There used to be a time when amateur radio was a fairly static pursuit. There was a lot of fascination to be had with building radios, but what you did with them remained constant year on year. Morse code was sent by hand with a key, voice was on FM or SSB with a few old-timers using AM, and you’d hear the warbling tones of RTTY traffic generated by mechanical teletypes.
By contrast the radio amateur of today lives in a fast-paced world of ever-evolving digital modes, in which much of the excitement comes in pushing the boundaries of what is possible when a radio is connected to a computer. A new contender in one part of the hobby has come our way from [Guillaume, F4HDK], in the form of his NPR, or New Packet Radio mode.
NPR is intended to bring high bandwidth IP networking to radio amateurs in the 70 cm band, and it does this rather cleverly with a modem that contains a single-chip FSK transceiver intended for use in licence-free ISM band applications. There is an Ethernet module and an Mbed microcontroller board on a custom PCB, which when assembled produces a few hundred milliwatts of RF that can be fed to an off-the-shelf DMR power amplifier.
Each network is configured around a master node intended to use an omnidirectional antenna, to which individual nodes connect. Time-division multiplexing is enforced by the master so there should be no collisions, and this coupled with the relatively wide radio bandwidth of the ISM transceiver gives the system a high usable data bandwidth.
Whether or not the mode is taken up and becomes a success depends upon the will of individual radio amateurs. But it does hold the interesting feature of relying upon relatively inexpensive parts, so the barrier to entry is lower than it might be otherwise. If you are wondering where you might have seen [F4HDK] before, we’ve previously brought you his FPGA computer.
There are a few options if you want to network computers on amateur radio. There are WiFi hacks of sort, and of course there’s always packet radio. New Packet Radio, a project from [f4hdk] that’s now on hackaday.io, is unlike anything we’ve seen before. It’s a modem that’s ready to go, uses standard 433 ISM band chips, should only cost $80 to build, and it supports bidirectional IP traffic.
The introductory documentation for this project (PDF) lays out the use case, protocol, and hardware for NPR. It’s based on chips designed for the 433MHz ISM band, specifically the SI4463 ISM band radio from Silicon Labs. Off the shelf amplifiers are used, and the rest of the modem consists of an Mbed Nucleo and a Wiznet W5500 Ethernet module. There is one single modem type for masters and clients. The network is designed so that a master serves as a bridge between Hamnet, a high-speed mesh network that can connect to the wider Internet. This master connects to up to seven clients simultaneously. Alternatively, there is a point-to-point configuration that allows two clients to connect to each other at about 200 kbps.
Being a 434 MHz device, this just isn’t going to fly in the US, but the relevant chip will work with the 915 MHz ISM band. This is a great solution to IP over radio, and like a number of popular amateur radio projects, it started with the hardware hackers first.
You read about well-publicised security exploits, but they always seem to involve somebody with a deity’s grasp of whatever technology is being employed, as well as a pile of impossibly exotic equipment. Surely a mere mortal could never do that!
Happily, that’s not always the case, and to prove it [Gonçalo Nespral] replicated an attack against RF devices such as some garage doors and motor vehicle locks that use a rolling code. His inspiration came from a device from2015, that encouraged the owner of a key to keep transmitting fresh codes. It did this by swamping the receiver of the car, garage door, or whatever with a strong slightly off frequency signal. This would cause the lock to not work, so the user would try again and again. The attacker listens with a very narrow bandwidth receiver on-frequency that is good enough to reject the jamming signal, and can harvest a sequence of the rolling codes enough to compromise it.
[Gonçalo]’s set-up uses a YARD stick One transceiver dongle as its transmitter, and an RTL-SDR for receive. A GNU Radio setup is used to retrieve the key data, and some custom Python code does the remaining work. We wouldn’t advocate using this in the wild and it could conceivably also gain you access to another car with a flashing light on top, but it’s an interesting exposé of the techniques involved.
For many people, phone and Internet connectivity are omnipresent and always available. It’s possible to upload selfies from a Chinese subway, and search for restaurant reviews in most highway towns, all thanks to modern cellular connectivity. However, in emergencies, we’re not always so lucky. If towers fail or user demand grows too large, things can collapse all too quickly. It’s in these situations that HELPER aims to flourish.
HELPER stands for Heterogeneous Efficient Low Power Radio. It’s a radio system designed to operate in the absence of any infrastructure, creating a pop-up network to serve community needs in disaster areas. Users can share information about available resources, like water, gasoline and food, while emergency workers can coordinate their response and direct aid to those who need it.
It’s a system built around commonly available parts. Raspberry Pis run the back end software and communicate with individuals over WiFi, with LoRa radios handling the longer-range communication from node to node. Combining this communication ability with GPS location and stored map data allows users to more easily find resources and assistance when things go wrong. The journal article is freely available for those wishing to learn more about the project.
It’s a project which aims to keep people safe when conventional networks go down. The key is to remember that once disaster strikes, it’s usually too late to start distributing radio hardware – emergency gear should be in place well before things start to go south. Of course, there’s also the government side of the equation – in the USA, the Emergency Broadcast System is a great example of emergency communications done right. Video after the break.
Hi guys so I just logged in to this forum for the first time in 5 years. Super crazy time capsule kind of thing going on. Anyway, I'm way less shitty and way more organized these days and I have like 5 months to do whatever I want so I want to try lucid dreaming again (never succeeded much) but I don't know where to start? I have the discipline to do any systematic method which I definitely lacked before, but most people I know tell me it just happens for them.
What do you think? What's the best way to lucid dream, starting from zero progress, blurry dreams, poor recall?
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Last night I made my first attempt at WILD after I woke up after about 5 hours to ensure I had been in R.E.M sleep. Keep in mind it may sound fairly obvious I made it to SP, however i'm not sure. I could move whenever I wanted to, never stuck in SP like people said. This is what confuses me, are there other people who don't get stuck in SP and can move if they want to? Anyway When I layed down in the corpse position staying perfectly still, after at least a minute I started to feel my limbs going numb, I felt at one point vibrations through my limbs and being pressed down at one point, all through this time I could see lights in the back of my eyes going off. Even at one point it felt as if my limbs were becoming separate from my body like I was moving.
Cheers for any responses.
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I found on Reddit this brilliant 3-part article by johnnyhavoc2, an expert dreamer that using this method alone - without knowing about other techniques - managed to achive an incredible level of control, recall and LD-induction frequency.
If you haven't read it yet, I'm sure you'll love to read it. I intend to apply this method on top of my hands-anchor practice.
Let me know what you think.
Here it is:
PART 1 - Visualization Practices: The Cup
Preface
Before we get started I want to explain a little bit of my thought process to help explain where I get this from.
I'm a lucid dreamer of ~15 years (Currently 26), and I've made it a daily/nightly habit to develop my skills in the dream world. As it stands now I can achieve lucidity pretty much any time I dream and can recall nearly every dream I've ever had with great detail. The amount of control I have in the dream world is vast at this point--and I completely credit both my practical way of viewing dreams and the subconscious, as well as the daily practice I put my imagination through.
This post will be explaining my perspectives on the imagination and how it effects the dream state, as well as how I go about improving it.
Introduction and Goals
Through my experience with LD I've been persistent in my attempt to understand how. It has been years of effort, but I've come across a fairly simple method of improving the vividness and recall of my own dreams. (Note, this practice should also help with control, but I find the degree to which you can control your dreams is based on other things.) Essentially, I'm not going to say these will make you better, but I can honestly say that it worked for me, and makes a lot of sense!
