You can say one thing for [Derek]’s amateur radio ambitions — he certainly jumps in with both feet. While most hams never even attempt to “shoot the Moon”, he’s building out an Earth-Moon-Earth, or EME, setup which requires this little beauty: a homebrew quarter-wave hardline RF divider, and he’s sharing the build with us.
For background, EME is a propagation technique using our natural satellite as a passive communications satellite. Powerful, directional signals can bounce off the Moon and back down to Earth, potentially putting your signal in range of anyone who has a view of the Moon at that moment. The loss over the approximately 770,000-km path length is substantial, enough so that receiving stations generally use arrays of high-gain Yagi antennas.
That’s where [Derek]’s hardline build comes in. The divider acts as an impedance transformer and matches two 50-ohm antennas in parallel with the 50-ohm load expected by the transceiver. He built his from extruded aluminum tubing as the outer shield, with a center conductor of brass tubing and air dielectric. He walks through all the calculations; stock size tubing was good enough to get into the ballpark for the correct impedance over a quarter-wavelength section of hardline at the desired 432-MHz, which is in the middle of the 70-cm amateur band. Sadly, though, a scan of the finished product with a NanoVNA revealed that the divider is resonant much further up the band, for reasons unknown.
[Derek] is still diagnosing, and we’ll be keen to see what he comes up with, but for now, at least we’ve learned a bit about homebrew hardlines and EME. Want a bit more information on Moon bounce? We’ve got you covered.
With pandemics sweeping the globe and governments responding more and more frequently with total societal lockdowns that stifle all civilian movement, non-essential businesses and much of the comings and goings of commerce…
…many citizens are for the first time experiencing being under what is effectively house arrest for the first time: allowed to leave only for the most essential tasks such as medical care or retrieving groceries.
With work, voluntary gatherings and weekly itineraries completely shut down for the duration of the current viral pandemic crisis, we will be seeing more and more people suffer the effects of mental and emotional breakdown brought on being kept inside for too long.
Some people are fortunate enough to have family or roommates they enjoy the company of to help stave off the loneliness, but a great many people will be home alone.
All alone. And as they will soon find out, the voice inside your head is not great company without the home and chatter of daily life to drown it out.
The Walls Close In
Cabin fever is not a joke. While it may itself not have medical community recognition as a proper disease, its effects are well-known, and affect a great many people who are forced to persevere in cramped or isolated conditions.
If trapped inside for too long, especially in a situation with little stimulation people become irritable, restless and sometimes properly claustrophobic, describing an intense urge to get outside or get away from their confinement.
The effects can get worse, with some people suffering from a bad episode reporting insomnia or extreme drowsiness, paranoid delusions and distrust of the people around them culminating in depressive symptoms and even suicidal thoughts.
There are many historical examples of people who have gone plumb stir-crazy and done terrible things to themselves and others. Clearly, the mental toll that isolation extracts upon certain personalities is very steep.
Beating back cabin fever is fairly simple, but that does not mean it is easy. Dealing with isolation is a mental and emotional game. It requires a fair amount of discipline for most people, especially those who are highly extroverted and highly mobile in their day-to-day lives.
Introverts, homebodies and bookworms are far less likely to suffer from cabin fever, or at least suffer from it as quickly as social butterflies, movers-and-shakers, and people with a lot of pent-up energy.
You will need a plan if you are going to be isolated or quarantined for any length of time if you hope to stave off the effects of cabin fever. Any good prepper knows the importance of planning, and more importantly of sticking to the plan when the chips are down. You would be well-advised to do the same thing in this situation.
In the sections below I’ll be laying out 7 tips for doing exactly that. If taken all together they will make for a pretty rock-solid plan for holding off cabin fever.
I cannot promise that following them to the letter will keep you from becoming a little restless, but it will definitely keep cabin fever at bay if you stick to the plan.
7 Mental Tricks to Survive Quarantine and Home Isolation
1. Take the Time to Properly Assess the Threat
If you are entering quarantine, or being forced into isolation over some other existential threat, it is absolutely essential that you take the time to learn everything you can about the risk to you, the overall threat and its impact on your area, on the region or on the nation.
