others in my community along the way with my knowledge. Let’s use what little time we have left to prepare wisely.

First of all, creating your battery bank:

NOTE: This part only applies if you wire your batteries in parallel (i.e. create a 12V bank). If you wire them in series (24V or higher output) you can skip it. The best way to kill your batteries is wiring your bank incorrectly because the load will not be shared equally among batteries, leading to premature failure of the overstressed battery that will then start draining the good batteries in the bank. The correct way to wire a bank is easy to understand if you keep in mind that the full path current (inverter + to -) will take the route of least resistance. So we need to make sure that the wire length and number of connections are the same regardless of which battery the current goes through.

The following connection schemes (that I found on a UK web site which credited ‘smileypete’) achieve just that.
For two batteries:
1+ to 2+; 1- to 2-
Tap and charge bank through 1+ and 2- (or 1- and 2+) terminals

For three batteries:
Connect all + terminals to an external terminal with wires of equal size and length
Connect all – terminals to an external terminal with wires of equal size and length
Tap and charge bank through the external terminals

For fours batteries:
1+ to 2+; 1- to 2-; 3+ to 4+; 3- to 4- This effectively creates 2 blocks
1+ to 3+; 2- to 4- Tap and charge bank through 3+ and
2- terminals
or 1- to 3-; 2+ to 4+ Tap and charge bank through 2+ and
3- terminals

My 8 battery bank consists of 2 of these banks of 4 connected in parallel to the inverter through identical cables and I have noted no uneven discharge problems with my setup.

A word of caution:
With a bank of this size you will want to be very very careful when (dis)connecting cables, tightening nuts with metal wrenches, etc. A near zero resistance short will release far more energy than you care to deal with and can easily cause burns, fires and explosions. Also have proper fuses on all incoming and outgoing lines for the same reason.

The ‘battery life’ issue:
The problem with common battery life knowledge lies with what we are told about overcharging them. Overcharging is generally believed to bad thing … and it is … but not always … and so we need to qualify the term overcharging. Overcharging a battery with too much CURRENT (amps) is ALWAYS bad: it will shorten your battery’s lifespan, overheat the battery, boil off water, and can be dangerous if the battery or its surrounding area has venting problems. Overcharging with too much POTENTIAL (volts) is not necessarily a bad thing if the process is properly controlled. The good news is that this control is easy to implement.

About lead-acid batteries:
I am only talking about flooded cells here. Although I have read that gel and AGM types behave in the same way as flooded cells during (over)charging, I have no experience with them so I am not prepared to make generalizations at this point in time.

Maximum (dis)charge current:
People that have studied batteries more than me hold the opinion that limiting the current through a battery to its C20 rate is desirable since this will avoid overheating and does not shorten battery life expectancy in any way. This is true for both the charging and discharging process. A medium size deep-cell battery (T-1275 as example) is rated at 150 Ah. Its C20 current is therefore 150 / 20 = 7.5 Amps. Here we see an immediate problem because this means that we can safely draw only 12 * 7.5 = 90W from one battery. That’s okay for LED lighting, a 12V fan and charging cordless tools but little else. So we need to make a bank by connecting multiple batteries together. My 8 battery setup has a 720W capacity which runs my (corded) power tools without me having to worry about stressing the batteries at all. I don’t even worry if I connect a 1500W industrial vacuum cleaner or small welder to the inverter since I am still only discharging at C10 rates which won’t impact a battery too much if it happens only once in a while. It also means that I can charge the bank at 8 * 7.5 = 60 Amps without stressing the batteries in it.

On commercial charge controllers:
Let’s say you bought a 30 Amp charge controller to protect your battery and have it hooked up to a 150W solar panel and one T-1275 battery on a sunny day. The solar panel will put out about 10 Amps. This is within the 30 amp limit of the controller but above the battery’s C20 rate (7.5 Amp), so you’re happily reducing your battery’s lifespan and the money you spent on the charge controller was a total waste of resources. Why a total waste? What about stopping the charging process when the battery is full?

The important voltages for lead-acid cells are as follows:
(A 12V battery has 6 of these cells in series, so multiply the numbers by 6)
1.75V empty
2.01V 50% charge
2.06V 75% charge
2.12V-2.15V full when resting (= at least 1 hour no charge/discharge applied)
2.4V full when charging
2.6V cell balancing voltage

On charging voltages:
If you connect a solar panel directly to a battery, the battery will clamp down the voltage of the solar panel to about 13-14V(max) and absorb all the solar energy in the process. If the battery’s plates are fully charged, the additional energy will go into a process generally referred to as boiling. Is boiling a bad thing? Not necessarily and certainly not in stationary deep cycle batteries. You will need a certain amount of boiling to keep the electrolyte from settling. Your car battery doesn’t have that issue if you drive through the odd pothole or across other bumps but for stationary batteries it is a real problem.

Secondly the boiling that occurs from potential (over voltage) is different than the boiling that occurs from high current. It sounds different (small bubbles instead of big bubbles) and doesn’t boil off
the water. I am not sure what is being released but a marine battery that I bought at Wal-Mart (three years ago for stress testing) has been through many[short duration] boils and I have yet to add a drop of water to it as its cell’s water levels are still as high as when it was new.

As you can see from the table above a 12V battery is fully charged (max capacity) at 6 * 2.4 = 14.4V. But there is one entry after that for cell balancing. This happens at 6 * 2.6 = 15.6V. In short cell balancing is fixing a bad cell by over potentializing it. Generally speaking if your battery’s capacity drops, its because 1 cell has gone bad and drains the others. For a more detailed description you can google the term “cell balancing”.

Cell balancing process:
Simply connecting a solar panel directly to a battery seems to accomplish this cell balancing (= restoring the battery’s capacity) under the following conditions:
– battery is in decent shape = resting voltage reads 12.3V or higher.
– battery is not discharged during the process (i.e. you cannot use the battery)
– the process takes time; at least a few weeks if most days are sunny.

I told you that it was easy to maintain your batteries!

I ‘bumped into’ this process last winter when it was too cold to work in the yard. 1 bank of 4 T-1275 batteries was sitting at about 12.35V so I connected them to a 60W solar panel to avoid discharging them further and walked away. Six weeks later as temperatures started to rise I opened the battery box and found all batteries softly boiling. My volt meter showed 14.4V. I unplugged the solar panel and the next morning the resting voltage was 12.80V! Using the batteries this spring I noticed their capacity is much higher than it was last summer: no more instant collapse from 12.6V to 12.3V. What’s most special is that I got the batteries used. They had spent the first three years of their life powering golf carts around a local golf course and were replaced because they couldn’t get the job done any longer.

So lets do some math. At my elevation a 60W panel delivers about 3.5 Amps for a few hours on a bright sunny day in the middle of the summer and also on a sunny winter day with a fresh layer of snow on the ground. Spread over 4 batteries that is .9A per 150Ah battery. Which is barely a trickle charge for them and roughly 12% of their C20 capacity making it highly unlikely I would overcharge them even if left unattended. I think its most likely that the batteries were fixed by the high voltage generated by the solar panel. It is possible that this method works better in colder climates because my solar panel voltage is de-rated at -.5%/degree Celsius. This means that on a cold winter day it puts out 17% higher voltage than its rated capacity. For my panel that translates to about 20V in a closed circuit.

Coming back to charge controllers; it seems to me that as long as you keep your charging current below your battery’s C20 rate by matching panel to battery, you cannot destroy (but only improve) your battery by applying the solar panel’s full voltage to it. No need for a charge controller that cuts out at 14.4V, thereby eliminating the possibility to equalize your cells.

Desulfating:
Under ‘cell balancing process’ I mentioned that the resting voltage of the battery should be 12.3V or higher. The reason for this is that batteries below that voltage cannot be restored to full capacity by just connecting them to a solar panel. Although beneficial, the voltage applied by the solar panel cannot reverse the process of battery plate deterioration called sulfating. So should we get rid of these batteries? Nope, at least not if you are a handyman. Sulfated batteries can be restored by a pulse charger, unless heavy bridging between the plates has taken place. If the [sulfation] bridges are too strong to break by shaking the battery, your best bet is to leave it there and find a replacement battery.

Pulse charger:
So what’s a pulse charger? Essentially its an air-core magnetic coil that is pulsed with DC voltage. As the current through the coil is turned off, its magnetic field collapses and releases a short high voltage spike that will get the desulfating job done if you can capture it and send it into the battery. The size of the voltage spike is related to the size of the coil and the amount of power delivered by its power source. There is actually quite a bit of science involved if you want to optimize the design, but any coil/power source configuration will do something albeit at lower efficiency. Keep in mind that small coils cannot handle large batteries: they will create a surface voltage, but your battery has no capacity when you start using it.

