Tap-O-Cap Reborn

It looks like the same folks who came out a couple years ago with a .22LR reloading tool set have introduced a tool to make #11 caps.

http://sharpshooter-22lr-reloader.myshopify.com/products/11-percussion-cap-maker

Thought I'd pass this along since every so often somebody brings up the old Tap-O-Cap. I have no connection with the company.

Free Book Download from Sparks 31

I've been following Sparks 31's blog for awhile now, and bought his book Communications for 3%ers and Survivalists. He's decided to make the full text of that book and his other tome, The Modern Survivalist available as one PDF, for free.

https://sparks31.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/free-book-download/

It's worth a gander.

Survivor Library

This site has a ton of old books on everything from farming to Boy Scout manuals, engineering, chemistry, education, and radio. They can be downloaded as PDFs or ePub files.

http://www.survivorlibrary.com

More on Linked Repeater Systems

The other day I posted about the University of Pennsylvania’s N3KZ linked repeater system. Penn’s system is far from unique, even in PA. Going to Repeaterbook.com lets you find the linked repeater systems for your state.

Incidentally, Repeaterbook has a nice app for both Android and iThingies that will let you look up nearby repeaters, even if you do not have a data connection on your phone or tablet.

As I mentioned earlier linked repeaters are not a full substitute for an HF rig and NVIS, but they may be a useful tool in the event of an emergency. Many repeaters have emergency power, and many of us live within range of multiple repeaters. For example, from my home, I can directly hit two N3KZ repeaters which are geographically dispersed. The closest one is in the Roxborough neighborhood in Philadelphia, while the other one is near Robesonia, in Lebanon County. They are about 30 miles apart. I’m also able to hit repeaters in AllStar and WAN networks. Some repeaters may be linked to more than one link network. E.g., W3WAN in Roxborough is connected to both the AllStar and WAN networks.

Linking is done largely over the Internet. If it’s full-blown  TEOTWAWKI obviously you cannot depend on the ‘net. However, in a lot of SHTF situations you can. For example, on 9/11/01 I was able to communicate with family members on Long Island via AOL Instant Messenger even when phone lines into the NYC metro area were unusable.

In an emergency a lot of communications are done by hams over VHF and UHF. If you have a VHF/UHF rig, I encourage you to program as many nearby repeaters into is as possible, especially if they are linked.

Near-Miss by Carrington-Class CME in 2012

You may have seen recently in the news stories about a coronal mass ejection (CME) that narrowly missed the Earth in 2012. It apparently was at least as big as the CME which caused the Carrington Event in 1859, the largest CME on record, and twice as strong as the CME that caused massive power outages in Quebec in 1989.

NASA has also provided a nice video explaining the storm:

Carrington-class CME narrowly misses Earth

According to the NASA article, there’s a 12% chance that we could experience another bit hit in the next decade. (Or if you prefer a more optimistic view, there’s an 88% chance it won’t happen.)

If we’d been hit by the 2012 Solar Storm, the damage would have been far more severe than some fires started at telegraph stations. It’s likely that extensive sections of the power grid would have been brought down and we’d still be recovering from the hit. This would be a true TEOTWAWKI event. Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing that’s really difficult to prep for, unless you’re Amish.