Prepare - Some Pretty Basic Stuff

[JohnyMac]

I was watching a video this morning on bushcraft and the below YT video popped up as a suggestion to watch. It was from a Glenn Beck radio show back on April 7, 2022. Anyway, although we are doing all of Beck's suggestions and I am sure most of you are doing the same, I thought it was worth posting here. This gives you the opportunity to double check your prepping strategy and success and to pass along to the less focuses friends and family. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIvCGooNbR4

[RB in GA]

Good basic info from Glenn.  I wish more people would listen to advice like that.  I especially liked the advice at the end for workers and self employed businessmen- about being reliable and trustworthy and going the extra mile. So very few people do that anymore. 
Recent personal experience.  I'm having to have a deck replaced.  I can't do it myself as it's 16' off the ground and this old boy ain't no good on ladders no more.  I called 5 contractors to give me a quote, all of them 4/5 stars or better rated by home advisor/Angi's List.
3 made appointments with me but never showed up. 1 gave me a good quote, but he kept pushing back the start date. After doing that 4 times, he reneged on the quote, going up by 2k.  (Needless to say, I told him "no thanks I'll find someone else"). It just about made me believe that no one under 50 understands the phrase "A man's word is his bond".
I finally found a guy (over 50) to do it, who, as far as I can tell, seems pretty honest.  In one of those odd coincidences, I took care of him while he was in the hospital for cancer surgery, so maybe turn about will be fair play. 

[JohnyMac]

RB 

Two winters ago I had ordered a cord of wood as I was short. He asked where I lived and I told him. He said, "well it will cost you an extra $20- for the cord as it 30-miles one way more than I normally make deliveries". I thought that was fair so we made arrangements for him to drop off two days hence.

We moved around a bunch of appointments to accommodate him. Well he never showed at the appointed time, between 0900 and 1100 hrs local. I called him worried that something may have happened. He did call me back however, he informed me that he had changed his mind and the additional 60-miles round trip was not worth the extra $20- he charged me.

I reminded him that we had an agreement. But apparently he did not understand that context. He said, "good-by" and hung up.

MrsMac reminded me that karma is a ugly handmaiden and it will come back to bit him. She is of course right however, I will not be around to see it bit him. 

[pkveazey]

Well, I watched the Glenn Beck Video. It was a bit tedious because I do or have already done about 98% of what he suggests. He didn't use the term MAG but it was clear that he is in favor of that. At the moment, My MAG is about 7 nearby families. When things get to the point that the problem is right in everybody's face, I plan to expand my MAG to include a lot more people in my neighborhood. When I talked to them, they certainly believed what I was saying but until they start to experience it up close and personal, they will have a bit of normalcy bias. When I built my house out here in the country in 1995, there were about 10 houses within a 1 mile radius. Damn! Now there must be 25 or 30 houses within that 1 mile radius. I feel like I'm living in a subdivision near a city. The nearest City is just short of 20 miles North and another 20 miles South. There are several small towns nearby. OK, to me its a town if it has a Post Office. One is 4 miles North, another is 4 miles South, another is 13 miles South, another is 13 miles West, and another is 17 miles East. OK, OK, the Court House is about 7 miles Southeast but there's not much there. Living just 2 road miles from the Interstate Highway and a Huge Truck Stop is a bit concerning though. The one thing that I think that helps our MAG is that we will know when the SHTF because it will hit those Cities first and then we will on our guard for the spread of problems out into our rural areas. I have made several mental benchmarks to watch out for. When everyone in my small MAG becomes fully aware that there is a problem, that's when I'll drag out a bunch more radios and start including more people into our MAG. I do have one rule. "If you don't have a gun and ammo, you don't get a Radio." Our Mag will be using MURS channels and the listening channel will be Channel 4 because Channel 4 and 5 are Wide Band FM. Channels 1, 2, and 3 are Narrow Band FM. There is nothing wrong with Narrow Band FM except that I've noticed  that its not as loud as Wide Band. That doesn't mean that we won't be using FRS also. I leave my tri-band radio in the scan mode most of the time and I do hear an occasional FRS signal nearby. Since the wife and I are the only HAMS and I have the 50 foot tower and HF capability, I guess I'm going to end up being the Communications HUB. I did a test Friday with my Daughter and I could communicate out to about 10 miles to her on MURS 4 and she was using a Bao Feng with a 1/4 wave mag mount on her pickup truck. I think that those using Rubber Ducks will be about 5 miles. I have no idea how far Rubber Duck to Rubber Duck will go. I'm guessing 2 or 3 miles. I think the FRS radios might be good for about 1 mile. We will see what we see when we see it.