So for large batteries (car batteries of larger) your pulse charger will need to be able to handle a decent amount of power. My current pulse charger’s coil is made of a pound or so of magnet wire (10x 90′ strands of 24GA magnet wire wound in parallel [low internal resistance] on a 4″ high form). A smaller coil would not have the mass of copper required to generate pulses with enough energy content.

When I attached the charger made with this coil to a 30W solar panel (1.75 Amps) it worked just fine. When I connected it to a 60W panel (3.5 Amps) it never worked because the charger’s switches were instantly zapped (power MOSFETs rated at 400V). Those switches have been replaced by 1000V parts and now everything works fine. The charger even managed to bring deep cell batteries measuring 11.4V and a 12V car battery indicating 4.5V back to life. If batteries get that bad, the initial charge takes several sunny days and a 60W panel to achieve and several charge/discharge cycles are required to get back to a reasonable capacity. For the 11.4V deep cell batteries I used 2 60W panels: one connected to the pulse charger and one connected to the battery. You need voltage levels to reach 13.8V – 14V in order to get battery capacity above 50%.

Charging a battery with 500-600V is dangerous indeed if you apply continuous current. However the coil’s magnetic field collapses in less than 10 nanoseconds. So @ 12 kHz I am charging the battery for 12000 * 10 * 10-9 = .12 msec/second; giving it plenty of time to absorb/disperse the energy.

For the technically inclined handy man:
You can build your own pulse charger for $50-$100 in materials, depending what you have on hand. Following are its crucial parts:
– 5000uF capacitor to store energy from solar panel
– diode(s) between capacitor and coil input to force voltage spikes into battery (600V 30A ultrafast)
– diode(s) between coil output and battery (pos. terminal) to tap voltage spikes (600V 30A ultrafast)
– a wire connecting the capacitor’s positive terminal with the battery’s negative terminal (don’t forget!)
– switch(es) between coil output and common ground (800V+ power MOSFETs, shorter fall time is better – I am using four switches to spread the load.
Stressed and hot semi-conductors and longevity do NOT go hand-in-hand.)
– heat sink for switch(es) – I salvaged one from an old desktop computer power supply
– MOSFET driver (UC2950 works for me)
– 555 timer or microcontroller to turn switches on/off @ 12 kHz ~50% duty cycle
(if you know how to write a simple BASIC program a microcontroller is the better option – picaxe 08M2 SoC’s can be purchased for about $2/piece [www.techsupplies.co.uk] and programmed through a laptop’s serial port using free-to-download software)

Will transistors work instead of MOSFETs? Yes, but not as well. Their fall times are usually measured in microseconds as opposed to nanoseconds for MOSFETs. The faster you can cut the current through the coil, the higher your voltage spikes will be.

BTW I did not come up with this design myself. Its adapted from postings in various alternative energy forums, mostly based on the work of someone who goes by the moniker Jetijs. Too bad a lot of people in those forums get hung up on chasing over-unity effects within their contraptions, which is next to impossible due to the small size of their builds. But we can still use their technical insights for other purposes.

Why use a microcontroller:
 On my system I use a microcontroller for two reasons:
– When I make a mistake in the design its easier to fix a piece of software than to de-solder some components.
– This is still a work in progress: from time to time I get an idea based on what I see on my volt meter and I want to test that. Again its easier to adapt the software than to built a new circuit board. And if the idea doesn’t work its simpler to delete the code than to try to reclaim parts from a now obsolete board.

As a result of the cumulative ideas, I have now a much more versatile charger than if I had to build it with a simple timer chip. For instance: On start-up the microcontroller tests its power source and loads an initial set of parameters based on the test results. If it realizes during operation that it picked the wrong set, it can fix that mistake. In order to optimally use the available power, the micro controller can vary the charger’s duty cycle from 5-65% and it’s frequency from 4-40 kHz as it tries to keep input voltage close to 17V when connected to a 60W panel, which seems to be the sweet spot for this combination. The idea is to try to create an optimal spike not just when the sun shines brightly but also under less favorable conditions or with different size panels. The charger just creates a different number of and/or smaller spikes per second.
Again, this was no grand design; its simply what the project evolved into to date.

For the not technically inclined:
A company called Energenx sells a charger called the rejuvenator. The underlying technology is close enough to what I described above that I expect them to work, though I haven’t tried them. They are quite expensive and use a 110V outlet, but if they double the life of your battery bank it might be a worthwhile investment.

Dry-cell batteries:
So far I have only dealt with lead-acid batteries. However pulse chargers produce the same effects in dry-cell rechargeable batteries. Some claim success with alkaline batteries too, but I haven’t seen that myself: increased voltage, yes, real sustained capacity, no. The technology seems to work with lithium cells too if you are careful with regards to voltage, but I have no lithium cells so I cannot speak from experience. Do not expect to recharge a laptop battery with it: you will probably zap the embedded electronics rendering the battery useless.

I am now using a pulse charger exclusively for my NiMH and NiCd batteries and it works very well. I should qualify that statement: for good quality batteries. Cheap Chinese batteries have about a 50% failure rate after a few cycles due to membrane rupture. On the other hand I have some NiMH from 2001 that are still in use. I was about to throw them away by the time I built my first pulse charger because they powered my cordless mouse for only about one day before dying. Then I put them in my pulse charger and now they run the same mouse for 4 to 6 weeks before they run out. I also found some Radio Shack NiCd batteries from the 1980s that are now doing duty again in garden lights with better results than some of the batteries shipped with new lights. Solar light batteries receive some pulse charger time during the winter months and some are now into their 5th season and still keep the LED going through the night, though you can’t save them all.

Most notable is that the batteries stay cold during the charging process which helps to improve their life expectancy because heat is the biggest killer of small rechargeable batteries.

I am charging AA and AAA cells in sets of 4 to around 6V. On a nice clear day you can achieve this with a 1W solar panel if you charge one set at a time. For charging multiple sets simultaneously, use 3-5W panels as a minimum power source. 9V batteries should be charged to around 10.5V to reach full capacity. If you want to use your charger with larger panels it should monitor these voltage levels because it is relatively easy to zap dry-cell membranes if you put too high a voltage across them. A 1W panel has a hard time reaching 6V under the best of circumstances so no worries there.

A pulse charger for these batteries has the same parts and layout as the one described above but with much smaller/cheaper parts. The coil is a single layer of 24GA magnet wire about 4″ high that uses a piece of 3″ ABS pipe as coil form. An empty Coke bottle works great as coil form too, but avoid PVC as its too dense and impedes the magnetic field noticeably. The capacitor can be 100 uF, the diodes 100V 1A ultrafast or Schottky, the switch needs no driver or heat sink and can be something like an IRF510 (100V, 5A) if you use a 555 timer to drive it. With a microcontroller you should use an IRF520N or similar low input voltage MOSFET.

Will pulse chargers run from power supplies other than solar panels? Yes, I have run them from 12V and 24V batteries as well as laptop power supplies without problems. Pretty much any DC power supply works well since the large input capacitor stabilizes the supply if needed.

Would I normally consider buying a solar panel just to charge a battery? No way, still too expensive per kWh. But I expect supply chain problems to arrive before panel pricing gets much better than it is now and I want to avoid the darkest of the ages. When that day comes I need generating capacity at home, not at a distant vendor’s place. For my location solar works better than other alternatives and I decided I might as well start using the panels now and know what to expect from them when it counts.

For the skeptics that feel the urge to write in about how and why all of this won’t work: Please don’t. I am fully aware that what I wrote goes against conventional wisdom. Which is why you need to replace your batteries every few years, so I can pick them up on the cheap (sometimes even for free) and restore and use them again. Many thanks for the opportunity. Especially when using a pulse charger you are using a totally different process when charging your battery than with a conventional charger as evidenced by a very different charging voltage curve and battery temperatures. I have built and tested all the setups myself and am simply reporting the results I have seen. This posting is meant to get word out to the preparedness community, hoping to help them a bit with their decision making and preparations.

For the rest of you: Take the worst battery (lowest resting voltage) from your bank and connect it to a 15-20W solar panel for a few weeks. [You can use a larger panel too as long as its output is less than your battery’s C20 rate.] Then exchange it with the second worst battery in the bank. Keep repeating until you have rotated through the entire bank. Alternatively you can use spare batteries for the rotation. Then start the entire cycle again with the first battery if you want to keep your batteries in good shape. You will be pleasantly surprised by the results.