In my experience the mind can be developed just like an athlete develops his muscle, with equal effort and diligence! Visualization techniques are everywhere, and from what I've seen they should all mostly work because the foundation is all about increasing your mind's capacity for holding relevant information.
The core of my practice involved holding an image in my mind, mentally projecting it into the real world, and interacting with that image in some way while holding as many details together as I can.
Step One - Log the Details: The Cup
Choose an image, preferably something you are very well acquainted with. There's a cup sitting next to my laptop right now, so I'll use that.
Bear with me, this is incredibly long winded, but it is this process really makes you look at the world differently. Details that you'd normally miss are laid bare, and the more you can log to memory the better you'll be able to recall it in your dreams.
Look at the cup. Soak in all the details you can. Styrofoam, white, little bubbly divots, the rim has 3 rings around it, the cylinder starts about 3.5'' in diameter reducing to about 2'', the rim is slightly stained tan with coffee, the tiny divots protrude more around the rim making it look like tiny scales, the inner band has more coffee stuck on it, inside the shadows get slightly darker, at the bottom there is a thin layer of liquid coffee that is light tan from the creamer that creates two distinct circles--an outer band where the coffee sticks to the side, and an inner pool separated by a thinner layer, there are a couple coffee grounds in the bottom and only 3 stuck on the inside walls of the cup, the straw is thin and slightly longer than the cup is tall, the straw has two thin white bands that are opposite one another and two red bands opposite one another, the red bands are much thinner, the shadow at the top of the straw is concave and stops about two mm from the lip, the coffee at the bottom of the cup where the straw touches is deeper and forms another small circle, the underside of the cup has two thin bands along the outside and several elevated parts, one of these, I'll call the north cardinal direction, is a company symbol that looks like a "w" made of three tapered rectangles, two leaning to the left and a third to the right, with a small triangle with the sides pinched in together resting between the last two rectangles slightly higher, the numbers "905" are elevated on the east cardinal direction sitting directly above a "2", at the south direction is the string "12C18" in a larger font that is also more rounded off, at the west direction is a triangle made of three arrows moving in a circular fashion around a "6" with a "PS" directly below it, in the center there is an elevated bump surrounded by a thin circle, with a pointy dot right in the center of the bump.
Step Two - Visualize: The Cup
Now close your eyes and throw the cup somewhere behind you. (Warning: this kills the cup) Take as much of the information you can remember and create the cup in your mind. Add in as many details as you can remember until the image you create begins to lose older details. When that begins to happen, STOP adding.
Next, hold that image in your head. Make it easy on yourself and try to imagine it from one perspective. Keep as many details as you can present in your mind and make sure they don't fade from the image. Try to hold this as long as you can, use your discipline to overcome the issue of getting off subject and constantly try to snap back to the image you want.
Once you get the image in your mind, and have held it for a solid 30 seconds without losing details--begin spinning the cup (Or change your perspective on it, whichever works easiest for you at first.) While moving it about always keep in mind the details you have, and for advanced imagineers (I know, I feel dirty saying it) try to utilize a stable light source and calculate the change in the shadows as it moves!
Again, always keep in mind to slow down, or stop the moment you realize that you are losing details. If this happens, make effort to put them all back in place or reduce the number of details to a manageable amount. You will be able to hold vastly more information than you think, and the more you practice the more details you'll be able to maintain.
Step Three - Interaction: The Cup
Once you get to a point where you are comfortable with moving the object around and keeping a good number of details, begin interacting with the object in your mind. Pick it up. Manipulate it, poke a hole in it then fix it, pour some liquid in it and take a sip then pour it all out or throw the contents at a wall. Try this in first person, and in third person--heck, even imagine from the perspective of the cup itself.
This stage is all about trying to hold those details in mind while exploring the possibilities of the object. As always if you begin to lose details, take a step back and slow down a bit.
Conclusion
Training in the ability to visualize and improve your imagination forms the foundation of the other steps to the methods I use. I highly suggest starting here if you have been having issues with the vividness or recall of your dreams, it can also help control but I find there are other factors involved in that.
Practice daily! Take every free moment you have and pull an image to toy around with. The more you make it habit, the more you'll realize you can hold images for much longer, with incredible clarity, and can even learn to manipulate them with great precision.
If the limitations of dreams come from our own imagination, then we should all strive daily to hone our imaginations to a razor's edge--and this is how I've done it.
I hope this helps someone!
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So I got some excellent advice from skipper regarding MILD techniques. I couldn't find the extra info that I sought after from many a old posts on MILD but they were answered very clearly by him. I'd be doing those who might be trying MILD a disservice if i didn't share this so here's what he said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Skipper1100
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZenLD
Hey Skipper, I had read up your MILD and other guides about a month ago, tried it did some shadow work as per guide and had more had LD or Ld moments pretty much most of that week. :D
Lds became more sparse after that though, and I didn't get many until each time I felt like giving up last week.
Oh yeah I've been changing my mild mantra a little each time after the dry spell, trying to find the one that felt least resistance, but the theme was the same. I think i managed to find the mantra last night that got me really excited each time I said it.
I'm doing my mild most seriously when I reach the state without distracted thoughts during meditation. And try to repeat it periodically throughout the day.
But am I doing it right? Should I keep the mantra exactly the same now? And how long would you practice the mild each day? Oh yeah should I be doing the shadow work daily as I do the mild? Shuld the practice be moved right before bed?
I'm getting really close to constant consistent Ld I think, but I'd really love to have your awesome guidance piece the missing puzzle and get there :D
Oh yeah I also tried asking the dream while lucid to "make me lucid in every dream" :rolllaugh: maybe I gotta try again.
Basically, it's really simple, you did it before, and you know what it's like, now all you have to do is under-complicate it/be simpler.
The reason you keep the mantra the exact same is well, so that you can focus on it. Focus is very important with lucid dreaming and any mental/metaphysical experience. Wherever your focus is, that is where all your power goes. It doesn't come from anything outside of yourself, it starts all within yourself, most importantly.
It works just like an experience bar in a video game. The more you use it, the more it expands, and you never loose experience. This is why it's possible to "turn on/off" omnilucidity. Stay consistent with the mantra, change it/use more if you want something different. The most important thing, again, is feeling. Like, emotionally. Feel it, truly feel it, like you're 100% there.
The time as for how long? I say it really doesn't matter. If your focus is very potent, just a minute of straight awareness and feeling into it, will be very powerful.
Do shadow work daily, constantly. Constantly, constantly, constantly. It's like medicine. Our minds/egos love to try and doubt everything, and block our paths out of protection, but this is unnecessary. The more you open your heart to believing in all this stuff, the more and more it happens. When you do shadow work, don't treat it like a chore, treat it like you really, really want to change your line of thinking that you feel is blocking what you really want to do.
The practice can be moved to any point of the day. The principal is the same, but before bed is the most important. You don't want unwanted thoughts clouding your lucid dreaming, so before you go to bed, be sure to meditate at least until you "run out of thoughts" or you are in a spot of awareness, then you just feel your mantra, like it's natural and it's already happening, and boom.
People really over complicate lucid dreaming. They figure since it's so powerful, it must be super hard. I mean, we're all taught nothing comes easy in life huh? but even that is straight up, well, a lie.
