The Right Circuit Turns Doppler Module into a Sensor

Can you buy a working radar module for $12? As it turns out, you can. But can you make it output useful information? According to [Mathieu], the answer is also yes, but only if you ignore the datasheet circuit and build this amplification circuit for your dirt cheap Doppler module.

The module in question is a CDM324 24-GHz board that’s currently listing for $12 on Amazon. It’s the K-band cousin of the X-band HB100 used by [Mathieu] in a project we covered a few years back, but thanks to the shorter wavelength the module is much smaller — just an inch square. [Mathieu] discovered that the new module suffered from the same misleading amplifier circuit in the datasheet. After making some adjustments, a two-stage amp was designed and executed on a board that piggybacks on the module with a 3D-printed bracket.

Frequency output is proportional to the velocity of the detected object; the maximum speed for the sensor is only 14.5 mph (22.7 km/h), so don’t expect to be tracking anything too fast. Nevertheless, this could be a handy sensor, and it’s definitely a solid lesson in design. Still, if your tastes run more toward using this module on the 1.25-cm ham band, have a look at this HB100-based 3-cm band radio.

Filed under: misc hacks, radio hacks

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Real World RF Filter Design and Construction

We bet when [devttyS0] made his latest video about RF filter design (YouTube, embedded below)vi, he had the old saying in mind: in theory, there’s no different between theory and practice, but in practice, there is. He starts out pointing how now modern tools will make designing and simulating any kind of filter easy, but the trick is to actually build it in real life and get the same performance. You can see the video below.

One of the culprits, of course, is we tend to design and simulate with perfect components. Wires have zero resistance, capacitance, and inductance. Inductors and capacitance have no parasitic elements in our rosy design world. Even the values of components will vary from their ideal values and may change over time.

Because of that, [devttyS0] uses trimmer capacitors in the resonant part of the circuit. That way you can tune to account for circuit variances. That’s not the only practical advice offered. Need a small capacitor? Twist some wire together (a trick we’ve heard called a “gimmick capacitor”).

If you’ve been enjoying [Elliot Williams’] posts about filters, you’ll see there is a lot of difference between active audio filters and passive RF filters, although some of the ideas are the same. Watching the effect different circuit tweaks have in real time on a spectrum analyzer is very instructive. You’ll even see the effect of using shielding to separate the filter sections. If you really want to dive into RF design, you could do worse than watch these videos from [Michael Ossmann], too.

Filed under: radio hacks

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Vintage Transistor powers QRP Transmitter

[Pete Juliano, N6QW] built a 20 M QRP CW transmitter using just a handful of parts. That in itself will not raise any eyebrows, until you find that he built it using one of the very first RF transistors manufactured all the way back in 1955. That’s from before the time most of us were born and not many years after the invention of the transistor in late 1947.

QRP in HAM-speak technically stands for a request to “reduce power” or an offer of “should I reduce power” when appended with a question mark. A QRP transmitter is designed to transmit at really low powers. The accepted upper power limit for QRP transmitters is 5 W, at least for modes like CW using FM or AM modulation. [Pete]’s interest was piqued when he read about a 10 mW 10 M QRP transmitter design in a vintage Radio magazine from the late ’50’s and decided to replicate it. We aren’t sure, but it appears he had a Philco SB-100 RF transistor lying around in his parts bin. The SB-100 was one of the first surface-barrier transistors and could output 10 mW at frequencies up to 30MHz.

[Pete]’s rig was originally putting out 0.4 mW with a 3 V supply, and oscillating at 14.060 MHz in the 20 M band. The design appears to be a simple Colpitts oscillator with just a few parts assembled in dead-bug style on a piece of copper clad laminate. After adding an output transformer, he managed to increase the power output to about 25 mW. Check out [Pete N6QW] sending out a CQ shout out from his QRP transmitter in the video after the break.

If this gets you interested in Amateur Radio, but you are mic-shy, then [Dan Maloney] has some options for you in Shut Up and Say Something: Amateur Radio Digital Modes.

SBF image via Historianbuff CC-BY-SA 3.0, Public Domain
[via Dangerous Prototypes]

Filed under: radio hacks

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Colt Mark IV Series 70 Review

by Nicholas

Even those who aren’t familiar with guns should at least have heard of the 1911 before.  It’s one of the most popular and classic handguns of all time, and while there are many variations of the 1911 produced, perhaps the most iconic one of all is the G.I-style of M1911A1 that was used by American soldiers in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.

The G.I style of M1911A1 is notable for its short trigger, arched mainspring housing, small sights, short thumb safety, and small grip safety.  This is exactly what the Colt Mark VI Series 70 is: an almost identical replica of the original M1911A1 inside and out.  It’s not the most modern looking 1911 by any means, but it is easily the most classic.

Note the use of the term ‘almost identical’ replica instead of ‘identical.’  There are a few minor differences between the original M1911A1 and the Series 70.  To understand what these differences are, we need to go over the history of the two firearms.

HISTORY OF THE SERIES 70

Colt had been producing the M1911A1 for the military for many years when they decided to release it to civilians under the name the Colt Government Model.  To improve accuracy on the Government Model, Colt eventually modified the barrel bushing, and the new pistol was deemed the Colt Government Model Mark IV Series 70.

The Series 70 is also available in blued or stainless steel, in contrast to the M1911A1 that was produced in a dull gray parkerized finish.  The thumb safety is also slightly longer on the Series 70 as well, whereas it is distinctively shorter on the M1911A1.  The markings between the two pistols are also obviously different, although they both sport the Colt name and logo.

SERIES 70 VS. SERIES 80

The Series 70 is also different from the Series 80 1911, which are far more popular today, as well.  The Series 80 is simply a 1911 that’s has been installed with an internal firing pin block system.  It’s possible for a Series 70 to fire on its when dropped or thrown against a solid surface, but the firing pin block on the Series 80 prevents this.

One may wonder why you should buy a Series 70 if the 80 is the safer gun; the answer is that the firing pin increases the weight of the trigger pull on the Series 80.  One of the biggest appeals about the 1911 in general is its light and crisp trigger, and while the trigger on the Series 80 is by no means bad, it is definitely more pleasurable to shoot on the Series 70.  Furthermore, with more parts in the gun, there is also a slightly greater possibility for the Series 80 to have a breakage than the Series 70. In this regard, the Series 70 is regarded by some fans of the 1911 as the ‘original’ 1911 firing system, and is why it is still in production.

The outside features of the Series 70 and Series 80s have no difference whatsoever.  Even though Series 70s ship with an arched mainspring and short trigger, and Series 80 with a flat mainspring and long trigger like the original M1911, the two can be customized vice versa.  The only difference, therefore, is in the design of the internal safety system.

AESTHETICS

As mentioned above, the Mark IV Series 70 is available in either a blued or stainless steel finish.  While blued may look like a more classic finish, there’s no denying that stainless steel is the more rust and corrosion resistant finish.  If you’re going to be using your Series 70 as a range gun and will simply keep it in your safe, go with what you prefer, but if you plan on using your pistol as a duty, hunting, or SHTF sidearm, you should strongly consider the stainless over the bluing.

One interesting thing of note on the Series 70 is how while the finish is polished on the side of the gun, it is a duller matte finish on the top of the slide and on the bottom side of the frame.  This holds true for both the blued and the stainless steeled variations of the gun.

The Series 70 ships with beautiful rosewood grips, for both the blued and stainless versions, but these can be easily swapped out for any grips of your choosing.  The grips on this particular Series 70 have been swapped out for ones with the nickel Colt logo in the middle.

SIGHTS

One of the letdowns on the Series 70, however, is the sights.  They’re simply small black sights without white dots, and as a result, can be difficult to line up naturally.  If you’re planning on doing some extensive shooting with your Series 70, you may be wise to consider having the sights swapped out with ones that are larger or more visible.

 

SHOOTING

As with any 1911, shooting the Series 70 is a blast.  1911s are heavy, all-steel pistols, and this helps to dramatically soften the recoil of the powerful .45 ACP round.  As a result, new shooters should not fear firing the Series 70.

The Series 70 is also very well balanced and thanks to the design of the grip, it points very naturally in the hand.  This pistol is equally as fun to simply weigh in your hand as it is to fire it on the range.

Accuracy on the Series 70 is excellent for a variety of reasons: the natural point of aim, fine balance, soft recoil, light trigger pull, and the fixed barrel design (in contrast to the tilting barrel of more modern pistols).