Residential OPSEC With Utility Workers, by Gonzo in Virginia

I want to warn and educate my fellow SurvivalBlog readers about a growing trend of people impersonating utility workers and other people in authority to gain entry to people’s homes.  My awareness of this was recently heightened when just such an attempt was made on my home against my wife. I was truly surprised, after all the talks we have had about security, just how unprepared she was for this situation.

Several days ago a man came to our door saying he needed to look at our gas meter. This man was driving a white pickup, which he had parked across the street, with an orange cone placed behind it. He was wearing a baseball hat, T-shirt, and cargo shorts with tennis shoes and was carrying some papers. He insisted that he had to come in and check the meter and the gas connections in the house. My wife informed him that there was no need as we had the gas removed from our house several years before.  This seemed to confuse him and he started to quiz my wife on when and how could she be sure. He said he still needed to check and kept placing his foot on the stoop as if he wanted to come in.  At this time a neighbor came out of their house and started to make a lot of noise to attract the workers attention and to let him know he was watching.

Now that the worker had a witness my wife said he seemed nervous and asked to check to see if there was a meter around back. He also asked if there was a dog or a gate.  My wife told him that he could check and he then went around the side of the house for a minute and then got in his truck and left.  She then messaged me at work to laugh at how stupid the natural gas person was since we did not have gas.

I realized this person was not with the gas company. I immediately called my wife back and told her to call the police right away and tell them what had happened. She also called the gas company and found out they had no one in the area. When speaking to the police operator they kept asking if the person who came to the door had on a red shirt indicating that this was not the first call they had received with this sort of attempt.

It is very interesting to note that with something as simple as an orange traffic cone and a piece of paper this fake worker was almost able to gain entry to my home and did not set off any alarms in my wife’s head. She had totally bought his story and was going along with it. I have no doubt that if this person had gained entry to my home a tragedy would have ensued afterwards. Gaining fast access to the interior of the home is the point to either case it for later robbery or to carry out some attack right then.  Another form of this scam is to trick the occupant of the house to follow the worker to the rear of the home and keep them busy in the back yard while a conspirator robs the interior of the home.

As preppers we spend a lot of time on OPSEC and not standing out and in this case it creates a chink in our armor. If this person had attempted an assault on my home it would have been over in short order, their slow approach allowed them to get a lot closer than they ever should have been able to. This person could not have found out I was an interesting target if they had checked my internet life or even observed my home for any period of time. They chose my home to attempt this simply because they drove by and saw my wife in the yard watering the garden, most likely, and the house did not stand out. They thought they had found an average suburban home to go after because that is what I wanted them to see. I had not realized that my front door represented, with just my wife present, such an obvious breach.

To clear this deficiency I have placed some subtle but necessary changes to the exterior. First is a simple beware of the dog sign. While I don’t actually have a dog, the fear of a dog is big demotivator to the type of person who wants to try these sorts of scams. They are looking for the easiest most readily available target they can find. Any sign that your house is not an easy plum to pluck and they will move on.
The second item is the addition of a camera at my front door. People who perpetuate these sorts of scams cannot stand to have themselves documented. The last thing they want is to show up on the evening news. Even a fake camera is a deterrent to them.  With the introduction of wireless cameras installing them around your house, with built in infrared abilities, can be accomplished for less than a $500 and be done in an afternoon. Exterior cameras are no longer the hugely bulky items they once were and have become common in neighborhoods on people’s homes. So while they do mark my house as being security conscious, they don’t stand out like a red flag that I am prepping.   The idea is to be just obvious enough scam artists and home invaders will steer clear of my home but not to stand out like a sore thumb.

I have upgraded my gates and my screen door. The exterior of my fences and gates are smooth and do not allow easy climbing and the gate latches tight from the inside and has no exterior latch. The Screen door has been swapped out for a locking screen door that is made of steel bars painted white to blend in. you can now open the door and have a grate between you and anyone at the door. Once again all carefully designed to blend in, but to make sure the right level of deterrent is presented so that the fake utility workers move on to easier targets.

The biggest changes are procedural. Having a standard way of dealing with visitors to the front door goes a long way in mitigating these dangers. To help SurvivalBlog readers with this threat I offer this Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for dealing with Utility workers when they present themselves. While I refer to utility workers I am also referring to any person who might appear at your door on any given day. Most criminals tend to stick with utility or alarm company workers, but even traveling missionaries should not be above suspicion. Criminals are looking to exploit the conditioned response in people with these roles so anything you might feel comfortable with is fair game to use against you.

  1. When anyone comes to your door do not open it for them right away. Observe them through the peep hole or the window. Ideally have a storm door, steel barred door, or other exterior barrier on your front door that is closed and secured to slow or stop any dash for sudden entry. You want to be able to close your door quickly on any attempted rush. A chain lock is a poor substitute for an exterior barrier unless very strongly attached to the frame and the door. You want to slow or stop the rush long enough to acquire a weapon and call for help.
  2. Ask the person at the door to step back from the door. Create a buffer between you and them before you open the door. Experience has shown that a legitimate door to door person will already do that as they are worried about dogs or other attacks coming from the door. Predators on the other hand will crowd the door as they are focused on getting inside.  This should be a clue as to the person’s intentions.
  3. If there is more than one person keeps both of them in sight and don’t allow them to split up or for them to split you up if you have more than one person with you.
  4. A legitimate utility worker or city worker will be wearing a uniform and have Identification with them. In most localities door to door vendors are also required to have ID. Ask for this ID. If they cannot present ID return inside of your home and call the police.
  5. If the person at your door does have ID have them wait while you check their ID. Call their office. Look up this number for yourself. Do not accept any number given to you by the person presenting the ID on a flyer or other printable material. Often these numbers are faked so that if you call them a co-conspirator at that number will vouch for them. By finding the number yourself you eliminate this chance and make it impossible for them to spoof the number.
  6. Do not give any information to the person at the door. Especially the number of people at home at the time. Also do not reveal any items such as weapons, alarms, or animals in the home. One of the major tricks for people casing homes to rob later is to pose as Alarm company technicians. They will offer a free security “check” to find out just how unsecure your home is and then use this information to rob you at a later date.
  7. Inspect their vehicles. Do they have the utility or other logos on them clearly marked? Are there tools in the vehicle? Legitimate workers are driving company vehicles and will be marked as such. Due to legal issues workers do not drive their own vehicles, especially city workers. They will have tools with them as their company won’t want them to have to make two trips to do work.  
  8. If the person is offering a service you might actually have use for schedule them to come back at another time of your choosing, preferably when more people will be around if you are alone. A legitimate business will return, a scam or stick up artist will not. Stick to your guns no matter how many limited time offers they dangle in front of you.
  9. Know your utility easements and where they run on your property. Do not allow workers into your backyard if all your easements are in the front.  You cannot stop a legitimate worker from reaching their proper easements but you can make them verify themselves. Have them bring the police or a supervisor to the scene before they start work.
  10. Take pictures. Take pictures of their vehicle and of the person. A person scoping out a house to rob will not come back if they know their now exists a link to the location. They are on your property or on a public right of way so you have a right to take pictures of them at any time.
  11. If the person is using the excuse of an emergency, such as a gas leak, to gain entry to your home demand that their police escort be present. In a real emergency of this nature they don’t send one guy with a traffic cone out to deal with it, there will be hundreds of responders to verify this person’s story.

Ultimately it boils down to the fact that, even if you called the person to your home, if you don’t feel comfortable ask them to leave or arm yourself and call the police. You have every right to question a person’s authority or right to be somewhere. Don’t let people push you around or try to bully you, Stand your ground.  It is far better to be perceived as rude and paranoid than to be perceived as an easy target.

Letter Re: A Different Kind of Silencer

James:
The Problem
Sleep Apnea has been a recent topic in the blog.  My wife and I both use one of “the machines”.  And although it is true many people just simply cannot get use to using them, others like us can no longer get a good nap or full night’s sleep without one.

So, what do we do if some yahoo hits the pole in route to his (with your permission Mr. Rawles) “hid-e-hole in Idaho”. Our choices were to stay up all night waiting for the power to come back on or …. Nothing!  Sleeping without “the machine” is difficult and can be downright dangerous, stroke or heart attack being top on the list of things that can beset you.  

