All of us here know the many reasons to always have our preps ready. In the coming months we will need this board to assist each other in maintaining our food pantry and being more self-sufficient. I am concerned about the weather changes and the effect it will have on many of us in the future. There are many ideas still floating around and many discoveries to be made. Example: Taz how is that manual food chopper you bought at Big Lots working? One more item that we don't need the grid for if Taz has a good report.

-- carol (glear@usa.net), January 02, 2000

Answers

Absolutely...I'll look forward to it.

The time to prepare is not during the storm, it's the time between them. We're just barely into this one and won't know how it turns out for quite some time. I'll be continuing to refine my preps for the balance of the year (at least). In July '98 I recommitted myself to getting preps back up to snuff and still have a ways to go.

Some of the things on my list:

- Get another large tackle box to expand my "first-aid" kit. Specifically I's like to have a box with expanded quantities of the bandaging materials and other expendables from my primary kit. Also need to find a better source for medical materials. Need bags of saline solution for field flushing of wounds.

- Improving communications. Need to buy and install some newer and better antennae for my various radios (ham, scanning, FRS, CB, shortwave) and look into an FRS reapeater system for our valley.

- Expand and improve my renewable energy system. Various things like a new and larger set of batteries, a new peak power point tracking charge controller, more PV panels, build a panel tracking system. Maybe mount most of the system on a trailer.

- Better NBC gear. Look for cheap sources of C2A1 40mm filters, better tyvek suits, build a remote blower/filter mount, Get some Rifampin and Chloramphenicol. Find a source for envirochem.

Lots of stuff to keep this boy busy eve if it's clear sailing (which I don't consider likely).

-- Don Kulha (dkulha@vom.com), January 02, 2000.

Carol, I absolutely agree with you. I've been prepping for twenty-four years, I guess, insofar as I've been inventing and utilizing lots of alternativee energy products. Not only do they save me a lot of money; they also allow me to feel good about how I am treating Mother Earth.

In addition, I can take LOOOOOOOOOOONG HOOOOOOOT showers--free of cost--both monetary and environmental.

Obviously too, there will always be "winter storms", and floods, and earthquakes.

One cool thing that I can thank y2k for is that six of my neighbors, my wife, and I only have one more class, then we'll be CERT certified. (Citizens Emergency Preparedness Team)

Maybe we can use the forum to help and encourage each other to get trained to help ourselves and others, and to use environmentally friendly and reliable energy sources.

-- jumpoff joe a.k.a. Al K. Lloyd (jumpoff@ekoweb.net), January 02, 2000.

I agree carol! I am searching good sites on gardening since this will be coming up for prep in a few months. I intend to use the seeds I bought and have a beautiful & bountiful garden this year (I haven't done this in years though). I need to know all the latest and greatest techniques. This is an altered lifestyle we are talking about here, not a flash in the pan 'event driven' change. So please share and I will check all my old and new info and be glad to share with others and answer questions where I can ;-)

-- Sammie (sammiex0@yahoo.com), January 02, 2000.

Don said: < - Better NBC gear. Look for cheap sources of C2A1 40mm filters, better tyvek suits, build a remote blower/filter mount, Get some Rifampin and Chloramphenicol. Find a source for envirochem. >

What's NBC gear? What's a C2A1 40mm filter? What's a tyvek suit? (Isn't Tybek what we wrap buildings with?) What's Rifampin? (an antibiotic?) What is Chloramphenicol? What is envirochem?

Thanks, Don (are you the editor/owner of that solar power magazine?

-- jumpoff joe a.k.a. Al K. Lloyd (jumpoff@ekoweb.net), January 02, 2000.

Absolutely! And I shall continue to represent the less ambitious "urban homesteader"!

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), January 02, 2000.

and one who played dead[lurker] will be "born again" ever vigilant...but ready to use time to promote tribe [community] willing to share new adventure; new year;new friends in my town,and on internet.

-- tso (bestrong@cmc.net), January 02, 2000.

True repeaters are illegal for FRS, as well as impossible to use due to the inability to have separate transmit and receive frequencies.

However, I'd urge you to look into GMRS. In addition to allowing up to fifty watts output, and legal (and practical) repeater use, it has seven "interstitial" channels. The interstitials are the same chanels as FRS channels 1-7.

There are three restrictions on GMRS interstitial use: you can't use greater than five watts on an interstitial channel, you can't have a base station antenna over 20 feet higher than the building it's on, and you can't use a repeater.

But, five watts is a *lot* more than the half watt used by FRS, and a 20' base station antenna will carry a signal a lot further than a three inch antenna on an HT. And, you *can* use your base station to legally talk to FRS users.

One more recent benefit -- just about a year ago, the FCC reformed GMRS licensing procedures.

Before that, getting a license was frequently an exercise in futility. You had to pick a *maximum* of *two* channels for your license, you had to specify technical details of each radio, you had to give precise lat/long coordinates for each antenna, and on and on and on. A great many applications were denied, and returned without explanation, meaning that after waiting for months, you'd have to start from scratch, without a clue as to what went wrong.

Now, it's a simple two page affair that essentially asks for name, address, SSN, and phone number. And, you can *also* fill out a one page temporary license -- which you *don't* send in -- and use it to be on the air the same day you send in your license application.

Another great part of the reform makes it legal for your relatives to use your equipment (they define "relatives", it boils down to immediate family and inlaws). Prior to the reform, the same relatives could use your radios, but *only* if they resided at *your* address!

There's an excellent GMRS resource here.

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), January 03, 2000.

Don, please list those sources when you find them.

I, too, have a lot of things to do/add.

-- de (delewis@inetone.net), January 04, 2000.

What the heck are Rifampin, Chloramphenicol, and envirochem? And where do you get them?

-- Shimrod (shimrod@lycosmail.com), January 04, 2000.