Reliability on the Series 70 is also excellent.  Most 1911s need a break-in period in order to begin functioning reliably; in the 250 round break-in period of this particular Series 70, only one malfunction was encountered.  Afterwards, the pistol has functioned absolutely flawlessly.

Last but not least, the Series 70 is also a very smooth weapon.  Everything about it from racking the slide to pulling the trigger can be done without any grit encountered whatsoever.

CONCLUSION

All in all, the Series 70 is a very faithful reproduction of the original M1911A1 while also delivering on build quality, durability, reliability, and accuracy.  Not only will it be a fun range gun, but it’s also suitable for home defense or as a sidearm in a survival situation.

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Lucid Dreaming | Lucid dreams feel fake

Hi everyone,

after listening to some Sensei audio I've returned to Dreamviews! However, with that also comes a question that's been on my mind for quite some time now.

I've had a fair few lucid dreams. I've had those where you realize you're dreaming and almost instantly woke up, but far more commonly I get dreams where I very quickly lose lucidity or it feels like even though I think I'm still lucid, I barely have any conscious control over my decisions. Surprisingly I can generally control my dreams very well, but what I do in them feels like it's my brain pretending I'm lucid dreaming. Like I'm watching a VR movie in first person, or like I'm lucid dreaming while in a half sleeping state.

Note that I don't mean I'm losing lucidity (although that tends to happen sooner or later too. Maybe this whole thing is just the early stages of losing lucidity in the dream for me) but it feels like while I'm still lucid, I'm making decisions on autopilot. I'll sort of know I'm dreaming but not feel like I am consciously in control.

Will this feeling pass with practice? The lucid dreams I've had so far were all short and quite muddled, but super interesting. I know duration and vividness increase over time with practice, but I wanted to ask the people here if they've had any experiences like this and if the quality of their dreams picked up after more practice.

Cheers.

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Shut Up and Say Something: Amateur Radio Digital Modes

In a recent article, I lamented my distaste for carrying on the classic amateur radio conversation — calling CQ, having someone from far away or around the block call back, exchange call signs and signal reports and perhaps a few pleasantries. I think the idle chit-chat is a big turn-off to a lot of folks who would otherwise be interested in the World’s Greatest Hobby™, but thankfully there are plenty of ways for the mic-shy to get on the air. So as a public service I’d like to go over some of the many digital modes amateur radio offers as a way to avoid talking while still communicating.

Of Modes and Modulations

Hams speak in terms of modes and modulations when describing their radio transmissions. The difference between the two terms is mostly not important to our discussion, though, and in practice a lot of hams use the terms interchangeably. But for completeness, modulation is a way of impressing information on a radio wave, and a mode is a way of using a modulation to communicate. Modulation schemes include amplitude modulation (AM), frequency modulation (FM), and single sideband modulation (SSB). Modes include continuous wave (CW), analog voice, digital voice, images, and data.

The digital modes I want to discuss are the ones where you can easily sit down at a keyboard and have your message appear magically on another ham’s terminal across the world. I’m not going to cover CW as a data mode here, even though it clearly was the first and is arguably the most successful digital data mode ever. International Morse Code has been going strong for 140 years, and with the many advantages of CW modulation it’s likely to remain a powerful tool for as long as people care to learn their dits and dahs.  Yes, there are applications that will translate keystrokes to Morse and back, but that just feels like cheating.

Equipment

Those of us with long enough memories will recall the early days of the interwebz, when dial-up connections were the only way to get online. The sound of a modem dialing Compuserve or AOL and negotiating a connection was the soundtrack of the pre-Internet days. The modem was modulating the data signals from your computer into audio tones that would fit down the analog phone line, and demodulating the returning audio signals. All ham radio data modes basically boil down to this same process — with the addition of a little outboard equipment, data from your computer is turned into audio tones that are fed to your transmitter, and audio from your receiver is decoded back into data.

In a lot of cases, the extra equipment required to tap into most data modes these days is minimal. There was a time when special converters were needed, but with a powerful DSP built into every computer sound card, pretty much any PC will do. Many ham transceivers now have sound cards built in, too, so sometimes all you need is a USB cable and the right software. FL-Digi is a popular package that supports most of the popular digital modes, provides a waterfall display that lets you easily visualize a huge swath of bands, and even controls your rig, tuning it to the selected frequency and keying the transmitter when needed.

Data Modes

There is a bewildering number of data modes out there, and cruising through the HF bands at night can sound a little spooky. The warbling tones that seem to drift across the bands as the ionosphere does its nightly dance are a little eerie. The audio signature of each data mode is pretty distinctive, and experienced practitioners can pick out the mode just by the sound, or maybe with a little help from its appearance on the waterfall display. Noobs can get help with identifying the modes from any number of websites, or can rely on their software package to autodetect the mode.

Which mode to choose is largely a function of what is going to work best under the given conditions. Unlike modems connected by a telephone line, the physical medium in ham data modes is subject to a lot more potential for interference, both natural and man-made. Signals can be interrupted by crashes of static from electrical storms, two signals can arrive by different paths and suffer phasing problems, or the signal strength can be so low as to be barely above the noise floor. Any useful data mode has to take these vagaries into account, and some do a better job of dealing with one set of conditions than another.

Here’s a run-down of the major data modes you’ll run across and the relative benefits of each:

RTTY

Radioteletype, or “ritty” as hams call it, is the original digital data mode. It dates back almost as far as commercial radio does, with the first RTTY service established between San Francisco and Honolulu in 1932. Then as now, RTTY uses the 5-bit Baudot code to encode each character. The simplest modulation scheme for RTTY is audio frequency-shift keying (ASFK) with a 170Hz difference between the mark and the space bits. This results in a whopping 45-baud connection (you’ll notice that most ham digital modes tend to be on the low side with regard to throughput thanks to the limited bandwidths available at the relatively low frequencies needed to take advantage of the ionospheric skip needed for long-distance contacts.) As slow as it sounds, that’s still about 60 words per minute, which is plenty fast enough to keep up with most typists.

RTTY has been joined by a raft of other data modes, but there are still RTTY aficionados out there plying the airwaves. The lower end of the 20-meter band is a good place to find RTTY operators.

PSK31

One of RTTY’s advantages is that it’s technically easy to implement. But it doesn’t perform particularly well at very weak signal levels. To fix that, [Peter Martinez (G3PLX)] decided to come up with a better RTTY. In 1998, PSK31 was introduced, and it has become quite popular since then.

[Martinez] took a two-pronged approach: first, he developed a new encoding method for alphanumeric characters, called Varicode. Instead of a fixed word length like the Baudot used in RTTY, Varicode’s word-length was more Morse-like, with frequently used letters represented by shorter codes than rarer letters. Then, to modulate the code, [Martinez] leveraged the DSP in a computer’s sound card to shift the phase of an audio signal by 180° to represent a zero in the Varicode, while unshifted audio represented a logical one.

This phase-shift keying (PSK) results in a bit rate of 31 – slower than RTTY, but designed to keep up with the average typist. PSK31 is more efficient than RTTY in terms of bandwidth — only 31Hz wide — and coupled with the fact that receiver and transmitter have to be synchronized and the DSP algorithm lends itself to predicting when to expect the phase transitions that signal data being transmitted, PSK31 excels at pulling data from weak signals.

Packet Modes

The user experience for RTTY and PSK31 is pretty simple — the sending party types a terse, abbreviation-rich message on a keyboard, and the receiving party reads the message on some sort of alphanumeric display. But lest you think that Amateur data modes are just for sending straight text messages like those that were sent by Model 33 teletype terminals back in the day, there are plenty of packet modes for sending more complex messages, including email.

PACTOR is a set of modes that are based on frequency-shift keying (FSK) with a 200Hz shift. Unlike RTTY and PSK31, PACTOR encodes data as 96- or 192-bit packets, which allows the use of the Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) error control protocol to request packets that fail a CRC to be resent. PACTOR clocks in at around 200 baud.

Unfortunately, PACTOR requires an expensive piece of equipment called a terminal node controller (TNC) between the radio and the computer. To remedy this, the WINMOR protocol was developed. Similar to PACTOR in that it’s a packet mode with error correction, WINMOR does away with the TNC by using an inexpensive USB audio link, or by leveraging the sound card built into many modern transceivers.