A Solution
We have found a work-around, a way to prepare for the eventuality of a power outage by purchasing a couple of Duracell DPP-600HD Powerpack 600 Jump Starter & Emergency Power Source units. Each unit will supply a couple nights’ sleep with our CPAP machines.  Our decision to buy two units instead of one “humongous” 100 + amp battery was twofold:  1. Portability – the 100 + amp batteries weigh a ton; the Duracell jump packs are very portable giving me the ability to move them around without help and 2. Redundancy – if one of the jump pack units goes south, we still have one unit left. 

The Product
The jump packs are equipped with an AM/FM radio, flashlight, jumper cables, and charge meter, 480 watt power inverter – all supported by a 28ah AGM battery. These mini power stations run both CPAP machines which represent our most important emergency power needs.

Most sleep apnea machines today are DC-powered and are sold with the required AC adapter for normal household use.  Plug in the CPAP manufacturer’s [DC-to-DC] car adapter cable — one end into the jump pack and the other into the CPAP machine — and you’re in business for the night.  

Charging Scenarios
When the power comes back on, we plug our jump packs into the wall outlet to trickle charge – always read for the next power outage.  The built in charger will not overcharge the battery.  With the built-in jumper cable sockets, it is a simple task to plug in the cables and quickly recharge the batteries from an automobile or truck.

And in consideration of a TEOTWAWKI event we chose to construct a simple, portable solar charging station.  This solar solution includes a couple of good quality 50 watt solar panels, charger/regulator and the necessary wiring and connectors for off the grid charging capabilities.

One last suggestion:  More books Mr. Rawles.  Waiting for your next book is akin to subjecting fans to literary water boarding.  You must write faster!
Regards, – R. in Oregon  

Economics and Investing:

Reader B.D. sent this: Spain Will Have to Cede Most Control of Banks: WSJ

Terry in Idaho recommended: The Libor Scandal: History’s Largest Market Fraud? Did someone say $800 trillion?

The future of futures is uncertain: PFG Collapses Amid Fraud Allegations

B.B. sent this over at Noisy Room: Nations will be Nations: ‘Euro Zone Fragmenting Faster than EU can Act’

21% sales tax! Spain Deepens Austerity Under European Pressure. (Thanks to K.A.F. for the link.)

Also from B.B.: Austerity, American Style: Scranton City Employees’ Wages Reduced to $7.25 per Hour – This Is Your Future America

A clash of generations – 1 out of 6 Americans receiving Social Security benefits. A larger share of workforce dominated by older Americans.

Items from The Economatrix:

LIBOR Scandal Latest Sign Of Financial System’s Rotten Core

Why Gold And Treasuries Are Losing Safe-Haven Status

US Stocks Fall On Earnings; Commodities, Euro Slump

LIBOR Bomb

Odds ‘n Sods:

“Bear” over at the TMM Forums mentioned: “I just ran into this over at 4x4ham.com. It’s a short tutorial on how to use Google Earth to generate terrain profiles. In the context of ham radio, it can help you determine whether you can hit a repeater from a particular point or not. Also, if you are looking at a gulch property, you can determine where it can be seen from.”

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C.D.V. sent this news: Freight train derailment, explosion in Ohio prompts mile-wide evacuation. C.D.V.’s comment: “One good reason to always have Bug Out Bags ready.”

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Reader G.Z. recommended the book: Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II by Keith Lowe. This book validates my warnings about becoming a refugee in the aftermath of a disaster.

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Get plenty of exercise, but be careful, folks.

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Josh C. sent a link to video of the Redoubtable Pastor Doug Wilson in Moscow, Idaho: A Sermon to the Governor and Legislature of Idaho. Wilson is typical of Reformed pastors in the Inland Northwest. They aren’t afraid to mention the government sphere from the pulpit.

Notes from JWR:

We’ve nearly completed setting up our more robust server. Thanks for your patience. Please continue to use (and bookmark) “survivalblog.com” as your primary method to access the blog but make note of our NEW dotted quad address: 70.39.87.131

And, BTW, we are still in need of some mirror server space, both in the United States and offshore.

—

Today we present another entry for Round 41 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize: A.) A gift certificate worth $1,000, courtesy of Spec Ops Brand, B.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795, and C.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $350 value.) D.) a $300 gift certificate from CJL Enterprize, for any of their military surplus gear, E.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $300 value), and F.) A $250 gift certificate from Sunflower Ammo.

Second Prize: A.) A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training. Together, these have a retail value of $589. B.) A FloJak FP-50 stainless steel hand well pump (a $600 value), courtesy of FloJak.com. C.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $300, D.) A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials, and E.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value) and F.) A Tactical Trauma Bag #3 from JRH Enterprises (a $200 value).

Third Prize: A.) A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.), B.) A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206, C.) Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy. This is a $185 retail value, D.) A Commence Fire! emergency stove with three tinder refill kits. (A $160 value.), and E.) Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security.

Round 41 ends on July 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

A Little Planning and a Lot of Rehearsing, by Todd S. in Colorado

“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”- General George S. Patton.

Every general would tell you that planning is necessary, but our perfectly laid plans never end up working the way we think in real life situations with a nearly infinite amount of variables.  As an Army officer, I found Patton’s quote to be very true.  Unless you have all the time in the world, you are not going to be able to create the perfect plan to cover every possible contingency.  But you can certainly prepare for the greatest threats.  In operational terms, we call these the “most dangerous” enemy course of action (COA) and the “most likely” enemy course of action.  The threat is what drives the basis of your overall plan.

To give an example of how these enemy courses of action would differ, consider a martial law situation.  For the average citizen, the most likely enemy course of action by the government would be setting up checkpoints, restricting travel, and enforcing a curfew.  As an aside, I was the airfield “pusher” (or the officer that pushes forces and resources from the main base to the objective) for a martial law scenario where we rehearsed locking down San Antonio on three separate occasions with a few hundred soldiers and associated equipment and supplies.  So these contingency plans are already in place by the government in case of a break down in social order.  And I should know, because before I was awakened to the reality of things, for a time I was an integral part of the very thing I am now preparing against.  In a martial law situation, the most dangerous enemy course of action would be aggressive raids into private homes, confiscation of stockpiles, weapons, and internment of anyone considered “dangerous” or “too patriotic” by the government.  It is important to consider both threats.  You plan mostly for the likely COA, but you have to be prepared for the most dangerous COA to a degree.  Now there might be some debate as to whether these COAs might be reversed, but that is for you to decide and requires that you stay informed and watch carefully how events unfold.

There are many types of rehearsals ranging from walking through a process on paper to actually executing your plan as close to real life as possible.  Your overall plan about whether to bug-in or bug-out should be simple enough for the children in your household to understand.  Ask your children questions about what we would do if the power went out, if water was not available, what to do if a stranger knocks on your front door, or what to do if a severe storm hits your area.  Ideally, you have the time to do the best rehearsals possible and make them as realistic as you can.  Some of the tactical types of rehearsals are limited in use, considering that you are likely in your home and are not sitting in on a tank, monitoring the radio, waiting to roll out on a mission.  But I will mention all types, because in some limited circumstances, they might apply.  The rehearsal types below are in order of preferable to least effective:

Full Rehearsal– Tactically speaking, you would mount your vehicles and physically maneuver through the operation as if it were actually happening, talking through it on the radio as you go.  In rehearsing a bug-out situation, this would involve grabbing your bug-out bags and any other equipment you would need, jumping in the car, and driving your designated route to your predetermined bug-out location.  There you would secure the area and set up your camp.  It would be beneficial to stay a while and cook a meal and even sleep there for the night, using the bug-out scenario as a kind of camping trip. 

Key Leader Rehearsal– In a tactical rehearsal for a company-sized operation, the company commander, first sergeant, executive officer, platoon leaders, and platoon sergeants would all get together and rehearse the mission.  The key leaders in turn must have smaller rehearsals with their respective units.  The key leaders also rehearse contingencies.  1st platoon is destroyed, and now 2nd platoon must become the main maneuver force.  This ensures that all key leaders understand the entire concept of the operation rather than just their part of it.  This type of rehearsal is usually done in conjunction with a terrain model rehearsal described below.  In a prep situation, this might be a rehearsal with you and your spouse or with the adults in your prepper group.  If you are fortunate enough to have connected with like-minded adults, it is important that you rehearse the division of labor that would take place if you were all in the same compound.  You do not want to wait until everyone arrives during an emergency to decide who is going to keep the generator functioning or who is responsible for providing medical care.  It is important to rehearse what might happen if you have to operate in a “degraded mode.”  Part of your group might not make it to the bug-out site or worse face internment.  If your medical specialist does not make it, someone else must be able to provide medical care.  In the Army, we accomplished this by having Combat Medics but also having Combat Lifesaver certified soldiers on each vehicle in case we were separated from the medics.  No one should be indispensable, because odds are you will need that person exactly when you cannot have them help you.  Cross-training on tasks is how you avoid having a gap in your skills sets as a group.

