So, I last wrote about a new portable Ham radio station. I tuned the hamsticks, but never utilized them until I activated the State Park. That is right, I had a successful activation. 24 contacts in less than an hour, 5 were park to park, and I even got a Canadian station. This was done on 20 watts. Inside the power box was the battery, the radio and the tuner. Outside was the ~5 foot mast and the dipole mount. Setting this portable kit is far more portable than my last kit I did on field day. That kit was a 3 drawer tool box with all sorts of gizmos. The difference between the the 2 is ease of transport and ease of setting up.
I have said before that communications in a long-term scenario would become very important. I believe that it would show when trying to build a community or even a trade station. I think of it as the evolution of history when telegraph became a thing. It revolutionized the way information was passed and allowed for communication before actually arriving at a specific place. That being said, you could still do that through post, but I feel that that would be relatively unreliable post-apocalypse, unless Kevin Costner was their to be The Postman.
Anyhow, I had my county’s Emergency Coordinator with me for this POTA activation. He was really impressed on how well this little portable set-up was really doing. 500 mile contacts with a regular 57 to 59 signal report. This was pretty good considering the antenna was 5 ft up and that was the center point of the vertical dipole. 1 big thing I messed up on was the time of my POTA activation. I miscalculated the difference between local time and UTC time, by 2 hours. Be advised, though. When activating a park for POTA, spot yourself on their website. It allows people to know where to find you.
Back to the food prep additions, we had pulled $200 for spending money during our camping trip. We didn’t use most of it. When we got home, we saw our local grocery store was doing another truckload sale. We ordered 40 #’s of chicken breast which was $60, this price had gone up. 10 #’s of bacon at $35, which is lower than the last few times, and 20 #’s of ground beef (2 10 #’s at $20/piece.) This came out to $135. I also got more canning jars, which were probably a little more expensive than I needed to pay, but they were right there. They were $13.99 for a 12 pack of quarts. When I was at wal-mart, I believe they were cheaper, but there wasn’t many available the last time I saw them.
Now we have another 60#’s of meat to store (the bacon is for normal use.) That will be a very nice addition to our current stores. Chicken, ground beef, sausage, cubed beef and pork stores. On top of that, we have pigs to butcher coming up in about a month, so there is that as well. That will probably be a lot of canning coming up. Now we will have to get more jars.
Just be aware of the changing times, the evolution of covid-19, the political climate, the news narrative and the safety and well-being of your family. After all, that is why we do the things, prep for the worst and hope for the best. We are our families best insurance policy to surviving whatever may come next. Besides, having food stored helps if something as simple as getting let go from work happens. It is hard, usually terrifying, but knowing the little ones won’t be starving in the meantime will put a lot of ease on life at that point. Stay safe and be prepared. Get more prepared when you can. Learn the things, and do the things.
Cogito Aprendo Prepping and Views 