Both WINMOR and PACTOR are gateway protocols to the Winlink 2000 network that provides email service via HF radio. Winlink is an extremely diverse hybrid network of HF and VHF radio links into internet-coupled message servers. Emails can be composed with the full-featured RMS Express client that looks and feels pretty much like any other email client. Emails can include attachments and can be sent peer-to-peer or through the network to any other Winlink user.

As useful as the Winlink network is — it has been a huge boon to emergency communications in natural and man-made disasters where local internet service is disrupted — using it is about as exciting as sending an email, because that’s exactly what you’re doing. For my money, digging a one-to-one contact out of the noise with a couple of watts on PSK31 sounds like a lot more fun. I’m glad the Winlink network is there, and it pays to practice with it from time to time, but there are a lot more challenging data modes to explore, at least in my opinion.

I’ve only scratched the surface of the digital modes available to the mic-shy ham. Here’s hoping this gets a few more new people into the hobby, or maybe even gets those licensed but largely inactive hams on the air. After all, we all need more people to not talk to.

Filed under: Engineering, Featured, radio hacks

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See Satellites with a Simple Radio Telescope

Have you got a spare Dish Network antenna lying about? They’re not too hard to come by, either curbside on bulk waste day or perhaps even on Freecycle. If you can lay hands on one, you might want to try this fun radio telescope build.

Now, don’t expect much from [Justin]’s minimalist build. After all, you’ll be starting with a rather small dish and an LNB for the Ku band, so you won’t be doing serious radio astronomy. In fact, the BOM doesn’t include a fancy receiver  – just a hacked satellite finder. The idea is to just get a reading of the relative “brightness” of a radio source without trying to demodulate the signal. To that end, the signal driving the piezo buzzer in the sat finder is fed into an Arduino through a preamp. The Arduino also controls stepper motors for the dish’s azimuth and elevation control, which lets it sweep the sky and build up a map of signal intensity. The result is a clear band of bright spots representing the geosynchronous satellites visible from [Justin]’s location in Brazil.

Modifications are definitely on the docket for [Justin], including better equipment that will allow him to image the galactic center. There may be some pointers for him in our coverage of a tiny SDR-based radio telescope, or from this custom receiver that can listen to Jupiter.

Filed under: radio hacks

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Lucid Dreaming | How do YOU become lucid? what RCs do you use?

How do YOU become lucid? What RCs do you use?

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Will America’s Coming Collapse resemble Europe’s Current Crisis?

by Silence Dogood

Currently the unraveling of Europe is becoming clear, especially to those that are paying attention. The horrific migrant crisis, the rapes, the tenuous economy, the various financial bubbles all stemming from central bankers and their money printing.

Manipulated bond markets, credit markets are creating housing bubbles and have forced much of the middle class to flee these over priced areas leaving entire communities of our city’s because they no longer can afford to live there.

We stand back and watch seeing the inevitable breakup of the European Union, beginning with Brexit and the public discourse of people in the major cities struggling with racial tension, it seems we cannot see what is behind it all. I know I can see the connection if you cannot.

It is boiling across Europe as you read this, all hidden by the mainstream media outlets.

http://ift.tt/2mb3PGH

The chart in the above link shows the credit bubble ready to burst, as it started forming as far back as August of 2016.

Many economists are blaming the bond market for driving this credit bubble. The low yields are forcing investors into the credit markets, most hoping to prop up their portfolios o, at the very least, to stave off the drop in interest rates. It is pushing bankers to invest into this inflating bubble, rather then leave their money to dwindle over the next three decades in some zero or negative interest investment.

The European Central Bank started buying corporate bonds back in June of this year, infusing the European economy with more money to hide the fact it is unsustainable.

America has been implementing the same strategy with our Federal Reserve.

This of course, reduces the buying power of the nations currency, right across the board, and is affecting the inflation of the money due to zero or negative interest rates, all this is being done while inflating a rampant bubble that we now see everywhere with the cheap credit from this failing debt based system.

The carelessness of the central banks coupled with the Brexit, has exacerbated the situation and created even more foolish credit use by those that run our systems.

It is now the new “Monte Carlo,” and has made gamblers out of every European banker, who by using the people’s money (our Bonds) as their poker chips they are betting on a rigged game, hoping to get out just before the table gets flipped by the biggest loser.

Their new gambler mentality is simply betting with our low to zero interest rate loans speculating on these bubble markets, rather then with honest investment.

The loans given to the publically traded companies are mostly used by CEOs to buy back their own shares and keep up to the spiraling descent of the entire system.

This is why the inflation increase is not obvious to the moral majority.

This makes complete sense to any businessman, as most would rather invest in bubble markets then hold onto zero yield savings, bonds, or similar financial products.

The Central Bank must know this too, or they are the stupidest businessmen of the century.

No, I think by now, it is merely a wait and see game; with each player trying to bump the last bet, hoping that they hold the winning hand in the end.

Soon someone will call “all in,” and shove the last of their pile into the center, and then we will see the chips fall…

Just remember, folks, they are playing with your money created from your promissory notes (The nation’s Bonds).

Just look at these interest rates, and you will see who is next and what is driving this madness.

central bank interest rate	region	percentage	date
FED interest rate	United States	0.500 %	12-16-2015
RBA interest rate	Australia	1.500 %	08-02-2016
BACEN interest rate	Brazil	14.000 %	10-19-2016
BoE interest rate	Great Britain	0.250 %	08-04-2016
BOC interest rate	Canada	0.500 %	07-15-2015
PBC interest rate	China	4.350 %	10-23-2015
ECB interest rate	Europe	0.000 %	03-10-2016
BoJ interest rate	Japan	0.000 %	02-01-2016
CBR interest rate	Russia	10.000 %	09-16-2016
SARB interest rate	South Africa	7.000 %	03-17-2016

As you can see from the chart abov,  things are not looking good for Europe or Japan, and similarly they do not bode well for the North American markets either.

The low interest rates are just the beginning. I am quite sure the Fed will pretend to bump the rates higher soon in North America as they have each December, claiming they will stem the flow of speculation, but knowing each time they do it they just simply move the market.

They will inevitably drop the rates again within a month or risk destroying the whole system, and reveal the true house of cards that it is.

Can America expect much of the same woes as Europe has, right here at home?

Certainly, we do.

We are talking about the same issues and same market pressures as Europe. We are taking on the same migrant policies as Europe. Despite knowing it would be far cheaper and much more practical to leave the refugees where they are, in their own countries. Simply create a protected zone for them to exist in, until the conflict is settled or at the very least protect them somewhere in an alternate Muslim country, where they will be able to assimilate without civil war.

We can simply provide housing and food for them at far cheaper cost than bringing them here to our countries to live. Our army can easily teach them to construct clean living conditions they will need to survive, and offer military protection only until they are established. They can use their own people after that to patrol the facilities; we could then simply provide a military bubble of protection, with air support, merely on a consultant capacity after that.

Perhaps some solutions are in order…

This migrant problem does not take a brain surgeon to figure out. Perhaps we can even use our private mystery mercenaries, such as Blackwater (or whatever they call themselves nowadays), posting them over there to do the job of protection. They are much cheaper then our military these days (or so they claim) and the bonus using these guys is that those boys would be there by choice.

The globalist propaganda has definitely fogged our collective minds for we cannot see this for ourselves anymore.

As the above charts regarding interest rates in Europe’s banking system indicate, we are only 0.5% away from the same scenario as Europe, so we can simple extrapolate what our market will do following the same sort of pattern as Europe.

What we saw back in 2008 shows us the ends to which this will lead… the 2007 housing bubble crash which led to the financial crash of 2008.

Yet, even the charts we mentioned do not show the over inflated money bubble that most currencies are in these days.

When that ship comes in there will be… all hell to pay.

It is speculated that all though we are obviously different then the European Union, the United States may fall in a similar fashion. Europe’s collapse began with Greece’s default. The charts indicate Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain, or France are next.

Similarly in America, California, has nearly the exact same profile as Greece’s debt back when it fell.

This makes California the first probable state to bring down the rest of the Union by default.

As this link shows, the debt of California is the largest in the union, with the least chance of maintaining itself. This is the catalyst that will start the unraveling of the Federal Reserve’s debt and its Ponzi scheme.