Terrain Model/Sandbox Rehearsal– This type of rehearsal is one of my personal favorites when limited time is a factor.  In a time crunch, you could use your child’s sandbox for this or just use different items for terrain features in a cleared area.  The terrain model does not have to be to scale but it should show all of the key terrain features and be recognizable.  Conversely though, I have seen a group of four soldiers spend half a day preparing an excellent terrain model including grid lines from the map.  The better your model is, the better your rehearsal will go.  The key leaders or all soldiers in a smaller unit would take up their positions on this terrain model and then move like their vehicles would on the field.  You would be surprised how you actually remember better when you have to physically walk through the operation, and you notice where other adjacent units are, so you can orient yourself.  Mostly, this type of rehearsal would be used to show your bug-out route from your home and show how you would set up security in your location once you arrived.  Even rehearsing a bug-in scenario, you could make a model of your home and talk through how to protect it from roving gangs of looters, refugees, or a raid.

Map Rehearsal– When time is of the essence, and you need to execute a hasty plan very soon after you formulate it, this type of rehearsal works well.  You lay out a map or make a sketch of one and walk through the concept of the plan.  This works as a suitable substitute to a terrain model rehearsal, provided that everyone can read a map.  A forest fire or even routine road construction might cause road closures and the need may arise for you to use your alternate route to your safe haven, and this type of rehearsal helps easily illustrate that contingency.  A bug-out location should have optimally two entry-egress routes.  You do not want to become trapped in your bug-out location or have only one way to travel there.  This type of rehearsal works well for contingency plans.  You might only have time to do a full rehearsal on your main travel route and do a map rehearsal of the alternate route later.

Computer Rehearsal– It would be difficult to rehearse a bug-out or bug-in scenario with a computer, but computers allow us to rehearse skills that are expensive to rehearse in real life.  The Army utilizes expansive training centers with high-tech simulators, because even though it is expensive to operate simulators, it is much less expensive than running real vehicles through a field exercise.  A single tank platoon with four tanks can totally drain one fuel truck not to mention the cost of vehicle maintenance with turbine engines running around a quarter of a million dollars when brand new.  Call of Duty does not a warrior make, but hunting and tactical games can illustrate the importance of cover and concealment, shooting techniques, and tactical movement without having to pay the price for your mistakes in the real world.  Practicing with high caliber rifle ammunition is practically like shooting dollar bills out of your barrel.  Save the live fires for when your shooters are more proficient on marksmanship basics and will benefit more from the training.  Check out magazines like Armchair General for reviews on lifelike games that could be used for tactical training and developing strategic thinking.

Radio Rehearsal– This is the worst type of rehearsal and should only be used if you have no time for anything else.  In fact, I have used this type of rehearsal just to say that we had “checked the block” if I ran out of time for a real rehearsal.  This particular rehearsal requires an emcee to walk through a scenario, and then the individuals respond over the radio describing their actions and reporting as if they were engaging the enemy.  It is useful for working out sequences and triggers for events, but there is zero visual component or physical component as with a terrain model rehearsal.  You might use this rehearsal to work out a phone tree or establish redundant contacts within your prepper group, but that is the only practical use it would provide.

Keys to Productive Rehearsals– With all training, you want to make it as realistic as possible.  Rehearsals are the same way.  Go through all the details in a full rehearsal and pretend like it is the real thing.  If you take the rehearsal seriously, so will other people in your family and prepper group.  If you are going to bug-out, make sure everyone knows what they are grabbing if you have to leave the house in under five minutes.  Make sure everyone has a role to fulfill that fits into your larger plan.  If your son is supposed to grab the mobile stove and does not know where to find it, it is better to find that out now in a rehearsal instead of in real life.   If he is responsible for setting up the stove once you arrive to the bug-out site, make him do it.  Have him set it up in a safe location, start the fire (if he’s old enough), and then cook something on it.  Maybe he uses too few briquettes the first time, so he has to add more the next time around.  Everyone should be very familiar with the equipment they will be using.  An emergency is not the time to figure out how a stove works or if you are missing some part that you need.  Break out some of your survival food for realism, and so that everyone can get used to eating it.  I can tell you from experience, if you are used to eating only fresh foods and then have to immediately switch to a steady diet of Meals-Ready-to-Eat, you are going to have a very rough transition.  There is a reason why half of the Army walks around with Tabasco in their pockets while in the field.
Differing weather conditions can affect your speed and processes as well.  Do a rehearsal during the pleasant spring months, but also do one in the middle of a cold winter.   If you are bugging-out, it might take much longer to get to your site due to seasonal weather conditions.  You might even get stranded on the way there.  Hopefully, your bug-out location is closer than that.  Inevitably, it will be the worst weather conceivable when you have to bug-out.  In the Boy Scouts, we were frequently rained on during our camp outs.  It was very valuable in showing us how you need to bag everything to keep it dry and set up measures to keep mud out of your tents.  Do not cancel your rehearsal due to weather.  An emergency will not give you a rain check. 

Remember that the point of a rehearsal is to make sure that everyone understands the plan and their part of it and to practice your plan.   It also serves to find any weaknesses in the overall plan, which can be remedied before you have to do this in real life.  For those with children, if they have never been camping or are not what you would call outdoorsy, it could be a huge shock in a bug-out situation if they have to both adjust to the crisis situation and have to learn very quickly how to function in the wild.  Do not let them take their iPods, iPads, Smart Phones, and the rest of their gadgets with them in this scenario, since they are unlikely to work anyhow during the real emergency.  At most you might consider a handheld video game if you have a solar charger with extra batteries.  It might improve their morale during a bug-out scenario, but it also might serve as a terrible distraction.  It really depends on the child and whether they are playing a game for entertainment or as a vehicle for escapism.  Escapism is extremely dangerous during a survival scenario.  You want everyone to be focused on the task at hand but also have opportunities for fun interpersonal activities with family and group members such as card games. 

You may never want to touch your equipment or reserves until the real emergency, and even though it costs more money to have extras to rehearse with, it is crucial.  Not only does this allow you to practice with the equipment you will be using, it allows you to find any broken parts that you need to fix or to find substitutes that would work in a pinch.  You might have a suture kit in an aid bag, but you need to have that practice kit too, so that you can become good at it before you need to do it for real on an actual wound.

When a main battle tank is damaged, it is functioning in “degraded mode.”  The main gun might be disabled, the thermal sights blown to pieces, the radio is inoperative, or track thrown and unable to maneuver.  You learn to deal with each of these contingencies alone and together.  Do a mini-rehearsal at home sometime.  Try turning the power off for a few hours.  Turn off the main water supply and try to flush toilets on your tri-level home by lugging buckets of water up the stairs.  Maybe you will decide that everyone must use the one toilet closest to your water stores.  Operating in degraded mode will help you focus on certain aspects and work out the bugs in your plan without having to turn your home into a war zone.  In this way, you could have mini-rehearsals for a few hours without entirely disrupting regular routines.  Though an emergency is likely to do just that, so this method just provides another way to fit in some extra practice. 

As mentioned previously, the plan has to be simple enough that the slowest soldier or youngest child can grasp it.  Backbriefing is incredibly important.  If your children can walk you through the plan, then you know that they understand all of it and not just their small part of it.  Adults and children alike are hesitant to ask questions, because they think it will make them look stupid in front of a group.  I have had soldiers nod their heads at me when briefing them to only give me a blank stare ten minutes later when I asked them to walk me through the plan.   Everyone has to get it no matter how many times you must walk through it.  That gains you peace in knowing that you communicated effectively and were understood, and confidence that the plan does not depend on your personal orchestration of it because others will know what to do. 

It would be appropriate to end this article with a paraphrase from another great general, Helmut von Moltke:  “The plan never survives first contact with the enemy.”  Your plan and the rehearsals of that plan serve as a rallying point.  The plan is meant to focus everyone on the main objective even when everything is falling apart around you.  It is almost guaranteed, that things will not play out exactly as you predict, but when you have to overcome those obstacles you will always end up coming back to the main focus of your overall plan to survive and protect those you care about.