It's something everyone can do, just like being a baby and learning how to walk. That's exactly how it should be viewed, instead of the rocket sciencey, super hard, philosophical deep thinker "woke" type of approach. A lot of the hassle, comes from us, and it's really simple to undo the trickery and self doubt that we impose on ourselves with things like this.
Remember, the most important step with all of this is the shadow work. I've experienced it multiple, multiple, multiple times. When I didn't believe, nothing happened, when i did believe, things happen.
The point is, lucid dreaming isn't hard at all, it's overcoming our doubts and fears which is hard. This is why a lot of people quit early, because they look to this for an escape, but most of them aren't naturals, and it will require you to handle the problems that you're trying to run away from. (Self doubt, and fears).
It's a nice experience, lovely one, and it goes plenty deeper than just becoming aware in dreaming.
Glad it helped, good luck. :fro:
I had major successes with his method initially and now it's even better!
I hope it helps anyone who might be having trouble with MILD.
Thanks again skipper, you're awesome! :armflap:
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Those who love a detailed build log will enjoy this. The pager features everything up to and including the kitchen sink. A Cortex M0+ runs the show, flashed with an Arduino compatible bootloader, while a RFM95W module handles the LoRa communications. There’s a pager vibrator and piezo buzzer for notifications, along with a LiPo charger to make keeping the battery topped up easy. There’s even an RTC and soft-power button module.
Even if the LoRa side of things isn’t relevant to your interests, it’s a great example of how to build a useful tool rather than just a proof-of-concept. Things like an easy-to-use interface and simple battery charging go a long way to making something usable in the field. [5Volt-Junkie] even goes so far as to point out that even solder mask matters – if you’re using an infrared oven, your black boards will need a different profile to the usual green PCBs.
All the hard work has paid off, creating an attractive end product that we’d be proud to pack with the rest of our ham gear. LoRa is a useful platform, and as we’ve seen, it can be useful for everything from viticulture to meterology. Video after the break.
Classix Philly One Oh Seven Nine is your home for Philly soul right at the top of the dial, and now you know why this writer isn’t allowed on the Hackaday podcast. That phrase, ‘top of the dial’ doesn’t mean much these days because we all have radios with a digital display and seek buttons. There was a time when radios actually had dials, but [glasslinger] is in a class all by himself. He’s adding a digital display to a 1940s radio, and he’s doing it with Nixie tubes.
The circuitry for the digital display for this AM radio requires getting the frequency the radio is tuned to. This is done by counting the oscillator frequency, then subtracting the IF. [glasslinger] is doing this with an Arduino (hey, it’s a legitimate engineering choice) and a 4040 12-bit binary counter as a pre-scaler. The Arduino does the math and then drives a few 74141 Nixie drivers, which then display the frequency of the receiver in beautiful glass tubes. Add in a single neon bulb for the thousands digit, and you have a four-digit display that will tell you the frequency you’re tuned to on an old AM radio.
The rest of the build consists of fixing up an old radio and gluing the veneer down again with modern glues that will last another seventy years. The finished cabinet was sanded, a bezel for the display was added, and since [glasslinger] has the equipment, he made a new, long neon tube to light up with the volume of the radio. And you thought a cat’s eye detector was cool.
This build is a tour de force, and something that is so incredibly modern but at the same time built on vintage technology. If you’ve got an hour and a half, we highly recommend checking out the build video below.
Antennas come in many shapes and sizes, with a variety of characteristics making them more or less suitable for various applications. The average hacker with only a middling exposure to RF may be familiar with trace antennas, yagis and dipoles, but there’s a whole load more out there. [Eric Sorensen] is going down the path less travelled, undertaking the build of a self-tuning magnetic loop antenna.
[Eric]’s build is designed to operate at 100W on the 20 meter band, and this influences the specifications of the antenna. Particularly critical in the magnetic loop design is the voltage across the tuning capacitor; in this design, it comes out at approximately 4 kilovolts. This necessitates the careful choice of parts that can handle these voltages. In this case, a vacuum variable capacitor is used, rated to a peak current of 57 amps and a peak voltage of 5 kilovolts.
The magnetic loop design leads to antenna which is tuned to a very narrow frequency range, giving good selectivity. However, it also requires retuning quite often in order to stay on-band. [Eric] is implementing a self-tuning system to solve this, with a controller using a motor to actuate the tuning capacitor to maintain the antenna at its proper operating point.
If you’re unfamiliar with magnetic loop builds, [Eric]’s project serves as a great introduction to both the electrical and mechanical considerations inherent in such a design. We’ve seen even more obscure designs though – like these antennas applied with advanced spray techniques.
After working on this for more than a year, I had my first lucid dream a few weeks ago. I had posted the details on this thread.
Now I had my second lucid dream, with same amount of awareness. Today was my first day alone as my wife went on travel. I slept late (1 AM), when I went to bed I read more of The Phase as I'm working on those techniques. I woke up properly without movement around 5 am, but still couldn't get anything out of doing the DEILD cycles. It took me a while to fall back to asleep. Basically all signs pointing to an unsuccessful night.
Then I started dreaming. Just like the first time it happened, again, as my dream finished, instead of waking up, I became aware that what happened was a dream, and I jumped into a full lucid dream. In the same setting, but now the time of day had changed. I'm not sure what to make of it, if there is a technique I can salvage here, or if it was just falling asleep with some intention (as first time it happened without intention). Anyway, here is the journal entry if anyone is interested.
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First night alone after wife left for travel. I read The Phase the night before at 1 AM, then went to sleep hoping to do cycles. I woke up from a dream around 5 am where I was at my wife's old university, biking around. I hadn't moved or opened my eyes, so I attempted the cycles (swimming, noise, visualization) but it didn't work. I first tried to separate. It took me a while to sleep (maybe hour and a half?) Then I started dreaming.
I went down to the university where my wife is no longer a student at. There is a farm that I saw in my previous dream before. Some guy was selling red vegetables with our names on them. I didn't want it. There was an old white house and ZG was there. He was surprised to see me, and I was too. We decided to walk through the campus together. I had my bicycle but this time, I biking wasn't allowed - there were chains blocking bikers. I saw one kid walking his bike, so I did the same. I asked him how it felt, that his video where he punched a kid in the face went viral. He told me he's done with court, and is out of jail now. We're walking through some hallways in a building and enter a small room before the next hallway. There are two kids. They lock the door and tell ZG that they're gonna beat him for punching that kid. For some reason, I stand against the wall, my eyes meet ZG's, and I let him know that there isn't much I can do. The kid really beats him hard. ZG falls down to the floor with blood all over. The other kid jumps on him, wanting to stab a wine opener to his head. We yell him not to do it. He unscrews the bottle opener so that it's not as long and it won't go too deep. I run outside, and yell at the school staff to bring them inside. They break apart the fight. I continue walking down the hallway. And I notice I can be lucid.