Lets stare into our crystal ball, America will be ablaze sometime in the coming future, as this perfect storm brews over the nation, a storm of financial, religion, government over reach and injustices that will collide at once, causing many other lesser systems to fail soon after.

The illogical strife of left verses Right paradigm has started right after the elections. Foolish people who are not able to recognize that they are being used by the same system they are complaining about. The frustration has been created by ignorance, and the lack of teaching basic civics, and financial concepts in our failing school systems.

It will not take much else to make it reach a tipping point now.

A simple spark will set off this fuel fire, a simple bump in the interest rates for more then a few weeks will bring down our markets, proving once and for all that the people cannot repay even the interest on the debt these banksters say we owe.

A so-called bank holiday will be declared to stop the outflow of the failing money system. The state owned banks would confiscate funds from their depositors just as they did in Cyprus, to shore up their balance sheets.

People will panic nation wide, withdrawing money from the failing system, while creating riots; the nation will need to impose martial law to quell the rioters. Food stamps will not be enough to feed the nation, the store shelves will be bare within 3 days, and all commerce will cease. The nation will struggle under weight of it, will set off race riots, as throngs of disgruntle people will meet in the streets mobs will campout in front of government buildings.

Years may roll by without any relief in sight for the people, only complete reform will allow the world to begin again.

The worst of it all is a lot of this could have been prevented.

We have known for decades this was coming. We even had solutions, but the ignorant refuse to learn.

They prefer to listen to the corporately controlled media, and simple hide their heads in the sand. I suppose this is human nature.

Those people have always been with us. They are the ones that throw loved ones into the volcano, or cower in fear at an eclipse. Two hundred and forty years ago, the smart ones left this system behind. They thought they had left it for good, and created a new way of living, but there are no new lands now for us to go to, and we simply cannot just sail off and start again. We have to face this problem for the last time.

We cannot fix this collapse without facing up to the problem of where it started.

We must stop listening to the hierarchy. We need to cut off the head of this snake once and for all. The people at the top of the pyramid have used religion, government, and mass control over us for thousands of years. Surely, with very little effort we can come up with a new system to satisfy at least our nation.

Get rid of the control of our money system. Many years have taught us that neither our Government nor the private bankers can control money responsibly. Our governments over the past have also exploited their control by printing too much.

A finite money system is needed, interest free. Whether that is backed by Gold and Silver, or some form of Bitcoin makes no difference. The fact that it is finite is what matters, no more runaway printing presses controlled by institutions to fund their wars for profit.

A free market is all that is required to dictate the money’s value after that.

Governments cannot be trusted with regulating the market either. I am sure we all can agree on that too, no one needs to regulate a free market system. There is also a reason why congress is the only ones that can declare war. Yet over the last hundred or so wars the Untied States has been involved in, congress only agreed to a handful of them, this has got to end.

End the FIAT currency scam. It is nothing more then counterfeit money, and only worth the paper, it is printed on.

Forget about blending cultures with clearly different ideologies, such as historically rival religious groups, and stop interfering in their nations too. If they have a contradictory ideology or we believe it is flawed some how, then it will adapt on their own, or fail. They will become extinct because they themselves will end it; we do not have to impose our ideals on their way of life. Radical groups will not rise up because of foreign interference either. Our western foreign policies created these crazy radical groups, not the nations they stemmed from. This is our government’s doing.

Now we may need to end it for good, but not before designing a plan to get out of their countries, after. Let’s start acting like the mature ones here, clean up our own back yards first.

Anyway, I thought I would give a few ideas for a change. These are incomplete obviously, but too many articles simply complain about the situation, and never offer any solutions.

I’m so sorry Europe’s strife is coming for us here in America too, so keep prepping. Everyday we learn more and everyday we grow stronger.

Don’t let these bastards win…

Your humble servant

Silence Dogood

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Lucid Dreaming | 2 D.I.L.D.s question

Due to the fact that i have been meditating for the past month and a half,iv realised the main difference so far is that i tend to fall asleep really quick....when before i meditated i used to toss andturn alot and would usually take me a while to sleep.
Last night i fell to sleep quickly at midnight...and half way through a dream i became lucid....and again in the morning after staying awake for an hour....my question is....i never try W.I.L.Ds but do you think if someone falls to sleep quickly it gives them alittle more awareness during dreaming....it seems that way but not sure.

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[Ashhar Farhan]’s done it again!

If you are a regular follower of these pages as well as a radio amateur, you may well have heard of [Ashhar Farhan, VU2ESE]. He is the designer of the BitX, a simple single-sideband transceiver that could be built for a very small outlay taking many of its components from a well-stocked junk box.

In the years since the BitX’s debut there have been many enhancements and refinements to the original, and it has become something of a standard. But it’s always been a single-band rig, never competing with expensive commercial boxes that cover the whole of the available allocations.

With his latest design, he’s changed all that. The uBITX (Micro-BITX when spoken aloud), is an SSB and CW transceiver that covers all of the HF amateur bands, and like the original is designed for the home constructor on a budget. It shows its heritage in the use of bi-directional amplifiers, but diverges from the original with a 45 MHz first IF and an Arduino/SI5351 clock generator in the place of a VFO. It looks to be an excellent design in the spirit of the original, and we can’t wait to see them in the wild.

He’s put up a YouTube video which we’ve placed below the break. His write-up is extensive and fascinating, but it is his closing remarks which sum up the project and the reason why you should build one. We don’t often reproduce entire blocks of text, but this one says it so well:

As a fresh radio amateur in the 80s, one looked at the complex multiband radios of the day with awe. I remember seeing the Atlas 210x, the Icom 720 and Signal One radios in various friends’ shacks. It was entirely out of one’s realm to imagine building such a general coverage transceiver in the home lab.

Devices are now available readily across the globe through online stores, manufacturers are more forthcoming with their data. Most importantly, online communities like the EMRFD’s Yahoo group, the BITX20’s groups.io community etc have placed the tribal knowledge within the grasp of far flung builders like I am.

One knows that it was just a matter of breaking down everything into amplifiers, filters, mixers and oscillators, but that is just theory. The practice of bringing a radio to life is a perpetual ambition. The first signal that the sputters through ether, past your mess of wires into your ears and the first signal that leaps out into the space from your hand is stuff of subliminal beauty that is the rare preserve of the homebrewer alone.

At a recent eyeball meet, our friend [Dev(VU2DEV)] the famous homebrewer said “Now is the best time to be a homebrewer”. I couldn’t disagree.

If you build a uBITX, please share it with us!

We brought you news last year of an earlier iteration of this design, and in the past we’ve shown you the original. What more impetus do you need to get yourself an amateur radio licence?

Thanks [Pete WB9FLW].

Filed under: radio hacks

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Lucid Dreaming | Praticing MILD for 42 days.

Hello everyone, I was lacking the feeling of being conscious in my dreams, and I want to re-feel this feeling of becoming conscious in my dreams.
And the only way to motivate me to practice lucid dreaming is to create another topic, as some of you know that I had old topic about practicing MILD for 21 days which I've got a lot of success.

This is my resolution for 42 days(6 weeks); I will practice MILD for 42 days.

Here are the steps:

1.Wake-up at 4 o'clock in the morning.


2.Focus my intent.
Repeat like a mantra: "I'm dreaming".

3.See myself becoming lucid.
While repeating like a mantra, I see myself becoming lucid.

I will try to pose a review of the 42 days everyday if I can.
Of cause if you want to join or create your own, you're free.

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Why Don’t “Moderate” Muslims Speak Out?

With a steady of flow of jihadi attacks taking place worldwide, it might seem reasonable to ask, “If Islam is a religion of peace, and if only a “radical” minority of Muslims are responsible for terrorist acts done in the name of Islam, then why don’t “moderate” Muslims speak out against this violence if it Is done in the name of their faith?”

Well, the answer to that question isn’t easy.  First of all, it requires some level of speculation to answer what the motives of someone other than yourself has.  Second, if you actually try to search for an answer to this question, you will find more there are many different answers given, and that answer will greatly depend on the ideology of the person you are asking.  Before we speculate on what motivations “moderates” have for their perceived silence on this issue, let’s look at some answers that are given by some of the louder voices when this question is asked.

