Essential Communications on a Budget, by TCM

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Communications within a survival group and with the surrounding area is not just important; it can be a matter of life and death. The lack of communications taken to the extreme can be illustrated by imagining yourself with your eyes and ears covered. Now, try to defend yourself and your family. We all know it is not possible. Being without, at least, basic communications is almost that dangerous. I’m not suggesting that you should blow your entire prepper budget on high dollar electronics. There is a low-cost, but effective solution. This article will offer some practical solutions for emergency communications, using low-cost Baofeng transceivers. Some of the suggestions are not legal except under emergency conditions. The best approach is to get your ham license and do everything legally, but your circumstances may not permit that approach. If not, this article is for you. First, we will talk about equipment then how to configure and use it.

The Ubiquitous UV-5R

Probably, the most popular hand held radio for those preparing for WTSHTF is the Baofeng UV-5R. It is a dual band (VHF and UHF) hand held with four watts output and is available for under $30. Two of these will offer you the most basic radio communications. Depending upon your environment, you can expect to reliably talk about a mile or two (I know, the theoretical distance is six miles but only with perfect conditions. I wouldn’t bet my life on it). Distance is largely a product of the antenna height of both radios. Two people with hand held radios with standard antennas will be very limited in range of coverage. Therefore, the best thing you can do to increase the distance of your coverage is to raise antenna height. Secondly, a good antenna will provide a gain in the effective radiated power (gain is measured in dBi).

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SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt

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This column is posted every Tuesday. Here, we present news stories and event announcements from around the American Redoubt region. We also mention companies in the region of interest to preppers. The Redoubt region is perhaps the safest and most free place to live in these United States. Today’s focus is on Hermiston, Oregon.


Idaho

First, we read: Hundreds of bikers roar down the road for Idaho Patriot Thunder

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I’d like to mention a small family-owned business located in Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho:  North Idaho Heat.  They specialize in woodstoves and are dealers for Blaze King and Hearth Classics. And they also sell the excellent Toyotomi oil heaters. From what I’ve heard from blog readers, North Idaho heat has excellent customer service. They also offer installation and repair services.

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Next, I hadn’t noticed before, but Alien Gear Holsters (proudly made in Idaho) has revamped their web site and it now includes a variety of videos.

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And here is an interesting Idaho headline: Lt. Gov. Brad Little served as acting governor 373 times

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The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

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SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods. It is a collection of news bits and pieces. They are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper.  Today’s column was compiled by  JWR.  This column is posted each Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. (This alternates with our Economics & Investing column. That is posted on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.) Today’s focus is on Qatar.

Qatar

First, Bloomberg reports: Saudi-Led Alliance Cuts Ties With Qatar. JWR’s Comment: This move should have been made five years ago! Oddly, this article hardly even mentions Great Britain. For many years the Brits pulled the strings in Qatar. Many billions in Qatari natural gas money have gone to Britain.  But the revulsion point has clearly been reached.

Czech Republic

Next, Pat Cascio suggested a bit of common sense, as reported by the leftist Washington Post. Czech government tells its citizens how to fight terrorists: Shoot them yourselves. JWR’s Comment: Note the blatantly condescending tone of this biased article. (“Never mind that there are fewer than 4,000 Muslims in this country of 10 million people …”). But the Czech government’s push for self-preservation cannot be faulted. The Prague Daily Monitor‘s reporting on this topic is much better.  The Czech Republic’s response to the Islamist invasion has been sound. “Don’t let them in.”  Ditto for their neighbor Hungary. Meanwhile, most other European nations have opened the floodgates. And yet they wonder why their streets are getting wet, with blood.

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The Editors’ Quote Of The Day

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“I must say this now about that first fire. It was magic. Out of dead tinder and grass and sticks came a live warm light. It cracked and snapped and smoked and filled the woods with brightness. It lighted the trees and made them warm and friendly. It stood tall and bright and held back the night.”  – Jean Craighead George, My Side of the Mountain

Preparedness Notes for Monday – June 05, 2017

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On June 5th, 1899, Alfred Dreyfus was acquitted. Although well-remembered in France and her colonies, this landmark trial is now largely forgotten by the American public. It deserves study.

On June 5th, 1912, U.S. Marines invaded Cuba for the third time. (One of what are commonly called The Banana Wars.)

On this day in 1661, Isaac Newton was admitted as a student to Trinity College, Cambridge.

Also on this day in 1942, the Elwood Ordnance Plant (near Joliet Illinois) exploded, killing 54 people, and injuring at least 40 others.

Mexican revolutionary Francisco Pancho Villa was born on June 5th, 1878.

This is also the birthday of novelist Ken Follett, in 1949, in Cardiff, Wales. He is best known as the author of Eye of the Needle, and Lie Down with Lions. – JWR

The Editors’ Preps for the Week of June 5th, 2017

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To be prepared for a crisis, every prepper must establish goals and make long-term and short-term plans. Steadily, we work on meeting our prepping goals. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors share their planned prep activities for the coming week.  These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, property improvements, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year. We also welcome you to share your planned activities for increasing personal preparedness in the coming week.  (Leave a Comment with your project details.) Let’s keep busy and be ready!