Again, another lucid immediately after a dream. I had that same feeling as my first lucid dream, where I realized that it was a dream, and there was some feeling I had to trigger in order to be lucid, as if it's a certain awareness only specific to dreaming. When I did, I was in the hallways of a house. (This house was the same from the dream I just had, but it was night time). The hallways were empty, dark, with a little bit of yellow light, but there wasn't anyone around. There was a white jacket hanging. I slowed down, observed the hardwood floors. I looked at myself in the mirror and started to dance, but I noticed that it was gonna quickly go out of control, so I slowed down. I tried to read the writing on some painting/picture, which had words, 'spock' in it. As I expected, the letters changed immediately as I looked away. This time though, I didn't need to completely look away for it to change - I saw it change as if I changed it myself by thing about it. I wanted to try changing the scenery, so I said to myself "I will transport to Bahamas". I remembered reading about it that I can do that by kneeling down, looking at the floor and imagining that when I stand up, I will be there (is that right? need to find the proper way). I could start to hear the sound of the sea but I realized I will lose the dream, so I stabilized by observing where I am right away. It was as if I couldn't commit to the transportation. Since there wasn't anyone around, I wanted to bring someone into the dream. I said to myself, "when I turn the corner, my mom will be there". When I did, there was a woman (supposedly mom but not looking like her), she was just looking at me, smiling, then I lost her. I walked into another room after the hallway (the same room where ZG was beaten by two dudes in my previous dream). This time, there was my brother (way younger), typing something on a computer at the corner of the room on a tiny desk. I spoke to him. There was a small iphone hanging sideways on the wall next to him. I went back to the hallway. I wanted to try changing to beach again because this scene was getting pretty boring. I kneeled down all the way to the floor and was committed this time. I touched the hardwood floor, thinking that I will be there now, and started feeling the sand in my hands, also started hearing the faint ocean sound. I thought, if I close my eyes, and open them, maybe I will transport this time. I closed my eyes, and I woke up from the dream. (task: figure out how to properly change the scenery)
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I have created a new video for us. It is a guided MILD induction. That's right, just put on some headphones and drift off to dreamland while also participating in a 15 minute MILD induction.
You can also use this anytime of the day as lucid dreaming affirmations.
Survival situations are definitely not fun and games. Well, for a certain kind of misanthrope they are, but they definitely aren’t fun for 99% of us. The stresses of surviving, enduring and under the circumstances thriving a major event will be hair-raising, no doubt about it.
But that does not mean you should completely shun the idea or entertainment and recreation in your planning and preparation. To the contrary, for any long- or unknown-duration crisis, especially ones that are comparatively less severe than other potential happenings, recreation and leisure activities are important, especially when surviving in groups or as a family.
Humans, all of us, must have some way to relieve stress, some kind of pressure valve.
While you likely will not be able to indulge all of your hobbies or take that vacation you always wanted after the onset of a major crisis (unless austere living or bugging-in is considered a vacation), with a little knowledge and a few helpful items you can have everything you need close at hand for a little bit of entertainment.
In today’s article, I’ll be talking about the importance of having a little fun in the midst of a really bad situation, why it is important to your overall success, and offering a list of games and other things you can partake of when you and yours need some entertainment.
The Importance of Entertainment during a Crisis
The popular image of people who have the rotten luck to be enduring a crisis is one of abject misery, drawn, haunted faces, and a distinct lack of fun. The notion is that surviving will be a grueling or exhausting task, one where all efforts and energies are directed solely to hanging on to what you can, including your very life.
This image certainly underscores the seriousness of a proper disaster, and what is at stake, but it does not account for all ends. While certainly possible, even probable, depending on the situation, this version of survival is often predicated upon the assumption that any event bad enough to be dubbed a “SHTF-grade” one will leave you dazed and reeling in the wake of a shattered home, city or country, and your day-to-day existence will be reduced to skin-of-your-teeth subsistence, if that.
Again, plausible. But not the only way things can go down. Another potential outcome is one where an event of moderate intensity but long or indefinite duration has effectively turned society upside down, creating a new paradigm for daily life. However different this new day is from the old, there will be opportunity, and need, for stress relief.
Consider weeks and perhaps months of drudgery minus all the enjoyable activities, comings and goings that most people count among life’s pleasures. If you have prepared well and are just a little fortunate, the worst you may be facing could be protracted stays at home or at some other location, one where you at least have shelter, an ample supply of food and water.
Thank God and good on you. That is what we all hope for. The problem is, aside from daily tasks that must be completed, you will likely not have much else to do to fill your time.
In kinder times, we could fire up YouTube, go to the movies, head out shopping, play sports, or do any number of things. Plainly, the majority of those activities will be history or completely unavailable for any number of reasons for the duration of the crisis.
Before you “tut-tut” and wag you finger at me for even bringing up something as plebian as entertainment in the context of prepping, and remind me that you are harder than woodpecker lips and don’t need no stinkin’ entertainment ‘cause we survivin’, take just one second to consider who may be with you: your significant other, your children, other family members, neighbors, or simply members of your survival group. There will be a need for stress relief and camaraderie if the situation persists and permits it!
Persistent stress nibbles away at the mind, corroding reason and morale until a perfectly normal person is rendered a perfect basket-case, unpredictable and not much good to anyone. Games and other activities are excellent for both bonding and stress relief during rest times. The social value of all kinds of simple games should not be underestimated, as this little bit of fun and normalcy can go a long way toward maintaining group cohesion and morale.
You probably have a half dozen questions or admonishments on the tip of your tongue right now, and I plan on addressing at least half of them in the following sections. So keep your safety on and keep reading.
Why Not Spend Time More Wisely?
That’s the point: in the right circumstances, you are spending time wisely. Assuming you are not 24/7 hustling to merely keep your head above water, literally or figuratively, you will have time allocated for rest. You can rest, and at the same time also engage in a bit of play with whoever you are with, or even just yourself in the case of some single player games.
Sometimes you will, frankly, be sitting pretty thanks to your hard work prior to the occurrence of whatever disaster everyone else is presently dealing with and you won’t have so much to do. What’s that? There is always something to do, you say? That’s true, you could always chop more wood, gather more food or be doing something, anything, to be improving your situation that much more. Sharpen your knives, clean your guns, something!
But if you want to split hairs, but let’s consider an alternate outcome to this parable for a moment: nothing happens in a vacuum. If you were securely and safely sheltered, wherever that might be, with an ample supply of all commodities and otherwise little to worry about except enduring the current troubles, ask yourself if the risk of activity is worth the gain?
Chopping wood means swinging an axe or maul, both two great tools for hurting yourself. A scouting foray could lead to becoming lost, twisting an ankle, or being overtaken by bad guys. Other examples abound.
Considerations for Games
As a caveat, you chances of being able to play a game, any game, during a crisis are largely predicated on the specific situation you are dealing with. A mad scramble to get out of town and stay ahead of danger will leave little time for recreation until you are safely evacuated. A prolonged “bug-in” resulting from a natural disaster, major blackout or societal ills will afford much more.
The type of game too will play a part on timing. Classic board games that we all grew up with require a certain amount of space, setup time, a smattering of pieces and everyone understanding the rules. Games utilizing playing cards require only the cards, a nominally clear surface and all of the players to understand or be willing to learn the rules.
Some games can be played with something as simple as a piece of paper and writing implement. Some simple games need nothing at all, and are at least good for entertaining young children.
My basic rule of thumb is larger board games are only kept at home for bug-in and shelter in place situations. I am not hauling any fullsize board game all over creation resplendent with a zillion jangly, easy to lose pieces. No way. Instead, for carry in a BOB or Go-Bag, I will keep a simple deck of cards, which are useful no matter whether you stay put or head out, or stash a tiny, fold up travel size version of a game like checkers, chess, battleship or something similar in a tin.