Living in the age of information, one gets used to searching for answers online, and for good reason.  If you want to know how many feet are in a mile, what temperature water boils at, what time a movie starts in your area, or what the weather forecast is, then typing your query into a search engine like google and hitting enter is likely to provide you with the answer to your question.  But, on issues with social implications, the loudest voices  that are easiest to find on the internet as well as in print and television media lean pretty far ideologically to the left.

So, what is the result if you ask  search engine giant Google why moderate Muslims don’t speak out against terrorism?

Eight out of ten of the results on the first page all say the same exact thing (and the other two may have been targeted to me since they were from WND.com and Steven Crowder).  It seems that all media outlets agree, from The Huffington Post to Time, that moderate Muslims most certainly do speak out against violent terrorism that is done in the name of Islam, and the only reason we don’t know about it is because the media doesn’t cover it.

That’s right: The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, Time, and CNN all say that moderate Muslims (which all of these sources claim without reason are the true Muslims) do speak out and condemn violent acts of terrorism done in the name of Islam.  And without exception, all of these sources and more, I would in fact be willing to bet every single leftist media source, also agree that it is the media itself’s fault that we don’t know about it.

Eight of ten Google results for the query “why don’t moderate Muslims speak out”, says that moderate Muslims they do speak out, and that the media just doesn’t tell you about it. CNN actually goes as far as to both claim that moderate Muslims do speak out, and to say that they don’t have any responsibility to do so, and so we shouldn’t expect them to, because terrorism is so un-Islamic that it shouldn’t even require them to denounce it.  CNN even offers up the irrefutable proof that if you type “Muslims condemn” into a search engine that it will yield up results that show Muslims speaking out against terrorism.

So, in case your logic got in the way, the internet is saturated with articles from major media sources in which they say that the reason you don’t know moderate Muslims are speaking out against terrorism is somehow because even though they are telling you that Muslims are speaking out, the media isn’t telling you they are speaking out.  If you ever read George Orwell’s 1984, the term “doublethink” might be coming to mind right about now.

One possible reason then, for “moderate” Muslims not being outspoken against Islamic terrorism, is that the leftist media is beating them to it.

It might seem odd, that if the media is cranking out Muslim apologetic material at the cyclic rate, and if “radical” violent Muslims are a fractional minority, then why is it that we do hear so little, or more importantly see so little from the “moderate” majority to do something to stop these terrorist attacks?

Why is the Muslim world, which should be a virtual utopia if the media’s propaganda is to be believed, so full of violence?  It couldn’t possibly be because “radical” Muslims are the majority, could it?  Well, for now, and I’d love to get to this later in depth in another article, let’s leave the teachings of the psychotic cross-dressing pedophile Mohammad for just a moment and focus on the beliefs of his modern followers.

Are they “moderate”, or are they “radical”?  Let’s see what the numbers tell us.

In order to know if the majority are either “radical” or “moderate,” we need to know how many Muslims we are dealing with. There are roughly about 1.6 billion worldwide, with about 49 countries being Muslim majority countries.  We also have to define terms like “radical” and “moderate”.  It would be ignorant to think that one would have to be a jihadi terrorist in order to be considered “radical”.

For one, not everyone who holds to the view of Islam, the one that is clearly taught through their canonical text, that a good Muslim should violently subjugate non-believers is an able-bodied man of military fighting age.  Terrorist organizations receive assistance and support in more ways than one, people donate money, supplies, or even moral and social support.  A much more accurate method of evaluation of whether or not someone is “radical” in their views of Islam would be as simple as whether or not they have radical views, rather than if they have taken radical actions.

I think that it would be reasonable to say that supporting Sharia law, or terrorist organizations, or that saying “honor” killings of women are “sometimes justified” would make one “radical”.  That being said, how many Muslims out of the 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide would fit this reasonable definition of “radical”?  Surely less than a dozen and they are all in the Middle East somewhere right?  Not exactly.  The number would be more like 680,000,000.  Now that’s a pretty big number, so let’s try to put that in perspective.  That is a little more than twice the population of the United States, it’s also about 43% of the worldwide Muslim population.

It gets worse when we look at where these “radical” Muslims are.  It might not come as too much of a surprise to find out that 83% of Iranian Muslims support Sharia, or even that 32% of Turkish Muslims say that “honor” killings of women can be justified, but it might come as a little more of a shock that 35% of Muslims living in France said that suicide bombings can be justified, or that 13% of Muslims in America said that violence against civilians can be justified.

So another more serious answer to why “moderate” Muslims don’t speak out against Islamic terrorism is that they are not the vast majority at all; barely more than half, if we are to believe that every Muslim answered the questions honestly.  And what do you think would happen to a Muslim who spoke out against terrorism in an environment of “radical” Islam?  Well if Quran 9:73 is followed, it wouldn’t look too good for them:

“O Prophet, fight against the disbelievers and the hypocrites and be harsh upon them. And their refuge is Hell, and wretched is the destination.”

Muslims that actually hold “moderate” views may very well keep quiet about them in order to stay alive.

Of course, there is some truth to the claim that “moderate” Muslims speak out against terrorism done in the name of their religion.  Organizations like CAIR, Center for American-Islamic Relations, which has ties to terrorist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, have issued public statements denouncing Islamic terrorism.  Likewise, it’s not altogether uncommon to find a Muslim raised in the West who has grown up with Western values, who will condemn Islamic terrorism.

So, why are there such seemingly incompatible views of Islam’s commands within the greater Muslim community?  This is where some speculation and generalization is unavoidable, but that doesn’t mean that we have to so without evidence and reason.

First, why is possible to find Muslims from the West that are willing to condemn Islamic terrorism?  One reason is because some of them find these acts of terrorism done in the name of their religion genuinely offensive.  Now, let me be clear that I’m not taking the same position as HuffPo on this.  I’m not saying that Islam is a religion of peace, I’m just saying that it’s completely possible that there are Muslims who think that is.

Whether they are willing to admit it or not, most Muslims don’t actually know that much about their religion.  Most Muslims, even those that have memorized the entire Quran in Arabic, can’t speak Arabic, the language they say the Quran must be read in to get a full appreciation of the its meaning.  That’s right, there are people who memorize an entire book in a language that they don’t speak.

But certainly the Islamic leaders and Imams that speak out against jihad know how to read Arabic and know what the Quran says, so why would they denounce terrorism if, as I would assert, Islam is a religion of violent suppression?  Isn’t lying against Islamic law?

So it’s a little hard to take seriously the denouncements of Islamic terrorism made by Islamic leaders that support terrorist organizations like CAIR does, when the religion that they practice has a doctrine that endorses lying for the sake of furthering the spread of Islam.

Which would bring us to the last reason why “moderate” Muslims would not speak out against Islamic terrorism. It is because they aren’t “moderate,” and they simply don’t disapprove, when it gets down to it.

The left would quickly right this off as Islamaphobic bigotry, but they would hypocritically use the same reasoning if it came to Republicans and white supremacy.  Remember when Trump wasn’t quick enough to denounce David Duke?  The left jumps all over his lack of speed in his denouncement to say that it meant that he wasn’t genuine, and in fact supported white supremacy.  And they do that without there being a Republican or white version of it.  It might be the least politically correct reason, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less reasonable to say that “moderate” Muslims don’t denounce terrorism because they actually support it.

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Backscatter Your Own FM Pirate Radio Station

If you live in a city, you’re constantly swimming in a thick soup of radio-frequency energy. FM radio stations put out hundreds of kilowatts each into the air. Students at the University of Washington, [Anran Wang] and [Vikram Iyer], asked themselves if they could harness this background radiation to transmit their own FM radio station, if only locally. The answer was an amazing yes.

The trailer video, embedded below, demos a couple of potential applications, but the paper (PDF) has more detail for the interested. Basically, they turn on and off an absorbing antenna at a frequency that’s picked so that it modulates a strong FM signal up to another adjacent channel. Frequency-modulating this backscatter carrier frequency adds audio (or data) to the product station.

One of the cooler tricks that they pull off with this system is to inject a second (stereo) channel into a mono FM station. Since FM radio is broadcast as a mono signal, with a left-minus-right signal sent alongside, they can make a two-channel stereo station by recreating the stereo pilot carrier and then adding in their own difference channel. Pretty slick. Of course, they could send data using this technique as well.