Two Letters Re: A Low Cost Source for Powerful Magnets

Hi Jim,
Just a quick note about the magnets from microwave ovens letter: Inside the Microwave there is a large capacitor (looks like a metal can with two tabs on the top of the can) – before you poke around inside, make sure that you discharge this by touching a screwdriver (held by the insulating plastic handle) between the 2 tabs – this is like poking in the back of an old television, and the discharge from that cap will knock you for a lulu if it’s holding a residual charge (and it can… for a long time.) If it didn’t spark – no
harm, no foul. If it did – that could have been your hand in there!

Also… there are articles on the Internet about converting a microwave into a (surprisingly good) stick welder for next to nothing – I have one and am building a second, and for what I use it for, it far surpasses the overseas versions of the wire feed cheapos. Sure, it’s a stick welder, but for a few bucks (much less than Harbor Freight’s 110 VAC wire feeds that will likely emit square smoke rings and die) you get a good unit and help reuse something that most sheeple would throw out!

Best always, and good prepping. – Susanne, at the Village Smithy

James,
Magnetron and computer hard drive magnets have a great deal of strength.  I put them on my oil filters.  I pull the magnet on the old filter just prior to discarding it. I place it back on the new oil filter that is going into service.  Placing them there may trap fine particles of ferrous metals and keep them from acting as an abrasive.  I also place one near the drain spout or drain hole on my oil pan area.  I remove that one just prior to draining the oil for an oil change. The idea is the force of the draining oil will carry any metal particles trapped there out into the bucket beneath.  It may not help but I don’t think it hurts either.   Another good use for these magnets is to hold my tarps and blankets on vehicle windows during the winter months.  They sstay solidly in place even in very strong winds.  

Most hardware stores sell “super magnets”  A local TruValue hardware store sells a brand called Master Magnetic Inc out of Colorado or MagentSource.com. They are not cheap but you get what you pay for.  I have purchased them in the past to use on screen doors that don’t close correctly or to drag lost tools out of ditches or bodies of water etc. 

If money is no concern they are readily available from an assortment of on-line suppliers based upon the “pull weight” desired.  And yes, these are not toys.  They can easily crush fingers or body parts and should not be given to children.  It should also be remembered that the strong magnetic fields generated by these super-magnets can cause nearby magnetic media like audio and video tapes and the like to be erased.  Treat them with respect.

And if you are looking for a novel use for a super-magnet well, my neighbor used one of these very powerful but small magnet he purchased on-line on the bottom of his walking stick in hopes of discovering the ever elusive iron meteorite on his walks in the rocks.  He hopes to make some extra money even on his “downtime”. – R.B.S.

Economics and Investing:

Some effects of bad monetary policy: The war on baby boomers. (Thanks to C. Matt for the link.)

V.T.P. sent this: France is selling bonds at a negative interest rate

Roubini: My ‘Perfect Storm’ Scenario Ii Unfolding Now. (Kudos to C.D.V. for sending this link.)

Items from The Economatrix:

As Foreclosures Ramp Up, New Roadblocks Ahead

There Will Never Be Enough Jobs in America Again

Government Overpaid $14 Billion in Unemployment Benefits

US Economy:  Things Could Get Much Worse

Odds ‘n Sods:

I will be the keynote speaker via teleconference at Charlotte PrepCon. This is an event for North Carolina and South Carolina preppers. The conference will be held on July 14, 2012 in Ft. Mill, S.C. (near Charlotte, N.C.) Phone: (800) 704-1862 for details.

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Our friend Tam recommended a post over at the Standing Outside Looking In blog about preparing for and coping with flood waters: A Hard Lesson; Survivor Ammunition Storage

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Pierre M. sent this news from Florida: Worst TB outbreak in 20 years kept secret. (It is noteworthy that the role of HIV- AIDS in resurgence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is often soft-pedaled by the politically correct American mass media.)

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Pierre also sent three links about MultiCam: MultiCam Gallery, Slate reports: Lost in the Wilderness–The military’s misadventures in pixelated camouflage, and Syrian Camo?

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I just watched the movie Machine Gun Preacher, on DVD. It is the true story of Sam Childers, a former outlaw biker who came to Christ, straightened up his life, and established an orphanage in war-torn southern South Sudan. (Before it gained its independence.) Be forewarned that there is some foul language and it depicts violence, so it is NOT for children! The film confirmed my strong conviction to get actively involved in aiding the citizenry of South Sudan–namely training and arming them to defend themselves against the continuing depredations of the Muslim Janjaweed. Pray for South Sudan!

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things.
It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out – it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.” – Robert W. Service

Notes from JWR:

An appeal from your editor: We’ve recently had another denial of service hacker attack. My apologies for any inconvenience. To make SurvivalBlog more resilient to denial of service attacks or to governmental censorship orders, I am seeking some inexpensive offshore server space. The plan is to “push” data to several mirror sites each night. If you have some server space available, preferably in a country that isn’t buddy-buddy with the U.S. government, then please let me know. Each mirror server must be able to handle the following:

  • 2GB of Storage Space
  • SSH & FTP access
  • 15 Mbps Data Link
  • 5TB Monthly Bandwidth

Thanks!

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Today we present another two entries for Round 41 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize: A.) A gift certificate worth $1,000, courtesy of Spec Ops Brand, B.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795, and C.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $350 value.) D.) a $300 gift certificate from CJL Enterprize, for any of their military surplus gear, E.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $300 value), and F.) A $250 gift certificate from Sunflower Ammo.

Second Prize: A.) A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training. Together, these have a retail value of $589. B.) A FloJak FP-50 stainless steel hand well pump (a $600 value), courtesy of FloJak.com. C.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $300, D.) A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials, and E.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value) and F.) A Tactical Trauma Bag #3 from JRH Enterprises (a $200 value).

Third Prize: A.) A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.), B.) A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206, C.) Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy. This is a $185 retail value, D.) A Commence Fire! emergency stove with three tinder refill kits. (A $160 value.), and E.) Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security.

Round 41 ends on July 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

TEOTWAWKI Blacksmithing for Beginners, by Jodier

For many of you blacksmithing reminds you of your father or grandfather, it takes you back to the smell of the coal forge and the hum of the blower pumping oxygen into the nest of the forge. I’ve met many of people who are interested in blacksmithing, mainly for fun and to make Christmas gifts for their loved ones. Not many of these people actually obtain a forge and anvil and use it. Many of people have their grandfather’s anvil sitting unused in their shed or barn. My father has been blacksmithing for the majority of his life and has passed the trade down to me. The trades that can be expanded into after the basics of blacksmithing are many, from knife making, to fabrication, and tradition tool making are just a few of the trades that can be expanded into.

In the first years of my father’ blacksmithing, he used a old, rusty elevator weight as an anvil. Anvils today are sometimes few and far between, I recoil in horror every time I see Wylie Coyote try to drop a anvil on Road Runner. The anvil is one of the most important pieces of the blacksmith’s tool set. There are many brand of anvils that were once produced. Two of renowned anvils made were Peter Wright and Hay-Budden. A person can purchase a brand new anvil from a farrier supply company, of course those can cost in upwards of $300. Then again a Hay-Budden can cost $7 per pound! At a 150 pounds that would be $1,050. If your lucky you can find someone who does not know what they have and pick it up for $200. I am sure that many people through out the years have used something other than a anvil, such as my father and the elevator weight. A piece of railroad track would work great in a TEOTWAWKI situation. If you insist on having an antique anvil then there are certain things for which you should look. The recoil test, a good anvil should have some recoil to it, meaning that when you drop a ball bearing on it the bearing should bounce up and leave the anvil with a ring. An anvil without this quality has either been modified or lack true quality. Look at the markings on the anvil, the markings are so many that a person could write a book on it, I highly recommend that you do research on this aspect of anvils. A book concerning the types and manufacturers of anvils is Anvils in America by Richard Postman. Another thing to look for is gouging or other intended harm done to the anvil.