When choosing what actual game to play, consider how much time you have to devote to a round or session, the players (young, old, competitive or not, etc.) and other factors. Some games are just not much fun, like Monopoly, which invariably turns into a grinding mudslog with one inveterate cheater somewhere in the group. Risk is much the same, only with endless dice rolling and no decisive victory. If you and yours though historically enjoy these games as a group, they may still be worthwhile for the sense of normalcy.
Instead, games that play briskly, and feature a degree of luck will help ensure that games end in a timely fashion and fun can be had by all, or at least most. Card games are good for this, as a few hands can constitute a session. I especially appreciate and enjoy card games (even though historically I am terrible at them) because their social component of teaching, learning and bantering is priceless.
Another option for on the go gaming is a simple pad and pen. What? Sure. A piece of paper and pen can allow you to play several engaging games, from hangman to battleship. This requires almost no setup, and can be resumed or abandoned at will with no loss of progress.
Ultimately, where there is a will there is a way, and all but the leanest and most ascetic loads cannot make room for a deck of cards or a tiny travel game, should you want to include it.
What about Electronic Games?
On the topic of games for whiling away the long hours during a crisis, none are more divisive than electronic games. Larger units like dedicated consoles and PCs require too much power to be considered for use. If you are able to freely play on your console or computer, than your particular situation may not be quite so serious.
Of more interest are the games installed on tablets and smart phones. If you are employing either device as a potential tool to help you prevail and survive, burning what may be extremely limited battery power by playing a game is inexcusable; you should be conserving it as the precious resource it is! On the other hand, if you have a ready and reliable source of renewable power (solar, grid, thermoelectric, etc.) then this is probably allowable.
Just keep in mind that nearly all of these games feature sound as one of their primary features, and so consider headphone or earbud use mandatory. The addictive and rapturous dings, pings, jingles and explosions that make these games so compelling is highly likely to grate on the nerves of anyone not playing, far more than the click and clatter of game pieces and dice or the gentle shuffle and sussur of playing cards.
The Games for Preppers on the Go or Afield
I have gathered quite a collection of various games that you can play, some are full board games with a survival bent, and others require little equipment and setup, making them ideal for play when you don’t have or don’t want to commit to an actual tabletop board game.
The list features games of all stripes: card games, board games, and pen-and-paper games, so there is sure to be something here for every taste and number of players.
I have organized them into categories: Board Games (suitable for travel), Card games, Camping/Scout Games, and Pen-and-Paper Games. You will find under each game a brief description of how to play each as well as some info on adapting or improvising them from what you have on hand.
A thrilling spin on the well-trod zombie survival genre, Dead of Winter is what you might call a Co-Adversarial game: the players are all trying to win together and survive by managing and fortifying a home base, obtaining supplies and avoiding or dispatching zombies, but they also have a second, secret objective that they must complete in order for an individual win.
Sometimes this objective is in opposition to “team” wants and needs, or even covertly hostile, making for a pretty exciting clash of personalities and ulterior motives… Just like real people.
The detail and nuances in managing a group of survivors and their shelter, right down to removing trash and refuse to prevent pestilence and keeping barricades up to snuff, makes for a fun strategy and management excursion. The Machiavellian nature of the secret objectives also ensures plenty of conflict, paranoia and scandal. An absolute blast.
In Pandemic, a world-wide outbreak of several hideous diseases has players taking on the role of one of several disease containment specialists, who then must proceed to various hotspots to contain and simultaneously research the bugs for a cure.
A variety of randomly drawn cards either help the players with various abilities or result in the diseases mutating or otherwise becoming more problematic. If the diseases spread too far the players lose, but if they manage to develop cures for all four plagues then they win. This game is easy to learn, and its cooperative strategic depth makes it enjoyable for all kinds of groups.
A sobering portrayal of war and its effects, with players taking on the shoes of civilians trapped in a besieged and war-torn city. Hiding in their shelled and half-ruined tenement house, players must gather supplies, improvise and construct items they need and go forth to explore the dangerous and ever-changing remains of the city.
Along the way, you meet a cast of motley characters, from soldiers to victims and outlaws, who will present the players with unique narratives each play through. Bandits and raiders will be fought, and you’ll struggle grimly against encroaching death. Excellent, but fairly depressing. Enjoyable with the right group of people.
Chess and Checkers
These two forerunners of Western board games need no introduction. Both lend themselves to easy travel, as both can be readily found in miniature travel form ready to go or as part of a multi-game set, or improvised from all kinds of found materials. Any flat surface that can be marked or carved can be made into an 8×8 chess- or checker-board, and you can handily make a set of either from paper using small cutouts for your pieces.
Chess pieces and checkers can also be fashioned from items you likely have in abundance and close at hand: coins, washers, pebbles or caps for checkers, and various matched sets of implements for chess. One especially good item for chess is various sizes of cartridge ammunition. All collectors of guns have done this, and don’t let them lie and tell you otherwise. Ask me how I know!
Card Games
Games that require a simple, bog standard deck of cards. Obviously, you’ll need to know the rules of whatever kind of game you want to play, or make some up, but that is part of the beauty of cards: everyone knows how to play something, and they were usually taught by someone else.
This personal provenance of how they learned a game, learned to play well (or not) and how they pass it on makes them a great tool for bonding and social situations of all kinds when you are cooped up with other people.
Card games may be more or less complex and require differing amounts of strategy. You can always learn several, or a couple variations on one game. Games which require betting as part of the strategy of the game can make use of any small tokens of varying value.
Solitaire (Patience) – One of the rare card games that can be played solo. Unknown to some, can be played head-to-head using a points system or as a race. The objective is to manipulate the cards in such a way that they are arranged in a certain order according to preset rules.
Poker – Poker and its variants, especially the blazingly popular Texas Hold ‘Em, are among the most popular games on earth. The essential components of calculation, betting, bluffing and other psychological factors make Poker a nuanced and rich game ideal for small groups who all know how to play.
Blackjack – Another popular and somewhat simpler game than Poker, one that requires a “house” player. Less decisively adversarial than Poker, and easier to learn quickly.
Cards in the Hat – A fun game of skill and concentration, but one that is mildly abusive on the cards. You can play this one solo or with others, either individually or on teams. Simply put, cards are tossed or flicked at a hat or other receptacle for points. This is far from easy, and is akin to darts with the finesse required for success.
Camping Games
Games of skill designed to be played with items you have on you when camping, hence the name.
Mumbledy-Peg
One of the best, oldest, camp games that no one knows how to play, even way back when it was a popular pastime. This old game is played with pocket knives, so if you have qualms about dinging your blade or getting nicked, move along.
The game involves you getting your knife to stick in soft ground by way of a variety of increasingly tricky maneuvers. The first player to complete all of the maneuvers successfully wins. You can create all kinds of interesting and challenging maneuvers to try, or use some published “official” ones. You can see a demonstration of one variation here:
Charades
A time honored classic that needs no equipment, just players. Teams take turns with rotating players acting out a randomly assigned animal, person or concept while their teammates try to guess within a certain amount of time. The team with the most correct guesses after a certain number of rounds wins. See a demonstration here:
Bottle Toss
Hone your marksmanship in the most primal way: throwing rocks! Setup targets of some kind, traditionally cans but could be anything close at hand that will react when struck, and get to hurling. You can play a dozen variations on this, either for speed or points. HORSE is one popular variation akin to basketball, where called shots are attempted then duplicated by the opposing player.
