It has been another week. What did you accomplish in the last seven days to help prepare yourself and your family for the imminently sporty climate?
Whatever you did, feel free to share. Specifically, I'd like to know if you got some face time with your closest local allies. Is that something you even do on a weekly basis, or are you comfortable with once per month? Some other schedule? It doesn't even have to revolve around training when you get together - it can be simply a meal and getting to know one another better. Obviously, do not share any secret squirrel stuff.
I hope everyone remembers that success or failure in the upcoming ugliness will probably not be measured in body counts for you locally. Are you preparing to keep the power on for your neighbors, not simply researching how to turn it off? Are you stockpiled with the gear you'll need to keep the water flowing from taps and through toilets, not merely shutting it off? Are you putting together the ability to feed and clothe your neighbors who have not prepped as they should? Many of these efforts will win more battles than even large ditches filled with Marxist waste.
No matter what last week turned out to be for you - do more this week.
Work smart.
Enemies of Liberty are ruthless. To own your Liberty, you'd better come harder than your enemies..
Last seven days? Hmmm, lessee. I installed and put on line a solar energy system. Spent 4 hours on the range doing live fire close quarter pistol drills. Laid out a 300 yard rifle training range.
ReplyDeleteAny of that count? :-)
That's exactly the sort of thing that counts - and will count for exponentially more when 'It' happens.
DeleteHey Alan,
DeleteDid you use a kitted system or piece one together with what you actually needed?
It was a pieced thing. Really simple. Not big. Just looking to keep the video surveillance and a computer up. :-)
DeleteThis has been a very productive week in more ways than one.
ReplyDeleteMade contact with neighbor behind me after complimenting their garden sprinkler system. They also have a garden area roughly the size of mine and were very informative with tips for watering. They had just harvested some artichokes and passed a few over the fence. It's a good start.
I got my irrigation lines down and hooked up to a digital timer so when I am at my BOL my plants won't die.
Purchased a used Condor chest rig off of Craigslist that had G3 mag pouches hanging off the front of sewn in M4/AK pouches. I will use the G3 pouches on my Warrior Assault Systems chest rig and the Condor as a spare AK rig.
Well, continued working on the move to the BOL.
ReplyDeleteWorked on the electrical at the BOL.
Moved 500 plus feet of cattle panels for the new hog pen to the BOL.
Dispatched the remainder of the chicken flock, cleaned out the coop, and got it ready to move (it was built on metal skids so we could move it.)
Spent a day with Tribe eating good food, visiting, and enjoying not doing anything.
Miss Violet
We have a rotating schedule of focus areas...each typically lasts two to four weeks - this cycle the focus is on Communications (last one was 'spring cleaning' of our food pantry - doing a hard inventory of stores, donating items that were going to expire, and rearranging our supplies to optimize storage space).
ReplyDeleteSince I'm a primary for comms, I've been checking all our gear to verify that its still in functional condition. This means pulling out field gear, setting it up, and talking on it - antennas, coax, radios and their batteries, field laptops for data connectivity, etc. all get put through their paces. And, since we'll have it all out and running, we'll do a refresher class for everyone in our group on using the gear.
It's also when we look at our changing needs and requirements, and consider purchasing new equipment, whether to supplement existing facilities, or to replace equipment which is BER or no longer satisfies requirements. (BER = Beyond Economic Repair. Having an item which is BER doesn't automatically trigger replacement of that item, but it *does* trigger our budgetary system to start reserving money to replace the item).
Our primary radio room has 3 HF transceivers and 5 HF receivers, plus multiple VHF and UHF transceivers for voice and data, plus 925Mhz voice and data gear, 2.4Gig-WiFi extenders for point-to-point data links, and half a dozen scanners - all running 24/7 on a bank of RV batteries.
Primary charging of the RV batteries comes from a pair of 260-watt solar panels and a Tri-Star charge-controller, with the [occasional] deficit in our solar power-budget made up for by "shore power" - a golf-cart battery charger plugged into the utility mains (or can be plugged into one of our generators).
At our permanent location, we have over a dozen HF antennas, and just over two dozen for VHF/UHF, 902Mhz, and 2.4Ghz-Wifi, with just over a mile of coax tying it all together, and it all gets annual inspection to prevent undetected failures - so there's a lot to do outside before the summer heat sets in.
So far I've replaced two runs of RG8X coax, and taken down an EWE antenna, which we're going to replace this weekend with an end-fire array based on Dallas Lankford's improvements to the 'Waller Flag' antenna design.
The new "Lankford Loop array" will give us substantially improved receive capabilities between 100Khz and 500Khz (an area of increasing interest for our group's monitoring efforts) as well as substantially enhancing our reception on the 160 and 80 meter ham bands (and everything inbetween).
This array of loops consists of 1120 feet of #14 THHN (stranded, not solid) wire, to be hung as three loops, each 63X125 feet in size. Including the spacing between the loops, the total length of the array is 450 feet, and the top-height is 75 feet above ground (so the bottom wires are 12' above ground). Each of the three loops in the array will be fed by a 330 foot run of RG6 coax (cable TV coax) - so between the ~1200 ft of #14, the 1000 feet of coax, and other assorted materials, we're investing about $350 in this project. But our increased monitoring capabilities will be invaluable in maintaining situational awareness in the days ahead.
Remember - receiving is 10X as important as transmitting. This rule should guide your investment in equipment, and particularly in your antennas...
I am building inexpensive portable solar power stations for my neighbors that, should they want to buy one they can. So far no takers, so I will just stockpile them till the time comes...LET THE BARTERING BEGIN !
ReplyDelete