A Radio Update

The new radios were returned to Radio Shack yesterday because then didn't hold a charge for very long. After sitting in the window all day, they ran for about 2 minutes. A good two minutes of cranking the handle yielded about two to three minutes of low volume playing. Needless to say, the boys weren't happy about the battery life. More importantly, Mommy and Daddy weren't happy with the battery life because they kept coming out of their rooms to have the radios recharged. I would rate these radios a one star out of five. They could have been rated higher, if they had a place for AA batteries...go figure.

Save your money and Keep Right On Prepping - K

Two is One Radio Day

Row had hijacked Sweetheart's radio that went downstairs in her office. Of course, Red Ant with Spikes wanted one too! For the loyal few that regularly read my blog, you might be wondering "Spikes?", I thought it was Pincers.

Red Ant with Spiked Thorax courtesy of bugnet

I was reviewing an old MRE post in which I asked him what he wanted to be called on the blog and he said "Red Ant with Spikes" so....

But back to the radio...I did a little on line research and found that Radio Shack actually had a few cheap Radios. How ironic huh? Anyways, we got there and they were running a September preparedness special on radios and for an added $7.00 we got the cool Eton Microlink FR160. I has a solar charger and hand crank on the side to charge the batteries. It also includes a flashlight and radio that is dial tuned.

The radios will be a good science lesson for the boys including:

• Mechanical and chemical energy
• Input and output of energy
• Which uses more power. A high volume radio or a low volume radio?
• How solar power works.
• Charging the battery on cloudy days with solar power versus sunny days.
• How a tuner in the radio works.

The biggest bonus is that it doesn't use any AA batteries, which means that if the boys leave it on all night, then it won't cost us a dime. The boys also get a real life lesson by cranking the handle. You get what you put into it. If you wanna give up, then you don't get many songs.

Both have a way to charge an Iphone. Plus, our family now has three little radios that don't require batteries.


Keep Right On Prepping - K

Privacy and Your Phone (OPSEC) - Part 1

 You can expect NO privacy on your phone. It is being recorded and stored.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/04/telephone-calls-recorded-fbi-boston

"BURNETT: Tim, is there any way, obviously, there is a voice mail they can try to get the phone companies to give that up at this point. It's not a voice mail. It's just a conversation. There's no way they actually can find out what happened, right, unless she tells them?
CLEMENTE: "No, there is a way. We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation. It's not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her. We certainly can find that out.
BURNETT: "So they can actually get that? People are saying, look, that is incredible.
CLEMENTE: "No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not.""

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm

You can expect the same monitoring on the internet too.

Maybe an old fashioned letter would be a more secure means of communication for sensitive information between group members.

Keep Right On Prepping - K

U-Verse Lessons

U-verse is currently reporting that 1% of their 47,000,000 customers are having connectivity issues. So 47,000 people, though I suspect that the total number is higher. Remember how BP initially lied about the flow rate of the oil from the Gulf spill? They want to gradually give you the truth in small increments. It makes it much more palatable. I digress...

One of my classmates is affected by the outage because he bundled his services through AT&T, which means no phone, no television, no internet. I suggested that he take his laptop to a hotspot and do his homework there. He doesn't have a laptop. While it's not a big issue, he has computers are that available on campus for schoolwork.

I did talk to a few IT guys today about the outage, and they assured me that it is NOT just a "server going down" like they are self reporting. They have redundant systems in place for just such scenarios. So what would cause spot outages? Cyber warfare, a demonstration perhaps? Their Wall Street earnings are being released this Thursday. I doubt it, but within the realms of possibility. The most likely cause is some new program that isn't "playing nice" with the other programs. Anyone heard of the Six Strikes? I've provided a link for the curious. I'm placing my bets on this reason.

So...how can all of this fit into prepping?  Communications. Do you have a laptop to find an active wi-fi hotspot? Various methods to gather information in a wider event? Radio, battery powered of course.

How would you gather information?

-Car radio, battery powered radio, newspaper,cell phones, and TV w/ antenna & digital converter are a few ways that we can do it at our household. Oh, and can't forget the rumor mill neighbors.

How would you send information to your spouse/children/retreat members?

Sadly, we have even fewer ways to send information. Cell phone and land line are the most common ways. We also have a preset gathering point for one of our retreat members with a communication system already discussed. A ham radio operator would be a big benefit to our group. CB radios in shorter distances would be another option, as well as handheld radios.

What are your ways to give/receive information? The comment board is open.

Keep Right On Prepping - K