Pen & Paper Games
These games are ones that can be played on a piece of paper or other writeable surface. Everyone has played tic-tac-toe, right? Same thing, only we will play games a fair bit more enjoyable and, you know, actually gamey than tic-tac-toe.
Hangman
Another classic guessing game and one that still holds up well today. Players take turns choosing a secret word that must be guessed, one letter at a time, by the opposition. The controlling player has on a piece of paper a simple gallows and noose, and for each wrong guess a limb or body part is added to the hangman.
Once complete, the guessing player loses. If the word is guessed before the hangman is complete, the guessing player wins. You can make the game easier or harder by agreeing ahead of time how many features your hangman will have, e.g. legs, arms, torso and head, or all of the above plus eyes, ears, hands, feet, etc. More fun to play than watch obviously, but you can see it in action here:
Battleship
This is one game I quite prefer on paper versus the live board game equivalent. Each player draws two 10×10 grids on a piece of paper, one representing their fleet and the other representing enemy waters. The vertical axis will be marked A through J, and the horizontal axis 1 through 10, allowing a grid reference to be called out.
On their own grid, each player creates a fleet of six ships, each of varying lengths: two 2-cell ships, two, 3-cell ships, a 4-cell ship and a 5-cell ship. Players then take turns “firing” shots at grid references, which both players record on their respective grids, hits and misses. A ship which has hits on all of its locations is sunk. The first player to sink the enemy fleet wins. A demo is available here:
There are plenty of other games in each category you may enjoy, but these are some of my all-time favorites, and enjoyable by players young and old. Or you may perhaps create a game of your own.
Conclusion
Entertainment for stress relief and bonding is a must during any protracted crisis that affords it. The human psyche is fragile, and without appropriate measures to reduce stress and increase positive feelings, even if only with a game of chance or skill and some companionship, morale may plummet and tempers flare.
Learn a few card games, improvise a board game or two, and break out the chess set when time allows, and you and your mates will all be thankful for the diversion.
When you think of a software defined radio (SDR) setup, maybe you imagine an IC or two, maybe feeding a computer. You probably don’t think of a vacuum tube. [Mirko Pavleski] built a one-tube shortwave SDR using some instructions from [Burkhard Kainka] which are in German, but Google Translate is good enough if you want to duplicate his feat. You can see a video of [Mirko’s] creation, below.
The build was an experiment to see if a tube receiver could be stable enough to receive digital shortwave radio broadcasts. To avoid AC line hum, the radio is battery operated and while the original uses an EL95 tube, [Mirko] used an EF80.
To get the necessary stability, it is important that everything is secured. The original build made sure the tube would not move during operation, although [Mirko’s] tube mounting looks more conventional but still quite secure. Loose coupling of the antenna also contributes to stability, and the tuning adjustments ought to have longer shafts to minimize hand capacitance near the tuning knob. Another builder [Karl Schwab] notes that only about 1/3 of the tuning range is usable, so a reduction gear on the capacitor would also be welcome.
The tube acts as both an oscillator and mixer, so the receiver is a type of direct conversion receiver. The tube’s filament draws about 200 mA, so battery operation is feasible.
According to [Burkhard] his build drifts less than 1 Hz per minute, which isn’t bad. As you can see in the video, it works well enough. The EF80, by the way, is essentially an EF50 with a different base — that tube helped win World War II. If you like to build everything, maybe you could try the same feat with a homemade tube.
Yesterday I had a nap and for some reason I dreamed I was trying to push my thumb through my palm, which is awkward because I virtually never do this RC in real life. It wouldn't go through in my dream, so I concluded I wasn't dreaming. Any thoughts?
I usually plug my nose and breathe out through it.
via Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views - Attaining Lucidity https://www.dreamviews.com/showthread.php?t=164980&goto=newpost
..and it's not getting much better. I'v been choosing 4 targets for several weeks but I still miss alot. What should I do? I try to visualize me discovering them.
via Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views - Attaining Lucidity https://ift.tt/2C8sr8L
Sharing your life with a cat is a wonderful and fulfilling experience. Sharing your life with an awake, alert, and bored cat in the early hours when you are trying to sleep, is not. [Simon Aubury] has just this problem, as his cat [Snowy] is woken each morning by a jet passing over. In an attempt to identify the offending aircraft, he’s taken a Raspberry Pi and a software-defined radio, and attempted to isolate it by spotting its ADS-B beacon.
The SDR was the ubiquitous RTL chipset model, and it provided a continuous stream of aircraft data. To process this data he used an Apache Kafka stream processing server into which he also retrieved aircraft identifying data from an online service. Kafka’s SQL interface for interrogating multiple streams allowed him to untangle the mess of ADS-B returns and generate a meaningful feed of aircraft. This in turn was piped into an elasticsearch search engine database, upon which he built a Kibana visualisation.
The result was that any aircraft could be identified at a glance, and potential noise hotspots forecast. Whether all this heavy lifting was worth the end result is for you to decide, however it does provide an interesting introduction to the technologies and software involved. It is however possible to monitor ADS-B traffic considerably more simply.
I set an automatic alarm which turns itself off for 3am, and I wake up myself automatically at 2:00am. My mind is racing too much and I am too hyper to fall asleep to be able to FILD. plus the anxiety of the alarm going off keeps me up.
I turn off the alarm and I still can't FILD.
My schedule is as such:
5am I have to wake up
I go to sleep at around 10pm, 1030pm at latest, and wake up at 5am, for context.
via Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views - Attaining Lucidity https://ift.tt/2C3RYQr
Tonight something strange happened. I woke up and attempted to go back to sleep. I have been trying to dream about a certain scenario for a while now. When I fell asleep and entered a dream I immediately knew I was dreaming, as if it was obvious that just a second before I was awake. I never even thought about doing an RC and just went ahead with the dream, which went pretty close to the scenario I've been wanting to dream.
I'm pretty new to lucid dreaming and am wondering what happened here. I have only been using DILD so far, but this always seems to involve having to suddenly realize that you are probably dreaming (e.g. by seeing something weird and dreamlike), which you would then ascertain by doing an RC. But this time I was immediately convinced 100% that I was dreaming without an obvious trigger. Was this something like a WILD?
I then had one FA, then woke up for real and then it happened again. I went straight back to the same scenario, the dream lasted longer than the first time and was more vivid.
via Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views - Attaining Lucidity https://ift.tt/2NEAlLK
In the world of ham radio, a “Fox Hunt” is a game where participants are tasked with finding a hidden transmitter through direction finding. Naturally, the game is more challenging when you’re on the hunt for something small and obscure, so the ideal candidate is a small automated beacon that can be tucked away someplace inconspicuous. Of course, cheap is also preferable so you don’t go broke trying to put a game together.
As you might expect, there’s no shortage of kits and turn-key transmitters that you can buy, but [WhisleyTangoHotel] wanted to come up with something that could be put together cheaply and easily from hardware the average ham or hacker might already have laying around. The end result is a very capable “fox” that can be built in just a few minutes at a surprisingly low cost. He cautions that you’ll need a ham license to legally use this gadget, but we imagine most people familiar with this particular pastime will already have the necessary credentials.
