So, I am opening this subject, since I have not seen any disciplined approach to the subject. What happens with an errant meteor or that awkward emp goes off? Can electronics be protected? Does electronics have anything to offer for survivalist situations? Is there a disciplined field regarding this? Just wondering.
What little survivalist ranting I pay attention to seems to be authored by people who are lame, who know on some level that they are lame, who are desperately trying to convince themselves they are not lame, who dream of a world where they _really_ aren't lame compared to everyone else, and who understand at that previously mentioned deep level that such a world will only come about via some earth-shattering catastrophe.
So your best bet is to just convince yourself that whatever bit of electronic kit you want is going to get you more women after the disaster than you can get now by any means, and go buy it.
On a risk/benefit basis, you're probably much better off working to avoid the war that leads to the EMP, and supporting the space program to avoid the meteor, than you will be spending a bunch of money for whatever goods you imagine will carry you through.
(Having said that -- keeping enough food around to keep you going for a month, and water, too, if you don't have a decent well, is probably a good idea. Beyond that, you're back to needing to crank up Excel and doing a rational cost/benefit analysis.)
-- Tim Wescott Wescott Design Services http://www.wescottdesign.com
The US power grid could possibly go down for months. Earthquakes can happen almost anywhere in the USA. Not to mention meteors.
Some food, water, flashlights, battery radios, propane stoves (and maybe guns?) might be appropriate.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
The various national militaries have done a good deal of study about this issue... I imagine some of their results are open, while most are classified.
Older-technology electronics (glassFET, firebottle, thermionic valve, vaccum tube) is a good deal less fragile than our modern solid-state components. I've heard that this was one of the reasons that the Soviet Union stuck with tubed radio systems for as long as they did.
Most likely destructive scenario is a really big solar flare in the Carrington event class. UK ENgineering Institute did an analysis of the likely damage to todays society. Not good in North America...
Basically you are best off with paper maps than GPS.
Yes. For a price.
You should wear your tin foil hat at all times. It gives the guys in the black helicopters something to aim at.
-- Regards, Martin Brown
OK - a specific. There was a post in this group about lightning protection for antennas. In that vein, what about protection for that and any emp events. Doesn't it make sense to build in protection of that sort for automobile ignitions? I believe the emp is supposed to kill the computer on board the automobile, but cars built before 1975 will not have a problem. In that case, the fix would be to wire around the air mass unit - ignition system. Should be possible.
And , hey, I don't want to discuss politics, ok? It's just that, if it's easy to put together a survival kit - 6 months food, etc. - a good idea to do it.
John, were you in SF when the quake hit? What a circus.
j
no maybe about it.
In the 1989 earthquake here, people were amazingly friendly and helpful. I've seen the same thing after hurricanes. Things would have to get really grim before gunfire was called for.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
THe police were in control in 1989. I was getting on the freeway in my truck, and a guy was coming down the entrance the wrong way and crashed into me. He said that was his second accident this week, this one was with a borrowed car. However, the police were on the scene within minutes. But I think you could have a scene like Watts or Detroit. "Hope for the best, plan for the worst."
You should see how the ladies flock to me when I wear my bluetooth headset.
The people pulling victims out of the Cypress structure lived in the part of town where if you get a red light you don't stop.
The bay area didn't go Mad Max, but this tends to be an area of enlightened liberals.
If you go camping, you are 90% of the way there. Stove, tent, battery powered lights, etc. I have a number of 6 gallon water containers.
I keep water and Clif bars in the car. That gives me a stash for hiking, and if we get a bad quake and I'm stuck there for a while, at least I have something to eat. Odds are you are not going to be caught in the rubble, but think of all the overpasses you take to get from point A to point B. Odds are you won't be moving much when the big one hits.
I spent 90 minutes once on the San Mateo bridge due to an accident shutting it down. I was getting to the point where I was going to empty a bottled water contains and er um reuse it.
Try it in NOLA, NYC, LA, Detroit, or some other places where "enlightened liberals" live.
I went through several hurricanes in NOLA, including the monster Betsy that passed directly overhead and shut down the city for a couple of weeks. I was down there just after Katrina, too.
People were great, neighbors looking out for neighbors. After Katrina, there was a gas station near my nephew's house. If you stopped and rolled down your window, someone would start shoving in MREs. He liked them, and must have had 100 in his house.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
How many of them are full with fresh potable water?
We kept fresh water and some dry food when living in Japan after being woken up by our first moderately violent earthquake and realising we had no idea what to do (so we put the TV on and had a cup of tea). NHK TV shows tsunami warnings within about 5 minutes of the event.
In the UK it would be considered eccentric in the extreme to take such measures (the biggest earthquake here in recorded history was 6 off shore) and although 6.5 is theoretically possible the worst are ~5 and so infrequent and localised that most people ignore them entirely.
It is potable water that is critical to survival. You can last a long time without food but only a very short time without drinking water.
Not a good idea to recycle it after that unless you have a very high quality still. And in a desert you might not have that luxury.
Avoid DAB radios - they eat batteries and are pretty useless anyway!
-- Regards, Martin Brown
Yes - potable water. There are some filters which use activated charcoal - plus silver/copper. These are probably the most useful, though don't know if they would recycle urine. A piece of copper kills all bacterialike nothing else.
THere is something about reverse osmosis I don't understand - if it works on static pressure difference, then you just pump it up and wait...?
jb
Does electronics have anything to offer for survivalist situations?
The reason that Russians survived the collapse of their country in 87 is they were prepared, because they didn't have much faith in he leftist government to save them. Another big reason was that transportation, housing, electricity were free and remained in place. The US is much more precarious: a clueless citizenry and no safety net. Orlovsky, a Russian who lived through it, says this. His book informative.
they were prepared, because they didn't have much faith in he leftist gove rnment to save them. Another big reason was that transportation, housing, e lectricity were free and remained in place.
But the main reason that they survived the "collapse of their country in 19
87" was that it didn't happen then. The political processes that led to the unravelling of the Communist Party control of the Soviet Union did get und erway then, but the exciting bits didn't happen until August 1991, and ende d on the 26th Deecember 1991.It was largely a political process - the administrative system seems to hav e kept on working. Russians started drinking themselves to death in larger numbers over the next few years, and they don't have any trouble getting ho ld of the distilled spirits they needed to do this.
If haitic is a representative example, they are remarkably clueless.
.Maybe you should read it more carefully, and cross-check it against other d ata sources.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
In the event of a major disastor and you are prepared, say you have water and food. But most others don't, so I am quite sure it's not going to be long before your are in deep trouble
Cheers
Klaus
A wise man of realism and knowledge of history.
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