Why do this? A small radio station using backscatter doesn’t have to spend its power budget on the carrier. Instead, the device can operate on microwatts. Granted, it’s only for a few feet in any given direction, but the station broadcasts to existing FM radios, rather than requiring the purchase of an RFID reader or similar device. It’s a great hack that piggybacks on existing infrastructure in two ways. If this seems vaguely familiar, here’s a similar idea out of the very same lab that’s pulling off essentially the same trick indoors with WiFi signals.

So who’s up for local reflected pirate radio stations?

Thanks [João] for the great tip!

Filed under: radio hacks

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Move Over Baofeng, Xiaomi Want To Steal Your Thunder

To a radio amateur who received their licence decades ago there is a slightly surreal nature to today’s handheld radios. A handheld radio should cost a few hundred dollars, or such was the situation until the arrival of very cheap Chinese radios in the last few years.

The $20 Baofeng or similar dual-bander has become a staple of amateur radio. They’re so cheap, you just buy one because you can, you may rarely use it but for $20 it doesn’t matter. Most radio amateurs will have one lying around, and many newly licensed amateurs will make their first contacts on one. They’re not even the cheapest option either, if you don’t mind the absence of an LCD being limited to UHF only, then the going rate drops to about $10.

The Baofengs and their ilk are great radios for the price, but they’re not great radios. The transmitter side can radiate a few too many harmonics, and the receivers aren’t the narrowest bandwidth or the sharpest of hearing. Perhaps some competition in the market will cause an upping of the ante, and that looks to be coming from Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer. Their Mijia dual-band walkie-talkie product aims straight for the Baofeng’s jugular at only $35, and comes in a much sleeker and more contemporary package as you might expect from a company with a consumer mobile phone heritage. Many radio amateurs are not known for being dedicated followers of fashion, but for some operators the sleek casing of the Mijia will be a lot more convenient than the slightly more chunky Baofeng.

This class of radio offers more to the hardware hacker than just an off-the-shelf radio product, at only a few tens of dollars they become almost a throwaway development system for the radio hacker. We’ve seen interesting things done with the Baofengs, and we look forward to seeing inside the Xiaomi.

We brought you a look at the spurious emissions of this class of radio last year, and an interesting project with a Baofeng using GNU Radio in a slightly different sense to its usual SDR function.

[via Southgate ARC]

Filed under: radio hacks

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Lucid Dreaming | Meditation problem?

Iv been meditating twice a day for 10mins or once a day for 20mins for the past 3-4 weeks now.My dreams have become more vivid but my lucidity rate has remained the same.
Do you think that something like meditation takes quiet a while untill i see more frequent lucid dreams?
I do the simple mindfullness breath meditation....i think ik going to make the duration of my meditation longer soon....btw i dont meditate in order to have a w.i.l.d i do it in order to have more D.i.L.d.s plus i like all the other unrelated effects it has on me.thanks

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Lucid Dreaming | Galantamine and choline timing?

I am curious with the people that have taken this. When do you take it and at what doses?

Dave

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Prepping and Survival Drills to Run

by Ryan

If there is one theme that I preach repeatedly for survival situations, it is to practice before your life depends upon your skills. So many survivalists pour through books, videos, and television shows learning every little trick in the book. However, too many people stop there. I cannot count how many times I expected a survival technique to be simple, yet it turned out to be nearly impossible. More importantly, I like to focus on time sensitive situations that would really create natural pressure. In this article I will cover situations you need to practice both alone and with your family.

Bugging In

First we can look at bugging in situations. When you make the decision to lock down, there is an order of tasks to complete and a small amount of time to get them completed. This is a family ordeal unless you live alone, so sit down with a pen and paper and get your family involved. When the bug in decision is made somebody needs to do inventory, to secure the property, to gather or run out for supplies, and to get weapons ready for defense.

Obviously you do not want small children loading guns, but you also want to assign the most difficult tasks to the most experienced and physically able members of your family. A person with a bum knee would be ideal to board up windows or gather weapons. Somebody with a good feel for the time frame of the emergency should be the one handling inventory or rounding up supplies. Make these decisions in advance and do a few trial runs to ensure everybody knows their role. Time how long it takes to get locked down.

Step 1 – Plan out assignments for each person (Inventory, supply run, windows, perimeter, pets and small children, weapons).

Step 2 – Use a timer to see how long it takes to safely complete all tasks. Take notes as you go on anybody that looks lost or confused.

Step 3 – Assess the completion of the tasks. Is your property secure? Do you have the needed supplies? Is everybody inside and locked down?

Step 4 – Make changes to your assignments or provide additional guidance. Run the drill again to see if the time or completion improves.

Bugging Out

The opposite of this situation would be preparing to bug out. Again, you have a small amount of time to get everybody prepared and moving in the right direction. Make sure all bug out bags are packed and in a common location by the door. If you have pets or small children, assign somebody to get them together.

If there is food or water to take, make sure somebody gets it into your bags. Finally, make sure everybody knows and practices leaving on foot or by vehicle. Drill who will be leading, who will be navigating, and who will be keeping an eye out for threats. Time how long it takes to get from your home to a safe place.

Step 1 – Gather everybody and assign tasks (gathering small children and pets, collecting weapons, food and water, a last second inventory, ensuring everybody has their BOB, locking down the house as you leave, checking vehicle for fluids).

Step 2 – Assign roles for travel (lead hiker/driver, navigation, lookout, kids and pets duty).

Step 3 – Run the drill with a timer and first see how long it takes you to get out of your home and safely away from the property. Take notes as you go. This drill will feel rushed so the notes are vital.

Step 4 – Take the drill a step further and give your family some distance to cover. Go on foot for a few miles or take your vehicle during a time of bad traffic.

Step 5 – Assess the completion of the tasks. Did your family forget to bring anything vital? Is everybody accounted for? Did the property get locked down so looters can’t get it? How long did it take you to get to safety?

Step 6 – Make changes and run it again. Try to improve the time it takes you to get to safety.

Gathering the Family

A scenario that could relate to either bugging in or bugging out is moving each family member to the same location. For most families daytime disasters can result in both parents being at different workplaces, and all the kids being at different schools. Designate and practice one parent or driving teen to pick up each child and move them away from congested locations like schools and daycares. Pick a public rendezvous point where traffic will not be an issue and practice getting the whole family together during rush hour. Mark a paper map with short cuts that can shave minutes off your drive time.

Step 1 – Create a plan. Assign each person that can drive a family member that cannot. Get out a paper map and plot the locations of each person. Then figure out where to meet.

Step 2 – Time how long it takes to get each member of the family away from congested areas. Each person needs to be at least a mile from any schools, daycares, shopping centers, or large office buildings.

Step 3 – Time how long it takes to get the whole family together at the rendezvous point.

Step 4 – Time how long it takes to get everybody from that point to your home or other secure location.

Step 5 – Adjust your strategy to try to get everybody reaching the rendezvous point at the same time. This may mean moving the location to accommodate those that travel slower. You can step up the difficulty by running the drill during rush hour or after a sporting event lets out.

House Fires

Another drill to run in your home is evacuating during a house fire. Your workplace probably has an evacuation plan, but what if an electrical fire breaks out at home in the middle of the night. Sit down with your family and designate who will gather small children and pets. Assign one person to make sure they grab their cell phone and have them call 911 as soon as they have left the building. Ensure everybody knows where fire extinguishers are located, but designate one adult to decide whether to try and fight the flames or just bail and wait for help. Again, practice this drill several times by setting a loud alarm to go off in the middle of the night.

Step 1 – Sit down with the family and assign tasks to each person (gathering small children and pets, grabbing a cell to call 911, ensuring everybody made it outside, deciding whether to use a fire extinguisher or not).

Step 2 – Tell your family that the drill starts when a loud alarm clock goes off in the hallway, but do not tell them what time it will go off. Try to pick times that would catch them off guard (middle of the night or in the morning when getting ready for the day).

Step 3 – Run the drill and take notes as you go. Use a timer to see how long it takes to get everybody to safety and how long it takes to get the extinguisher and get back to the fire.

Step 4 – Make adjustments and run it again. You should be able to get the whole family out of the house in less than 2 minutes with practice. To step up the difficulty, cut the power so the drill must be done in complete darkness.

Flooding

Another common household disaster is flooding. As you practice this situation, you will have to decide if wind damage will be a concern. When flooding is related to hurricanes, you will also need to board up windows and secure the exterior. Cell phones would likely be down so practice alternative communication methods.