The heart of this build is one of the fairly capable, but perhaps more importantly, incredibly cheap Baofeng handheld radios. These little gadgets are likely familiar to the average Hackaday reader, as we discussed their dubious legal status not so long ago. At the moment they are still readily available though, so if you need a second (or third…), you might want to pull the trigger sooner rather than later.
At any rate, in the setup that [WhisleyTangoHotel] has outlined, the Baofeng radio is connected up to an MP3 player which is loaded up with a recording of your message and FCC callsign that plays in a loop. An Arduino and a relay module are then used to key the transmitter automatically by grounding out the microphone connector. As it so happens, the lanyard mount on the Baofeng is a convenient ground point and allows you to hook the whole thing up quickly with alligator clips.
I am big on preaching the benefits of readiness against the most probable threats, as my long time readers will no doubt attest. One of the single most common everyday crises a prepper may have to deal with is a fire.
Fires are serious threats, and can happen anywhere, and virtually anytime, from a variety of causes. IN 2017, there were over 1.3 million damaging fires of all kinds reported. Of those, over 300,000 were house fires. The final toll in death and damage was 3,400 dead, 14,600+ injured, and property damage totaling over $23 billion, billion dollars.
With figures like that combined with the statistical likelihood of a fire occurring compared to, say, total economic or social collapse, if you don’t have a comprehensive fire response plan laid out and drilled, you are wrong.
You can keep a small incidental fire from turning into a deadly conflagration and life-ruining disaster by keeping a quality fire extinguisher handy and knowing how to use it. In this article, we’ll have a look at what’s what when it comes to fire extinguisher tech and what you need to know to get your amateur firefighter on.
Dealing with Fire
Dealing with fire is a tricky thing for the average person. Fires at home, your workplace and in your vehicle will be your biggest potential threats requiring you to use a fire extinguisher in an attempt to make a safe escape or snuff a little fire out before it becomes an unstoppable blaze.
Ideally, you’ll have a variety of fire extinguishers at or in all three locations to deal with whatever kind of fire that occurs. For example, you might have a large, all purpose can at home for dealing with dry material, grease and electrical fires, a smaller unit mounted in your car, and then whatever kind is appropriate for your work, assuming you do not work for someone else in a building with pre-furnished extinguishers,
The rub is that most fires grow fairly quickly much of the time, and in ideal circumstances (or from applying the wrong agent) they can spread with shocking speed and intensity. Any person will have a limited window to successfully contain a fire before it gets completely out of control, and then you’ll simply need to abandon ship and try to escape with your life.
Time will be of the essence, so it is crucial that you know both what kind of fire extinguisher to utilize and how to use it to best effect. We have a look at both below, starting with types and ratings of fire extinguishers.
Understanding Fire and the Fire Triangle
To fight something, one must first know it. Fire is no different. For any fire to ignite, there must three elements present, known as the Fire Triangle. If you take away any one element, the fire goes out. Think of it like a tripod: to topple any tripod, you only need to break a single leg.
The trick is understanding how different types of fire process the triangle. Chemical fires may be far harder to put out than simple common material fires. Metal fueled fires can be among the very worst to deal with, though thankfully are quite rare unless you work in an industrial or lab setting where they typically occur.
Those three elements composing the fire triangle are:
Heat – Without sufficiently high temperature, a fire cannot start or continue.
Fuel – Without fuel a fire cannot burn. Removing the available fuel to a fire will lessen its intensity until existing fuel is consumed.
Oxidizer – No oxygen, no fire, and less air means a slower burning, weaker fire. This is usually the air around a fire but can be a chemical oxidizer. Chemically oxidized fires can be very tough to put out.
Fire extinguishers work by attacking one or more legs of the triangle. CO2 extinguishers displace oxygen near the fire and introduce a blast of cold. Chemical agent extinguishers may absorb more heat than water in addition to smothering the fuel source, etc.
Types of Fire Extinguishers
Fire extinguishers are not a one-for-all solution (though some come close). Instead, each unit will utilize a specific agent that is effective against one or more types of fuel. It is absolutely critical that you choose an extinguisher for the type of blaze that is most likely to occur, though thankfully the most common residential extinguishers will handle the three most common causes of fire you are likely to encounter.
All fire extinguishers will be marked with their type(s) and rating on the unit for simple, quick identification and reference at a glance.
Class A – denotes an extinguisher for ordinary materials fires; wood, paper, plastics, etc. Its symbol is a green triangle.
Class B – for fires fueled by combustible liquids like gasoline, kerosene and oils. The geometric symbol for a Class B extinguisher is a red square.
Class C – for fires involving electrical components like wiring, circuit breakers, appliances, etc. The geometric signal for a Class C unit is a blue circle. Of important note is that a B rating specifically indicates an extinguisher containing an agent that is electrically non-conductive. You definitely cannot fight an electrical fire with a water extinguisher! The risk of shock is certain!
Class D – For fires involving combustible metals. Fires of this nature are very nasty and thankfully rare outside of lab and certain industrial settings. These extinguishers are specialized for the fires they fight, and you will not see multi-purpose models. Their symbol is a yellow star, or decagon.
Class K – For animal fats, cooking oils and similar commonly encountered in kitchens. The symbol for these is a black hexagon.
Varieties
Among Class A, B, C and multi-purpose extinguishers above, you will encounter a few common varieties.
Water Extinguishers – Ah, water. The perennial foe and weakness of fire. What could be better and more fool proof than dousing a fire with water? Especially air-pressurized water? Well, if you are fighting a class B, C or D fire, almost anything! Water will make the fire worse!
Anyone who has seen a little grease fire in a pot turn into a towering inferno after a hapless, panicking cook throws a glass of water on it knows the scoop already. Any fire that is class A can be easily handled by a water extinguisher, but no others can. For that reason, they are of limited utility and we will be best to avoid them unless we have no other choice.
Dry Chemical – A variety of types are available. These utilize either a powder or foam delivery and can fight some combination of A, B and C fires. Their multi-purpose nature makes them ideal for home and vehicle preparedness, though they have a couple of special drawbacks.
Sodium Bicarbonate or Potassium Bicarbonate – For BC fires. Leaves mildly corrosive chemicals behind that must be neutralized to prevent surface damage.
Monoammonium Phosphate – For ABC fires. These are the kind that leaves behind a sickly-looking mustard yellow cloud of sticky goo. This is a great all around extinguisher, but the material is damaging to electrical components even from incidental contact.
Both of these varieties leave residue behind on combustible materials and the source of the fire itself, greatly reducing the chance of further re-ignition. These are mainstays.
Carbon Dioxide – Shoots exactly what it says on the tin. Extinguishers of this type fire, sorry, poor choice of words, shoot a stream of gaseous CO2 from the nozzle under immense pressure. Will handily put out B and C fires, but not the best choice for A fires. Also these leave no smothering residue behind, and so the chance of re-ignition is greater than with our dry chemical varieties above. The good news is that CO2 extinguishers will not harm electrical components.
Ratings
A fire extinguisher’s rating is denoted by a number before its class. The numbers mean different things by class. For instance, for A class fires, the number denotes an equivalent fire-fighting capability of 1.25 gallons of water for every value of its rating. So a “1” rated A extinguisher is equivalent to 1.25 gallons of water. A “2” rating would be 2.5 gallons of water, and so on.