JWR

Dear SurvivalBlog Readers,
We are looking at another very busy week, here at the Rawles Ranch.  Our Good Lord-willing, these are our plans for the week:

Now that the main garden is planted, we plan to help the children put in their own gardens in another area of our property.

We’ll be teaching number one daughter how to use the rototiller.  She’ll be tilling the new garden areas and transporting composted manure to them with some help from us and will plan what she wants to plant and where. The other younger children will be helping and developing their own gardens, once big sister has tilled them.

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CRKT Homefront Folder – By Pat Cascio

Why?

When CRKT Columbia River Knife & Tool sent me the Onion Homefront folder for testing and review, I just had to ask why make a folding knife that you can take apart? Sometimes, when it comes to some new products, I just have to ask myself “Why?” I just don’t know what else there is that is truly new, especially when it comes to folding knives. This is especially true when it comes to the various locking mechanisms. Then again, I’m not known for designing folding knives, although I have one on the drawing board right now. If you ask me, I’m better known for designing fixed blade fighting knives, as nothing else will do in combat.

Don’t Second Guess Ken Onion

Some years back, when I was the West Coast Field Editor for Knives Illustrated magazine, I interviewed world renown custom knife maker/designer Ken Onion for an article I was doing on one of his knives. We had a grand visit, even though it was via the phone, because he lives in Kaneohe, Hawaii and I’m in Oregon. I learned Onion is a real mad man. He’d have to be. He must have a tortured mind to come up with some of his knife designs. This is a good thing, if you ask me. He is also a wild man to talk to. I had a great visit with him over the phone. So, I’m not about to second guess any knife design that comes from Ken Onion.

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May in Precious Metals by Steven Cochran of Gainesville Coins

Welcome to SurvivalBlog’s Precious Metals Month in Review. Here, we take a look at “the month that was” in precious metals. Each month, we cover the price action of gold, and examine the “what” and “why” behind those numbers. This column is authored by Steven Cochran of Gainesville Coins. Today, we highlight the effects of terrorism on the price of gold.

What Did Gold Do in May?

Gold stated the month of May right at $1,268. However, unexpectedly strong economic data blasted prices down by $40 an ounce to a seven-week low in the first week. The first estimate for the US economy in the second quarter was far higher than anyone expected, and the Federal Reserve declaring first quarter weakness was temporary.

Gold prices bottomed out on May 11, and began an uptrend that saw the gold market erase all of May’s losses by the end of the month. May 17th saw the largest one-day gains for gold since last year’s Brexit vote. Action was choppy in a tight range for the rest of the month. Gold jumped more than $10 an ounce on the last day of trading, to close out May right where it started, at $1,268.

Factors Affecting Gold This Month

If you had to name the largest influences on gold in May, you could sum it up in the phrase “Terror, Tories, and Trump”.

TERRORISM:  ATTACK ON BRITISH CHILDREN

The most shocking incident in May was the suicide bomb blast  in Manchester, England. There, children and young teens were deliberately targeted for murder. The bomber killed 22 people and wounded more. (Some of those, critically.)

As British authorities uncovered a pro-ISIS terrorist network in and around Manchester, they warned that another attack could be imminent. They believe that the attacker did not have the skills to make a suicide bomb, which meant the actual bombmaker was still at large. This news drove safe haven flight into gold.

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Recipe of the Week: Pizza Pasta, by Georgia Girl

Georgia’s Girl’s Pizza Pasta

Ingredients:

  • 3 c. hot water
  • 14 oz. jar of pizza sauce, using a little water with lid on to rinse out the last remaining sauce and add to pot
  • 2 (4 oz) cans mushrooms, drained
  • 2 1/4 c. pasta, such as elbows, spiral, etc. (Mueller’s brand only)
  • Add-ins, such as pepperoni, ground beef, onions, basil, Mrs. Dash, or other herbs and spices you prefer and Mozzarella cheese for topping, shredded is best

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Economics & Investing for Preppers

Here are the latest items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. Today we focus on counterparty risk in derivatives contracts. And most of the following items reflect the quirky “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of JWR. (SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor):


Commodities Economics:

Looking ahead, Nick Cunningham recently posted this forecast: Four Wildly Different Oil Price Scenarios For 2020

Forex:

On to foreign exchange (Forex) news: USD/CAD Continues Decline

Global Stocks and Bonds:

Moving on to the stock and bond markets, U.S. stocks hit an all-time high on Friday.  JWR’s Comment:  I’m definitely not in the Perma-Bull camp. What goes up must come down.  So… What will be the key warning to watch for? Any upcoming interest rate increases by the FOMC. (The Fed sets the Prime Rate, and  generally the Prime Rate sets the tone for the markets.)