Ensure everybody in the family knows to focus their efforts on the lowest spot in the house. Designate one person to cut power to areas that will have standing water. Have a designated place to which you can move furniture, and make sure anybody physically able can help with the effort. Have a cache of dry clothes and blankets, and verify that everybody knows where they are. If safety gets to be an issue, have a higher ground area for everybody to meet and wait for help.

Step 1 – Gather everybody to assign tasks and to designate an area for furniture. Also determine a safe area of higher ground to move to if safety is an issue.

Step 2 – Practice moving the most valuable items to your designated area with a timer. Make sure somebody cuts the power first.

Step 3 – Douse each other with cold water and then scramble to get to your high ground area and change into dry clothes. May want to do this one on a hot day.

Riots

Riot survival is another good drill to practice with your family. If you are in a crowd and disaster strikes, your family needs to know how to act. The next time you are at a sporting event or concert, have your family pretend that the crowd has gotten hostile. Teach them to walk diagonally across the crowd with arms locked, but never against the crowd. Show them how to be a gray man and blend in while avoiding eye contact and confrontation. Show them the back alleys and shortcuts that will get you all to safety.

Step 1 – Run through a list of do’s and don’ts for moving through a riot. Make sure everybody understands the danger.

Step 2 – Find a crowded place, lock arms, and time how long it takes you to get safely out of the crowd. If you notice anybody talking to people in the crowd, making eye contact, or moving against the flow of people then make everybody start over.

Step 3 – Review with everybody the things they did right and wrong. Run it again to improve your time.

Emergency Shelters

Building a shelter quickly can absolutely save your life if you are stuck in the wild. Show your family how to build a lean-to or debris shelter with only natural materials. Time this drill and then show them how much faster you can build a shelter with a tarp or emergency blanket. If you live in an area with lots of snow, show them how to build a snow cave. If you live in the tropics, show them how to make a raised platform. Ensure everybody participates.

Step 1 – Show everybody how to make a simple shelter with natural materials.

Step 2 – Tear it down and make them build one without your help. Time how long it takes.

Step 3 – Build a shelter with a tarp or emergency blanket and show them the time difference.

Step 4 – Take it down and make them build one.

Step 5 – Make suggestions and run it again to improve your time.

Fire Building

Building a fire is another practice that can save your life, and it can be tougher than you would think. These drills should be done in stages. First show them how much tinder, kindling, and fuel they need to gather and how to build a fire with a lighter or matches. Then increase the difficulty by showing them the use of a ferro rod or bow drill. Teach them what kind of wood is needed for friction fire. To really sink in the urgency, time them on building a fire in the rain or snow.

Step 1 – Show everybody how to build a friction fire, a fire with a ferro rod, and a fire with a lighter.

Step 2 – Make them build a lighter fire without your help and time them.

Step 3 – Make them build a ferro rod fire without your help and time them.

Step 4 – Make them build a friction fire without your help and time them.

Step 5 – Make them build any kind of fire in the rain or snow and time them.

Step 6 – Give them feedback and run it again to improve the times focusing on the ones that were most difficult.

First Aid

Related to building a fire, showing your family how to help somebody that has fallen through the ice is very important. You need to first explain to never risk their own safety to get somebody out of the water, but instead to extend a rope or pole to them. The remainder of the drill is all about speed. You only have a few minutes to dry off and warm up, so hammer this home. Have somebody building a fire while somebody else rolls the victim in snow to dry them off. Get their clothes stripped off and practice using body heat in a sleeping bag. Finally get water boiling to warm them up from the inside.

Step 1 – Wait until there is snow on the ground and mark a big circle or rectangle to represent ice.

Step 2 – Put one person in the center and have your family rescue them without crossing onto the ice themselves.

Step 3 – Have one person build a fire while everybody else helps to pretend to dry off the victim and use body heat to warm them up.

There are a few other first aid techniques that should be drilled with the whole family. CPR and mouth to mouth are two that everybody should know and practice. Helping a choking victim is another important drill. In fact, I actually saved my wife from choking just a few years ago. Stopping the bleeding on severe cuts is very important. Emphasize pressure, elevation, and tourniquets only as a last measure. Teach how to build makeshift crutches or a splint for an arm or leg. You never know when the family member with the most medical training might be unconscious and needing help, so teach everybody these tactics.

Step 1 – Designate one person to be the victim and tell them what their ailment is, but do not tell anybody else.

Step 2 – Have the rest of the family diagnose the issue by communicating with the victim. You can add visible symptoms as well if appropriate.

Step 3 – Have them treat the victim using life-saving first aid methods.

Water Purification

If severely dehydrated, the time it takes you to purify water might be vital. I suggest drilling your family on purifying water by building a fire, building a filter, digging a proximity well, and purifying in sunlight. It would also be smart to practice rainwater catches and solar stills. Time each method to show them which options will help save them the fastest.

Step 1 – Train everybody on how to most quickly purify water.

Step 2 – Supply them with natural materials and have them decide the quickest option. Time them on how long it takes and note how effective they are.

Step 3 – Give them a different set of materials and see if they change their method.

Step 4 – Discuss and repeat to improve times.

Predators

Finally, how to react to large predators should be discussed and practiced. Many people make the incorrect decision to run when they feel threatened. Pretend to be different species of predators and see how they react. If they are not in immediate danger, have them practice building a fire inside a boma and have them sharpen spears. Show them that being proactive is often more effective than waiting to be attacked.

Step 1 – Treat this like charades and pretend to be an animal coming around the corner in close proximity to them.

Step 2 – See how they react based on the type of animal you are and either attack or walk away depending on how they respond.

Step 3 – if they respond correctly, ask them to then build a camp for the night that would protect them from this type of animal. If they get it wrong, explain why and do it again with a different type of animal.

It is easy to fall into the habit of explaining or displaying these skills rather than drilling them. This is a mistake. Everybody that is able should be required to physically participate in the drills. Just watching or listening is not enough. It is likely that you will know much more than the rest of your family on these subjects, so it may get frustrating to watch them fumble around. Remember that you were once the novice, and in some cases may still be a novice. Have patience and make sure each person is able to struggle their way to a solution. It will make for a much more memorable lesson.

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Lucid Dreaming | Is it beneficial to have a goal??

I have roughly one lucid dream every 2 weeks or so whoch sucks but due to this i realise i dont have goals when lucid rather im just that happy to be lucid that i decide what im going to do when im lucid.
Im wondering if having an actual goal like turning into a bird or visiting famous people would make it more likely to become lucid due to maybe the exitement? Thanx =D

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Lucid Dreaming | I Cant Have Lucid Dreams, HELP!!

I have been trying for a year!! what have i been doing wrong??
i have a dream diary i do my mantras!
help?

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Lucid Dreaming | chaining DEILD

I usully have WILD or MILD after one hour awake doing relaxing exercise, whereas DEILD consist in recognise the end of dream, and come back to lucid dream, no waste time, I find difficult don´t move body, although I´m aware of I have just wake up.
I usually chain lucid dreaming to go on more time. but after a normal dream when I can enter immediately again, I only get continue with very vivid normal dream, as a film but I have not the control like lucid dream
any ideas?

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Antenna Analyzer is a Lab in a Box

There was a time when the measure of a transmitting radio antenna was having it light an incandescent bulb. A step up was a classic SWR/Power meter that showed you forward and reflected power. Over the years, a few other instruments have tried to provide a deeper look into antenna performance. However, the modern champion is the antenna analyzer which is a way of measuring vector impedance.

[Captain Science] did a review of an inexpensive N1201SA analyzer. This device is well under $200 from the usual Chinese sellers. The only thing a bit odd is the frequency range which is 140 MHz to 2700 MHz. For some extra money (about $80 or $100 more) you can drop the low-end frequency to just under 35 MHz.

In addition to the review, you might want to read the manual. The device can measure resistance, reactance, SWR, and S11 (the S parameter for return loss). It also displays the impedance and effective inductance. [Captain Science] thought the interface was easy to use, but he did wish for a numeric keypad.

While you might think this is a great toy for ham radio operators, it would be useful for anyone wanting an antenna in this frequency range. For example, if you are trying to maximize WiFi range or figure out the greatest ever antenna on your drone, this could be for you (as long as you are not on the 5 GHz band).

If this is still too expensive and you want a less flashy solution, you can try an Arduino-based design. There’s plenty of them around.