The second most important tool to the blacksmith is the hammer. In a TEOTWAWKI situation a basic claw hammer could be used to push metal around, but a more blacksmith designated hammer would be more beneficial. A person can pick up a blacksmithing hammer at a farrier supply center. Ball peen hammers also have their place in a blacksmith’s arsenal, I mainly use them for shaping ladles and spoons but they can be used as a general hammer. Most people overlook the importance of how to use the hammer. I use a push and pull method, which means I push the metal forward and pull the metal backwards, using firm but not overly brutal strikes to the metal. Many beginners make the mistake of striking the metal so hard that they punish themselves. Another item that is just as important as the hammer is a pair of gloves. A good pair of leather roping gloves made of goatskin, are for me, the most comfortable. The third piece of equipment for the blacksmith is the forge. There are many antique forges on the market, but there are also many do it yourself alternatives such as brake drum forges. Brake drum forges are a excellent entry level forge for beginners. It uses a basic forge design, using a (You guessed it!) a brake drum and some sort of fan, to provide oxygen to the nest. I use a simple rivet forge for my small needs such as S-hooks, spoons, nails, and knives. One thing to keep in mind when choosing a forge is how hot it gets. My rivet forge will sometimes reach temperatures in excess of 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Now that is hot enough to smelt metal. Another thing to consider is what are you going to burn in your forge? I have been struggling to find coal for some time now. Our wonderful Government has decided to put even more restrictions on some of the coal mines. Even the mines with permits are selling their coal to China. You can still find coal today at some farrier supply centers, though it is low in quality it is still coal. I burn a 5 gallon bucket in two days of heavy blacksmithing, So it really does not take a lot of coal to work on a project.

To go with your forge you will need a blower. A blower is a simple piece of equipment which pumps oxygen into the nest of the forge, it is a vital piece of equipment as it raises the temperatures in the forge by several hundred degrees. Again your blower can be a rare antique or a home brew, do it yourself project. Some of your major blower makers were Royal, Tiger, Champion, and Buffalo were just a few of the many blower manufacturers. On the antique blowers I have seen them run anywhere from $40 to $300 at flea markets. Now as far as home brews go people have converted squirrel cage fans into blowers as well as car heater fans. You are only limited by your imagination when it comes to building your forge and blower.

A vise is a invaluable piece, it works as a second set of hands and a rock solid anchor point for grinding and welding. If there is a piece of vintage equipment that I recommend you buying it is a blacksmith’s vise. The blacksmith’s vise is designed to be open and closed quickly, so that you spend more time working the metal and less time letting the metal cool. the vises vary in size and price, they usually start right at $50 and go up into the hundreds.

If you manage to collect all the pieces of recommended equipment I highly suggest that you learn how to use them.

Fire, as most preppers are familiar with, is a simple task. A coal fire is slightly different, one must first start with tinder (I generally prefer newspaper, as it holds a flame longer) and kindling in the nest of the forge. Get a small fire going, but not blazing. Before it is blazing you must pile coal or coke, the byproduct of burnt coal, on the kindling, make sure there is enough on to absorb the heat, but not too much as to smother it. Keep supplying a large amount of oxygen to the fire via the blower and voila you successfully crafted a coal fire.

The one thing people ask me a lot is, “Where do I get the steel?” There are quite a few commercial steel yards across the U.S. One of the major ones is King Architectural Metals. Of course if the balloon goes up you won’t be able to run out to the store and get whatever you need. Scrap yards are a fantastic place to go and find steel, most of them will sell you useable steel at a little above scrap iron prices. I have seen many fine knife blades out of spring leaf steel. [JWR Adds: SurvivalBlog reader C. Mike recently sent me this: Turning a Railroad Spike Into An Awesome Knife. It shows how even a home barbeque ca be turned into a forge with a brief service life.]

As I stated earlier you must learn to push and pull the iron, much like working clay between your thumb and index finger, your index finger being the anvil and your thumb being the hammer.

There many blacksmithing techniques, so many as I cannot cover them all in this one article, but I will go over a couple of them.

Drawing a point out seems simple, but to do it fast and efficiently is another story. Start out by bringing your round stock to a red hot temperature, which is about 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit. Rest the steel on the far side of the anvil and lock your arm into place. Strike once pushing the metal away from you, rotate the steel 90 degrees and strike again, pushing forward. Rotate back to your first strike and repeat the process. Keep in mind that you should only be striking on to sides of the steel. Repeat the whole process until you come out with a needle sharp point.

Forge welding is a slightly more advanced process, but would be well worth the difficulty in a TEOTWAWKI situation. First start out by bringing the rod to a again red hot temperature and rest it on the face of the anvil. Slightly flatten the steel and and sprinkle a good amount of flux onto the metal. Many farrier supply shops carry commercial flux, but for many years we have been using plain old borax, that is used for laundry. Reheat the metal to a not just red hot, but a glowing orange temperature. When the steel hits the sparkling orange range that opens the window to forge welding. Start the fold over on itself and proceed to strike the steel with force, but not with brutalizing strength. Through this process Damascus steel can be made, fire pokers can be crafted, and metal mended. With these simple tools and equipment you can start blacksmithing on your very own.

A Different Kind of Silencer, by K. in Illinois

The topic of obstructive sleep apnea and CPAP machines has been mentioned regularly in SurvivalBlog. These references were mostly related to how an alternate power supply could be used to keep CPAP machines functioning. In a TEOTWAWKI situation or lengthy grid down scenario persons suffering from sleep apnea, especially severe sleep apnea would worsen and probably die without an alternative power source or alternative type of treatment.

As a dentist who is a member of the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine and treating snoring and sleep apnea for almost 15 years I thought I would give the members some insight into the condition, its possible treatments and implications for long-term survival particularly in TEOTWAWKI. One of the recent blogs referred to a web site. If anything I say sounds similar to information on that site is because the developer is my dear friend, personal mentor and one of the foremost experts in the country.

Snoring
Snoring is the focus of humor in countless movies, jokes, videos and family stories. There are people whose snoring has decibel levels as loud as a steam locomotive. My own father could bring down the house, not just with his singing or jokes, but unfortunately with his snoring. Over the years he had developed severe obstructive sleep apnea. He was also the first sleep apnea patient that I treated.
All joking aside, snoring is no laughing matter. It’s the reason for many lost hours of sleep for bed partners, husbands and wives having separate bedrooms and sometimes even divorce.

What is Snoring?
Snoring is the sign of a breathing problem, in other words a blockage in your airway. The sound is typically caused by the tongue falling toward the back of your palate and throat. As your airway constricts it creates a negative pressure or pulling on your soft palate. This creates a vibration and sound like a reeded instrument, although much more annoying! If you snore loudly and often, you know the social implications of your problem. It’s bad enough when your spouse can’t sleep in the same room with you, but when your travel companions schedule a separate room because they can’t get a decent night’s sleep, it may be time for you to do something about it.

Even if you have become accustomed to sharp pain in your ribs at night (your spouse’s elbow), a lot of bad jokes, snoring is as serious as a heart attack or even worse a stroke. It is a signal that something is wrong with your breathing during sleep. It means that the airway is not fully open and the bad tunes you are playing could kill you. According to recent sleep studies, approximately 45% of the general population, 30% of men and women over age 30, 40% of the middle-aged population, and 6% of children snore on a regular basis. Studies show that 45% of normal adults snore at least occasionally, and 25 percent are habitual snorers. Sadly, these statistics are on the rise with rising obesity approaching epidemic proportions.

Problem snoring is more frequent in males and overweight persons. It usually grows worse with age. Although obesity is a major factor for snoring and sleep apnea people that are “as thin as a rail” can have these issues. Generally these are people that have narrow jaws, tall (high) palates and or deep bites and are more prone to having or developing airway issues.

Is Snoring Dangerous?
During the days of the Wild West a famous gunslinger shot a man in the same hotel for snoring too loudly. Ouch! It has also been shown that of males over the age of 45 almost 50% have some form of sleep apnea.  An Australian study found that the prevalence of blockage of the carotid artery (which can lead to strokes) was 20% for mild, 32% for moderate and 64% for heavy snorers. According to the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA), snorers have three times as many motor vehicle accidents as non-snorers..

Snoring and Sleep Apnea

 According to the experts at www.ihatecpap.com, snoring can be a strong indicator of the condition known as sleep apnea. Sleep apnea patients that snore are actually lucky that the condition manifests vocally, so the condition can be treated early, before it becomes life threatening. Partners with concerns are often the ones to bring this problem to light and ask the snorer to seek sleep disorder/sleep apnea treatment. Because of the intermittent periods of stopped breathing, patients do not get the amount of oxygen needed and health risks are increased. Recent studies have led many leading clinicians to state that they believe that snoring will lead to sleep apnea 100% of the time. Sleep apnea has been linked to cases of heart attack, stroke, hypertension, high blood pressure and other dangerous conditions. If you notice heavy snoring in your loved one, ask him or her to see a sleep apnea professional.