The rating for a B class extinguisher denotes the size of the fire it can fight in square feet, typically in 10’s of feet, approximately. So a 10B extinguisher can fight a 10 square foot fire, a 20B a 20 square foot fire, etc, etc.
Note these ratings are not in conjunction. You might have a 2A-20B model, for instance. The most important tip you can remember is that bigger is always better on rating, as it indicates the extinguisher is capable of fighting a larger fire.
Using a Fire Extinguisher Effectively
When you smell smoke and can hear the flames popping, it is not time to figure it out as you go. Fire extinguishers are simple to operate, but you should be familiar with the following mnemonic to help you use it to best effect.
P.A.S.S
Pullthe Pin – Make like it is a grenade and pull the pin from the extinguisher valve assembly. Use force, as some are held in with a split pin, security tie, or other retaining mechanism. Don’t throw the extinguisher.
Aimlow – Grasp the handle with one hand and the nozzle or projector with the other. Aim the nozzle at the base of the fire, where the fuel is, not at the jumping flames.
Squeezetrigger – You need to get agent going on to the fire to do any good. Hold the trigger or lever down and get to work. Adjust aim as needed; some models will have a little recoil.
Sweepside to side – The idea is to saturate the base of the fire and area immediately around it with agent until it is totally out.
Keep Your Head
Whatever you do, take a moment to assess the situation before you commit to battling the blaze. Modern chemical fire extinguishers are highly effective, but you must use them correctly and there will be times when the fire has grown too large or is spreading too quickly to stop.
That’s why it is important to take stock of the situation as a whole before you commit to battling a fire. No property or belongings are worth your life or the lives of someone else. Your intervention could be futile and simply waste valuable time if the situation is already out of hand.
You may be on the verge of panic when confronted with a fire, but remember: time spent thinking clearly is never wasted! Ask yourself the following questions before you pull the pin and go to town: Do you have a clear path of retreat or certain escape now, or might the fire potentially cut you off if you fail to contain it or if you delay?
Are you in danger of being overcome by smoke? Asphyxiation is a primary cause of death and incapacitation from fire. You may be fit as fit gets, but a few big lung-fulls of smoke will let the wind out of your sails quickly. Stay as low as you can at any rate, and if you have time a wetted cloth tied over the mouth and nose may offer marginal protection against smoke inhalation.
Is there anyone that may need rescuing? If there are others depending on you to get them out of harm’s way, your time may be best spent doing just that instead of fighting a fire directly. Smoke buildup will make searching geometrically more difficult the longer you wait, so move quickly if this is the case.
You can nip a fire in the bud if you put it out quickly enough, but you’ll also need to decide just as quick if you should try or use what time you have for other ends. Most of you are not trained fire fighters, but a trip to YouTube and elsewhere on the internet should yield plenty of informal education on how quickly you can expect a fire to worsen when started on a variety of material.
Lastly, please consider that, no matter the situation, no material belonging is worth your life or the life of another. Fire is unpredictable, and can multiply in size and intensity so fast you may “lose the ship.” Don’t hang in too long trying to battle a blaze that is clearly getting away from you, something akin to a fighter pilot of old hanging on too long in the burning cockpit, believing erroneously that he can ride out the damage.
When the can starts to sputter if the fire is not out or very nearly so, GET OUT and GET CLEAR!
Storing Fire Extinguishers
When keeping fire extinguishers around your home, you will ideally want two, perhaps more for a larger home. You will want to keep one extinguisher in the kitchen, a common starting point for house fires thanks to stove burners, small appliances and the like, and one in the master bedroom, to enable you a chance to react to a fire that starts at night while you are in bed.
Placement is important: do not keep the extinguisher near the most likely causes of fire! This seems counterintuitive to a quick response, but the reality is that a fire that brews up quickly may keep you from accessing the extinguisher location at all. So this means it should not be kept near outlets, near, under or over the kitchen oven and stove, etc.
It is too common an occurrence to omit special mention: there are plenty of incidents where well-meaning and proactive home or business owners placed their fire extinguishers too close to the most likely source of a fire, only for that fire to occur, and then rapidly overtake the location of the extinguisher.
This means you’d have a poor choice to make in the same situation: either abandon ship without attempting to control the fire or risk getting singed or lit up in an attempt to retrieve your fire extinguisher. Neither is ideal. Give the placement and access of your extinguisher much careful thought so you will be assured of the quickest and surest possible access.
Also do not bury your extinguisher in a drawer or cabinet. If there is ever a tool you’ll need to draw quickly when the time comes, it is a fire extinguisher. Instead, place it in an easy to access place and keep the area around it clear.
What About Car Storage?
***Disclaimer: You should always follow the manufacturer’s instructions and specifications for your fire extinguisher specifying safe storage and handling procedures.***
Fire extinguishers are pressure vessels, and when handling and storing pressure vessels you must always be cautious of allowing too much pressure to build up, lest you damage the valve or even incur an unexpected spontaneous release of pressure, which in the case of an extinguisher will create an enormous mess and render the extinguisher inoperable.
Keeping an extinguisher in your vehicle is a good idea for dealing with vehicle fires, but savvy preppers will think ahead to the risks from overheating a pressurized can of chemical in a broiling trunk when the car is left out in the summer.
It is a reasonable concern, and if you can to check the specs on an average fire extinguisher, you’ll see them typically rated for temperatures between -40° and 120° F. Most of us know your average internal temperature of a car in Florida will skyrocket past that.
So what do you do? Well, I say the proof is in the pudding: fleets of police cruisers and commercial trucks have fire extinguishers mounted in them, and hearing of an inadvertent discharge is a rarity. Anecdotal accounts suggest that those who have to call on their vehicle mounted extinguisher experienced no problems so long as they had it serviced according to manufacturer specifications.
On the offhand chance that your fire extinguisher does overheat and “pop” you will be dealing not with an explosion, but with only a sudden release of the contents; fire extinguishers, like most quality made pressure vessels, have safety release valves.
So carry you vehicle extinguisher with confidence, even if you live in an extremely hot area. The other concern for keeping an extinguisher in the vehicle is physical security. If kept in the passenger cabin loose, the dense metal can of a fire extinguisher will become a dangerous missile in a crash. If kept in the trunk, it will not be a danger but will be slower to access.
Whichever location you decide to keep it, install an appropriate mounting bracket and keep it clamped down.
Tips
Below are some additional tips to help you get the most from your extinguisher.
Read the manual! The manual that comes with your fire extinguisher will contain important facts like its range, average duration, service schedule and more.
Buy an extra unit to practice with. If you can safely try your extinguisher out on a practice fire, you’ll be far more prepared to handle a real one. If you cannot, then at least test your practice extinguisher’s range, pattern and controls at a suitable location.
Keep your range if you can do so safely. Most extinguishers will work best with a “sweet spot” not too close or too far from the fire. Again consult the manual.
Consider weight: An extra large, beefy fire extinguisher is just the thing to put out a modest blaze, but keep in mind it can be difficult or even impossible for some people to handle depending on their strength and any ailments they may have. You might be better off stepping down a size and getting multiples if you live with others who may not be able to handle a large extinguisher..
Conclusion
Structure and vehicle fires are deadly, common, and occur with speed. Your best chance of neutralizing one before they grow out of control is a proper fire extinguisher. Knowing what type to buy and how best to employ it could spell the difference between damage or death and destruction.