Filed under: radio hacks, reviews

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Using Backscatter Radio for a Soil Sensor Network

With almost 8 billion souls to feed and a changing climate to deal with, there’s never been a better time to field a meaningful “Internet of Agriculture.” But the expansive fields that make industrial-scale agriculture feasible work against the deployment of sensors and actuators because of a lack of infrastructure to power and connect everything. So a low-power radio network for soil moisture sensors is certainly a welcome development.

We can think of a lot of ways that sensors could be powered in the field. Solar comes to mind, since good exposure to the sun is usually a prerequisite for any cropland. But in practice, solar has issues, the prime one being that the plants need the sun more, and will quickly shade out low-profile soil-based sensors.

That’s why [Spyros Daskalakis] eschewed PV for his capacitive soil moisture sensors in favor of a backscatter technique very similar to that used in both the Great Seal Bug and mundane RFID tags alike. The soil sensor switches half of an etched PCB bowtie antenna in and out of a circuit at a frequency proportional to soil moisture. A carrier signal from a separate transmitter is reflected off the alternately loaded and unloaded antenna, picking up subcarriers with a frequency proportional to soil moisture. [Spyros] explains more about the sensor design and his technique for handling multiple sensors in his paper.

We really like the principles [Spyros] leveraged here, and the simplicity of the system. We can’t help but wonder what sort of synergies there are between this project and the 2015 Hackaday Prize-winning Vinduino project.

[via RTL-SDR.com]

Filed under: misc hacks, radio hacks

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Origin of Wireless Security: the Marconi Radio Hack of 1903

Lucid Dreaming | FILD: How does it feel?

Hi, I was wondering how does a FILD feels like, I mean, the transition.

It is like a WILD and the finger movement works as an anchor, or it is more like a DILD where you realize you're dreaming due to the nose reality check?

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Self-Defense Weapons That Are Not Lethal

by Ryan

We all know that we live in uncertain times. Whether you are in your home, in your car, at work, or on the street you have to be prepared to defend yourself. I do not want to sound like the word is coming to an end and it is every man for himself, but you still have to be practical.

The simple solution is to get a conceal and carry permit and carry a handgun. However, the issue is not always so simple. Some people cannot afford a handgun. Others cannot get a permit or do not wish to go through the hassle. There are some areas when carrying a gun is not a legal option.

On the other hand, some situations do not justify killing somebody. If three or four assailants started a shoving match with me I would not want to kill them, but I might want to avoid a trip to the hospital. Some people are not comfortable with the idea of killing at all. Every person has to decide what they are willing to do to defend their families and themselves.

There are other scenarios to consider. What happens if you are caught unprepared and cannot get to your gun? It is always nice to have a backup plan. If you are sitting at home you may not have your gun on the table next to you, but having something non-lethal may make more sense. Here are some of the top non-lethal weapons you can use for self and home defense.

Conventional Pepper Spray

This product is small, light, inexpensive, and effective. Pepper spray uses a variety of spices and chemicals to blind a person before they can cause you harm. It is easy for a person to keep pepper spray in their pocket or purse, and has been used for decades. The two biggest advances that have been made are in the potency and the distance from which you can be effective. Many of these sprays have a great deal of pressure behind them and can be accurate at up to 10 feet.

The beautiful part about pepper spray is that it disables your attacker and it temporarily blinds them. It puts your attacker in the optimal condition for you to safely escape. The only real downside to pepper spray is wind. If used in windy conditions it could easily blow back in your face, so it is best used indoors. It is reusable, and a typical can should be good for around 35 uses. When the cost is less than $10, it is a great deal.

Sabre is the brand most often used by law enforcement. It has proven to be 30% more effective than competing brands. This means the pain will be that much more likely to put your attacker on the ground. Pepper spray should be a serious contender when you look at non-lethal weapons.

Stun Gun

This device is not quite as risky or messy as pepper spray. It delivers over 30 million volts into an attacker to instantly put them on the ground. It does require you to get close enough to your attacker to apply the electrodes to their body, so you have to be comfortable getting in close quarters.

The biggest downside of the stun gun is the range, while the disabling force is really unmatched. It instantly interrupts the nervous system of the attacker rendering their arms and legs useless. Stun guns are also quite affordable and can normally be purchased for under $20.

Tactical LED Flashlight

I remember back in the day when Mag-Lights were considered self-defense weapons because they were so long and heavy that you could beat somebody over the head with them. These days there is a better option. Small tactical flashlights are great to blind your attacker when somebody comes at you. My own blasts an LED beam at 1000 lumens. This is great when you are tromping through the woods. It is also strong enough to temporarily blind an attacker.

In addition to its standard function, many tactical flashlights have a strobe feature that will keep blasting your attacker with light. This puts them in an even more disoriented state. Mine is completely waterproof so operation in the rain is no concern. It also has a beveled edge which will serve as an excellent striking weapon if things come to blows. While you can spend much more, mine was less than $20. I would buy exactly the same one if I ever had to replace it.

Stun Baton

A stun baton is often used by police or security officers. It combines the power of a stun gun with the range of a baseball bat. One of the biggest concerns with a basic stun gun is that you have to get close to your attacker. They could easily stab you if they had a concealed blade, or you might get accidentally stunned yourself.

The stun baton allows you to reach out from several feet to send around nine million volts into your attacker. Many have a flashlight built into the end for better visibility and the option of blinding the attacker. It is also heavy enough that you can use it like a baseball bat if absolutely needed. These non-lethal weapons have come down considerably in price and can typically be purchased for less than $50.

Bean Bag Gun

I know it may seem a little futuristic or extreme, but sometimes you just want a gun. You may want to be able to knock somebody down from across the room without killing them. The bean bag gun could be the option for you. The weapon is both spring-loaded and gas-powered. A nitrogen cylinder launches the bean bag at 135 feet per second.

The purpose of the gun is to keep your distance and put your attacker on the ground. The bean bag will easily knock the wind out of just about any person coming your way. It is as simple as pointing and firing. The only real downside is the cost. One of these self-defense toys will set you back around $200.

Pepper Spray Gun

Keeping in the realm of weapons that allow you to keep your distance, the pepper spray gun is an interesting option. This gives you the blinding capability and disabling pain of pepper spray. However, it also has the look of a handgun so the appearance may scare away your attacker. It fires at a whopping 320 feet per second. This is about as fast as a major league fast ball, so the rounds sting.

The rounds themselves are small compressed balls of powdered pepper spray. Here is how it works. You pull the weapon and the attacker freezes. He sees what he thinks is a gun and is instantly surprised. You fire a round and it reaches your target faster than he can blink his eyes. The pain on impact is intense, but a cloud of dust is created. The attacker is now blinded and drops to his knees in pain. There cannot be a much more confusing or disabling scenario for an attacker.

This weapon is actually accurate at distances of up to 100 feet. This makes it the longest range non-lethal option we have reviewed. However, because it looks like a gun it is not legal in every state. It will also cost you almost as much as an actual handgun.

Taser

If you like the idea of the stun gun or the stun baton but want more range, the Taser is the option for you. This device is effective at up to 15 feet. It delivers the same 9 million volts as the baton, but keeps you at a very safe distance.

The device fires barbs at the target with wires attached. The barbs stick securely into the skin of the attacker, and the wires deliver a blast that will instantly disrupt the nervous system. Many law enforcement agencies use these devices, especially when dealing with people under the influence of drugs or alcohol. However, be prepared for a hefty price tag. This is by far the most expensive option we reviewed.

Honorable Mention

There are a few other non-lethal weapons that should be considered in your search for the best option. Do not discount the good old baseball bat. This weapon is simple enough that virtually any adult can use it. Just pick it up and swing. It is inexpensive and plenty intimidating against somebody that is without a firearm. It is just a bit bulky to take out of the home.

Tactical pens can be a good choice for non-lethal self-defense.  However, they are the only option we considered that requires some training or skill to use properly.  In inexperienced hands, a tactical pen is likely worthless. However, if you know what pressure points to strike on an attacker and how to strike, you can easily put somebody on the ground.  They also look like any other pen, so you can carry one without drawing attention to yourself.

A dog is another good option. While it requires ongoing care, dogs are naturally scary to intruders. They make noise, and many will defend their owners. They are again hard to take out of the home.

Perhaps a security system is your best bet. There are dozens of options available these days for home security and for personal security. Do your research and find the one that works best for you.

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