How Snoring Affects Others

According to a Mayo Clinic sleep study, it is estimated that snorers cause their partners to lose an average of about an hour of sleep each night. For the average American that is almost 20% of your night’s sleep. Even if sleep apnea is not indicated, the disruption of the sleep cycles of family members can create a hazard. Bed partners of snorers also reports high levels of fatigue, sleepiness and possibly even hearing loss. Recent studies have indicated that repeated disruption of sleep patterns can cause sufferers to perform motor skills at or below the levels of individuals who are legally intoxicated! So even if your snoring is not a sign of sleep apnea, it is likely that your snoring could be a real threat to your loved ones because impaired reaction behind the wheel of an automobile can lead to disaster regardless of the cause. The whole family can suffer when any family member has a sleep problem.

What is Sleep Apnea?
Apnea is a Greek word that means shortness of breath. An apnea episode is the absence of breath for 10 seconds or more repeatedly during the normal seven hour sleep cycle. During an apnea event, the oxygen level in a person’s blood drops(while the carbon dioxide increases), the blood becomes” thicker” and more difficult for the heart to pump throughout the body. This puts a strain on the heart (which can show signs of enlargement) as well as the entire cardiovascular system. Coughing or choking sensations, which force you to wake up or get elbowed by your partner, are also common signs. Untreated sleep apnea (OSA) increases the risk of heart attack and stroke, shortens life, and diminishes your quality of life.
What are the common signs of Snoring and Apnea?
Sleep apnea can reveal its presence in a number of ways, and each patient may have a unique combination of symptoms. If you or a loved one experiences any of the following recurring symptoms, please speak with your family physician or a dentist that has experience with treating OSA.

  • Excessive daytime sleepiness
  • Morning headaches/migraines (may also signify a jaw joint problem known as TMJ/TMD).
  • Short term memory problems
  • Altered human growth hormone secretion at night contributes to decreased metabolism leading to weight gain and difficulty in weight loss
  • Tiredness
  • Dosing off in front of the television
  • Gastric reflux(GERD)
  • Dry mouth
  • Sore throat
  • Slow metabolism
  • Inability to lose weight
  • High blood pressure
  • Diabetes
  • Depression
  • Severe Anxiety
  • Memory and concentration difficulties
  • ADD and ADHD symptoms
  • Intellectual deterioration
  • Mood swings/temperamental behavior
  • Poor job performance or problems in school
  • Mouth breathing
  • Restlessness and tossing and turning during sleep
  • Impotence
  • Decreased sex drive
  • Difficult nose breathing
  • Sudden shortness of breath, choking or gasping sensation that wakes you up
  • Insomnia
  • Inability to sleep through the night
  • Heavy snoring (more common in patients with obstructive sleep apnea, rather than central sleep apnea)

Pediatric Apnea

Chronic breathing problems during a child’s sleep have been shown to affect children’s physical, intellectual and emotional growth. Heavy snoring in children may be a sign of pediatric apnea. Pediatric apnea causes children to have paused breathing events during sleep and can be dangerous if left untreated. Children with untreated apnea may experience daytime sleepiness, or signs of ADD/ADHD such as lack of concentration and mental capacity, trouble in school, and hyperactivity. A thorough ear, nose, and throat exam are a priority. Any asthma and allergy concerns need to be diagnosed and controlled. Often a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy may be needed to eliminate airflow obstructions.

Apnea and Childhood Development
Visit the web pages from sleep apnea dentist Dr. Brian Palmer. He has given international, national and state presentations on the importance of breastfeeding for the proper development of the oral cavity, airway and facial form; infant caries; why tight frenulums need to be addressed; the signs and symptoms, cause and prevention, and treatment of snoring and obstructive sleep apnea; and basics of dentistry not taught in dental schools.

Sleep Apnea & Snoring Treatment

I will briefly list some of the treatments for sleep apnea, but will focus mainly on the most TEOTWAWKI pertinent answers.
First and foremost, your physician or dentist will examine your living habits and make recommendations for behavioral therapy, such as avoidance of alcohol or sedatives, or sleep positioning devices. Use of pillows to alter your nighttime breathing habits may also be suggested. Your sleep physician and dentist with appropriate training in sleep apnea will help you decide which dental sleep medicine treatment or combination of treatments will work best for you.

Depending on each patient’s diagnosis, sleep apnea treatment may be as simple as a lifestyle change such as weight loss or change in diet. Other patients may benefit from the help of a specially designed oral appliance, which prevents airway blockage. Some more severe cases of apnea may require surgical intervention to prevent upper airway obstruction. Jaw surgery, tongue surgery, palatal implants and removal of the soft palate (UPPP, LAUPP,) are among these techniques. Some work well (jaw surgery) and others not well at all (UPPP, LAUPP). 

Nasal Vents
ProVents are a new as a treatment option. The results from the initial studies are promising. They do have a significant impact on lowering the number of apnea events a patient experiences, but they are not adjustable. Any one that is prescribed these by the doctor should insist on a full night sleep study while wearing them to verify that they are working sufficiently. Just because you feel better after sleeping with them doesn’t mean you are getting the best results possible.

CPAP
Mechanical therapy in the form of a mechanical device called a CPAP, or Continuous Positive Airway Pressure, uses a mask with an air blower to force air through the patient’s upper airway, assuring constant inhalation of adequate amounts of oxygen. are positive air pressure machines with various types of masks and hoses designed to force air past the main obstruction in the airway which in the vast majority of patients is the tongue. It inflates the airway like a balloon and hose.

CPAP has been considered ” the gold standard” of OSA treatment for many years and is incredibly effective for alleviating symptoms, avoiding the health risks discussed earlier and achieving a restful sleep. These benefits can only be realized when the CPAP is actually worn and worn for the fully prescribed amount of time. Sadly, study shows that 2/3 to 3/4 of people given a CPAP cannot tolerate full compliance. The list of problems encountered by CPAP users is lengthy. Many of these can be overcome, but the ones most pertinent to us on this blog are loss of power and portability.

Alternate power sources can definitely be one solution when these are available and when OSA patients want to use them. The majority of OSA patients who cannot tolerate the CPAP or want a non-powered solution and oral appliance should be considered.

As Seen on TV
You’ve probably seen dental appliances advertised on television that claim to handle your snoring problem. These have a few problems. If you snore but have not been tested for apnea and you wear one of these devices you may not snore, but if you have sleep apnea it is still killing you. If you have been diagnosed with OSA these devices are not being adjusted (titrated) for optimal effect and they are not FDA approved to treat OSA. The principle is the same, but as they say: ” the devil is in the details”.

Dental Appliances
There are dozens of these devices with varying designs, patents and trade names, but they all work on the same principle, basically they move the lower jaw forward in order to open your airway. Since your tongue is attached to your lower jaw basically behind your chin, moving the jaw forward (mandibular advancement) moves his tongue forward, opens the airway front to back, as well as side to side and prevents the tongue from falling to the back of the throat.

The best devices are custom fit and extremely adjustable so that your airway is opened enough to drastically reduce the number of apneic events and ideally eliminate snoring. This adjustment or titration is done in close collaboration between you, the dentist and the sleep physician. When looking for a dentist, be sure they are a member of the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine and ideally one who is a diplomate of that academy. Unfortunately, over the years I have seen dentists treat patients for snoring without knowing whether the patients have obstructive sleep apnea and use devices that are not approved to treat OSA. I’ve also seen lack of knowledge and follow-up with patients both of which are extremely important for optimizing treatment and avoiding unwanted side effects.

Some physicians shy away from this treatment, but quite honestly in my opinion this is due to what they are taught or not taught in medical school. There is a great deal of research that shows the effectiveness of these” low-tech” devices in treating mild, moderate and even severe sleep apnea. As preppers and survivalists you should appreciate that they are generally very durable, relatively inexpensive and could be repaired without a lot of sophisticated equipment. They are easily cared for and stowable in a tac bag, glove compartment, briefcase and purse or bug out bag. I would suggest speaking to your dentist about making several appliances . . . for a discount (or barter) of course. Remember: one is none and two is one.

One point that I would like to emphasize is that it is extremely important for you or your loved ones to be evaluated and treated regardless of whether a TEOTWAWKI situation ever occurs. This is a life-threatening condition is often ignored or minimized. It is a silent or not so silent killer. For those of you that are trying to maximize your health and your families health as a part of preparedness is crucial to consider seeking treatment. Everyone will sleep and function much better.

For more information on snoring, obstructive sleep apnea and treatment you can visit www.ihateCPAP.com and www.aadsm.org.