You have to obtain this info from legitimate, trustworthy sources, parse it yourself, and understand it.
Getting sound bites from the news or trying to understand the situation through memes on social media is only going to frustrate you, and badly warp your perception of what is actually happening. You can afford neither.
The human mind abhors a vacuum. Have you ever known about a secret but you didn’t get let in on it? That’s a terrible itch that takes root, one you just can’t scratch.
A similar effect happens when something has you scared or worried, and your brain cannot take in enough information to put together a complete picture of the threat.
In the absence of information, your brain will start inventing stuff in the form of baseless fears, hand-wringing worry and doomsday prophesying.
All of those reasons are why it is so important that you take the time to do the homework in order to understand precisely what you’re up against, what you need to do about it, and how long you can expect it to last.
This will form the bedrock of your planning and hopefully provide a solid if not entirely certain beginning and end-point of your isolation. Being able to mark off the days on the calendar, as it were, is helpful for keeping morale high.
Failing to do this will let fear take the wheel and if you are operating in a condition of fear you certainly won’t be thinking as clear as you could be. Over time, those fears could take root, turn into delusions, and after delusion, madness.
2. Establish a Goal or Mission
The next most important thing you can do to set yourself up for success and sanity during a period of isolation is just setting a goal or establishing a mission for yourself.
I know what you’re probably thinking: if you’re cooped up inside your own home or they have locked the door to your cell in quarantine and thrown away the key, what goals could you possibly have, what mission could you set for yourself that’s anything like worthwhile?
That’s a fair question, and chances are you haven’t considered what the proper answers are. Under the circumstances, a goal or mission can be anything you want it to be so long as it is mentally engaging and will be a good investment of your energy.
You need to be thinking of something that is complex, stimulating, and requires a lot of effort, energy and mental power to work through, digest or perform. Tasks that are the equivalent of mental potato chips are not going to do the job.
You need something that is the brain power equivalent of a double porterhouse steak with all the trimmings; man it is delicious but it takes effort and a certain commitment to get through it!
What are some good goals or missions for someone under these circumstances? Okay, how about any projects you might be working on?
These could be something like a home improvement project, any kind of DIY undertaking that requires planning, multiple steps and so forth or could be something as simple as learning a new hobby, preferably a classical skill like a new language, learning to play an instrument, learning to do woodworking, blacksmithing or something else like that you can really dig into.
One terrific and effective undertaking serves as something of a force multiplier in this situation, and that is embarking on a massive self-improvement project, physically, mentally and emotionally.
If you are out of shape, it is time to get in shape and you can do that using nothing more than your bodyweight if you lack fitness equipment. If your diet sucks, time to get on board with proper meal programming, and to clean up your act.
If you were carrying around a ton of baggage and have some personality flaws that you have recognized as things you don’t like or they no longer serve you, time to get rid of them.
All of the above are heavy duty, deep dish undertakings that require consistent effort, focus and serious engagement.
That’s what you want because it will keep your brain from picking and pulling at the situation at hand, which is you being cooped up inside a comparatively small space with nowhere to go even if you wanted to.
You’ll have to tackle any of them and several distinct phases: planning, execution, assessment, adjustment, and follow through. These are things that will not happen in the span of a day or overnight, typically.
That means they have enough “meat on the bone” to keep you occupied for the duration.
3. Keep Busy! Get Action!
Idle hands are the devil’s workshop and an idle, unquiet mind is fertile soil for lies of all kinds. The ancient proverbs have definitely nailed this one.
Your worries, fears and troubles will rarely be able to keep pace with engaging work of any kind, but the more time you spare for sitting around, navel-gazing and watching dust motes float on the sunbeams, the higher the likelihood your thoughts will turn in dark directions, and as your thoughts go, so go your actions.
Thinking about how boring and bad it is to be isolated from the people you care about and all the activities you used to enjoy away from where you are will lead to a feeling of missing out on things.
From there it is only a short hop and a skip to feeling bitter about what you are going through. Once you start doing that you will start to pity yourself and your situation.
