[Phillip Beall]

All,

At the Club meeting Saturday (July 27, 2024) a member made a comment about us doing a “preparedness” presentation at a future Club meeting.  We will probably do one of those next year if I had to guess.  But to kind of prime the pump I thought I would pass along what I have recently considered some good reads.  So, what is “preparedness”?  I think it is entirely subjective and up to the individual, but here is kind of my view on at least some interesting reading on the topic.

When I launch Firefox with coffee each morning I load a slew of tabs.  Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Dallas Morning News and other news sites to keep my pulse on “What is happening in current events?”  As well as two “prepper” sites – Commander Zero “Notes From The Bunker” and Survival Blog.  Zero is a guy out in the Missoula, MT area and Survival Blog is run by John, Wesley Rawles (bio), an author that has had a number of survivalist themed novels published and who is in the “American Redoubt“.  Zero updates his site frequently, not daily but 2-3 times a week it seems, while the Rawles site is updated daily.  Both allow, even encourage, replies.

Last Thursday (July 25, 2024) Zero wrote about a huge wind storm – 109-MPH winds, followed up by Still not outta the woods and then More lessons.  I always at least scan his posts and the comments.  The comments are sometimes a little…harsh, but usually someone posts something quite entertaining.

The Survival Blog site posts guest articles.  They have contests for the submissions and people win prizes for what they submit.  Some quite nice prizes in fact.  Are all the submissions interesting to me?  No.  Are most of them?  Let’s say a lot of them are interesting.  Here – The Well-Rounded Prepper, by Cactus Jack – is a recent example of a simple, yet obviously very practical, “short story” type of submission on the subject, one which most would find at least a quick read.  Whether everyone would find it interesting or not I do not know, but based on the interest of at least our one member, perhaps.

In June there was a two part article on Survival Blog – Communications For a Dystopian Future – Part 1, by Tunnel Rabbit and Communications For a Dystopian Future – Part 2, by Tunnel Rabbit.  I had to laugh because one section includes a brief review of The Guerrilla’s Guide To The Baofeng Radio, by NC Scout.  LOL  I do not know how many Baofeng radios our ~60 Club members own, but a LOT if I had to guess.

So, if any of those details grab you, enjoy the reading.  If not, that’s fine,  we have a diverse group.  I look forward to future presentations on prepping, ranging from “How I am prepared for a natural disaster – comms, water, food and shelter.” to “Here is how I have set up a comms plan for my family to rendezvous with me if ‘the end of the world as we know it’ (TEOTWAWKI) occurs.”  Good stuff, huh?

Our forums currently have the following sections: Events, General Q&A, General Ragchew, Hardware (Buying? Selling? Questions), News, Educational – Graphics/Photos/Diagrams and Digital Knowledge.  Rick Leonhardt (NN7ET) and I are looking at enhancements to the “forums” area.  Improvements that should make them more fun, engaging and useful.  Just as a simple aside, should I add a new section called “Preparedness” or “Prepping” or something like that?  LOL

73

Phillip Beall (W5EBC)

[Cliff Leath]

Good idea. I saved those articles to read

[Author]

Posts