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The Editors’ Quote Of The Day

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“The crowded transports of Task Force 53 arrived off Tarawa Atoll shortly after midnight on D-Day. Debarkation began at 0320. The captain of the Zeilin (APA 3) played the Marines Hymn over the public address system, and the sailors cheered as the 2d Battalion, 2d Marines, crawled over the side and down the cargo nets.

At this point, things started to go wrong. Admiral Hill discovered that the transports were in the wrong anchorage, masking some of the fire support ships, and directed them to shift immediately to the correct site. The landing craft bobbed along in the wake of the ships; some Marines had been halfway down the cargo nets when the ships abruptly weighed anchor. Matching the exact LVTs with their assigned assault teams in the darkness became haphazard. Choppy seas made cross-deck transfers between the small craft dangerous.

Few tactical plans survive the opening rounds of execution, particularly in amphibious operations. “The Plan” for D-Day at Betio established H-Hour for the assault waves at 0830. Strike aircraft from the fast carriers would initiate the action with a half-hour bombing raid at 0545. Then the fire support ships would bombard the island from close range for the ensuing 130 minutes. The planes would return for a final strafing run at H-minus-five, then shift to inland targets as the Marines stormed ashore. None of this went according to plan.

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Preparedness Notes for Sunday – June 04, 2017

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On this day in 1944 United States Navy Task Group 22.3 captured U-505. It was a German submarine with an intact Enigma cypher machine. This was the first time since the USS Peacock seized HMS Nautilus in 1815 that the USN had captured an enemy vessel at sea. The sub, reunited with its periscope a decade ago, is displayed at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

Note that we’ve improved the blog’s Search Box. We have also expanded our discussion guidelines. Please take a look before you post a comment. Thanks, – JWR

Homestead and Financial Ledger Books- Part 2, by S.T.

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We have been looking at the use and benefit of Homestead Ledger Books. In Part 1, we looked at documenting activities, items harvested, canned or dried, and items sold or orders received. We have looked at a possible scenario from January through September and left off at September after participating in the farmer’s market. Furthermore, let’s look at what activities we might record in our ledger for October.

October

In October, the family could take time to plan out the next year’s garden and locate free buckets. The buckets that could be used to expand the garden output by growing additional plants in these containers. The family could try to locate other containers to use for the plant starts for which we took orders. The children could log information into their own Homestead Financial Ledgers. They then plan out any future income producing projects they wanted to work on. This economics exercise could of course be part of homeschool. The children’s planning should include the items, material costs, sale price, profit, et cetera. They should locate and purchase the materials needed. Success as well as failure are lessons that need to be learned.

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Letter: Gaining Familiarity With Your Prepping Equipment

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Having basic camping supplies is a great insurance to have, just in case. It can be both camping and prepping equipment. Your tent, sleeping bag, outdoor cooking supplies, and forms of electricity-free entertainment, are all ripe for testing, as well. The last thing you want to do, in an emergency, is realize that there’s something you need and/or have overlooked. And testing your equipment doesn’t have to be a complicated ordeal. In my case, I had a friend invite me over for backyard camping, for their birthday. Great! So I brought my camping equipment in order to test it out.

My Tent Experiences

The tent was small, quick, and easy to assemble. You may decide to buy for comfort, or get a larger size, in order to accommodate a family. In my case, I decided that ease of set-up was what I was going for. It may be helpful to set up the tent without the anchoring spikes, so as to test how well it does without them. Next, I unrolled my sleeping bag and threw it in. I got everything done in about ten minutes or so.

But then, that night, I slept in the tent, and realized that I’d be much more comfortable with the addition of a few things – an inflatable pillow, and a camping lantern. So I subsequently bought them online. As for the lantern, I managed to find one that was powered by hand-cranking, and included both a lantern and radio.

Seeds

At home, you can gain familiarity with seed storage, by planting your seeds instead of just saving them. When you plant them in your garden, you get to see how quickly or slowly the plants develop, how much space they require, how hearty they are and what conditions they like best. A garden gives you the opportunity to figure out how to save seeds of your own, that you’ve harvested. There are many videos online, for the novice in this, and growing your own seeds often means that you’ll get a whole lot more than you’d get in a store, by simply buying seed packets. But the knowledge of how to save seeds will be much more valuable to you, in a crisis situation.

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The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

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SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods – a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “JWR”. Today’s focus is on Terrorism.

Terrorism

First, the eyes of the world are on England, which just suffered more Islamic terrorist attacks.  Please pray that the nation will display the same resolve on terrorism that they did in fighting Nazi aggression in World War II. See this article by John Moody, posted over at Fox News: London terror: Saturday attacks a tipping point in campaign to destroy the West

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More terrorism news, from Manila: “In a most bizarre explanation, local police and government officials insist a gunman carrying an assault rifle broke into Resorts World Manila from a parking lot entrance, fired at a TV screen, doused a gaming table with gasoline and set it on fire. He then proceeded to steal the equivalent of $2.3 million dollars in casino chips, break into the adjoining Maxims Hotel, and then burned himself alive...”

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