After enough pity parties you will start to feel angry, and then you will start lashing out. With no one and nothing concrete to properly lash out at your wrath and resentment will eventually turn inward, and that’s when you’ll have real problems…
You must not give in to this idleness at any cost! Certainly there will be times for rest during your isolation, but that is not what I’m talking about.
You have to plan your day, schedule your hours, and apply yourself just like you would in normal times when you could come, go and roam freely.
Any of your goals and projects you have scheduled up above must be tended to on a strict schedule with a hard deadline, or at least realistic milestones that you must hustle to meet.
If you give yourself all the time in the world, you will take all the time in the world and nothing will get done.
This applies the menial tasks and chores during the day also. Don’t put off things like hygiene, chores and other components that are part of your typical day.
If you start to slack off on making your bed, that is likely the beginning of the end. When your alarm goes off in the morning, get up, freshen up, get dressed and then attack your schedule for the day.
4. Communicate Correctly
For the duration of your isolation you must communicate correctly, both with yourself and with other people, assuming you have anyone around, family or otherwise.
In any kind of stressful situation it is a very easy thing to start getting snippy, snide, melodramatic and withdrawn when talking to people.
Is there anything more contagious than some viral pandemic it is a bad attitude. Panic, anger and finger-pointing are all contagious. But then so is steadiness, calm and compliments.
Your first priority in pursuing correct communication must be carefully metering your own self talk, which is really your internal emotional metronome. When you tell yourself things, they often become reality.
So that little voice inside your head tells you that you are freaking out, losing your temper or a giant dumbass for getting yourself into this situation will start to manifest in both your attitude and your actions.
But if you tell yourself that you’re handling things well, doing what you need to be doing and generally really keeping your s*** together that will also become your reality.
This is doubly important when dealing with other people since the way you interact with them is likely to start fueling a cycle of reaction and reciprocation that goes nowhere good if it takes a turn for the worse.
Also approach this with an understanding of nuance. This does not mean you can’t discuss anything that is scary, negative or upsetting, you just have to do it in a positive, proactive way.
Don’t turn things into screaming matches. Be honest about your position and your feelings, and don’t give in to fear about the situation at large.
Sometimes, it helps to talk about things like adults and get things off your chest, just don’t let it become the only thing on the station if you take my meaning.
5. Take Time for Relaxation and Fun
Depending on why you are facing isolation it might seem impossible to relax, let off some steam and have fun, but assuming you are not clinging to life battling some extraterrestrial germ in a level four hazardous disease containment facility, you should definitely take time out to relax, engage in a little recreation and enjoy yourself.
Funny, it sounds just like a normal week. Funny how that works.
I know you won’t have full access to the typical battery of activities that you enjoy.
You won’t be going out for any bike rides, you won’t be going to hang out with friends and watch the game, or meeting them down at the pub for a pint waiting for the situation to blow over.
All that being said, there’s still plenty for you to do while in confinement.
If you are a reader, this should be an easy home-run for you as you can get a stack of books, and pretty much retreat from the world for the duration of your isolation.
If you enjoy another hobby like gardening or botany, woodworking, model building, painting, writing or journaling, working out, playing an instrument or anything else at all that is fun for you on your own terms you should definitely make time to do that.
If the world is not completely falling apart and you still have electricity you can watch shows or movies, play video games or just start researching topics on the internet that you enjoy, and aren’t necessarily the most engaging or complex.
The point of all this is you need to do something that is a stress reliever for you, something that you do not have to justify against the energy budget, the greater survival situation or anything else. “Diversion” is the objective here.
6.) Strictly Limit Intake of “News”
This tip is somewhat controversial but I’m a believer in it. It doesn’t matter where you get your news from you can rest assured that the situation is always doom, gloom and sky-is-falling end of the world as we know it prophesying.
All this negative drivel and banter along with pearl-clutching and hand-wringing is bad enough for your psyche in kinder times but it will be positively devastating for if you are facing isolation or quarantine.
Don’t keep the news going in the background, either on the TV, on the internet or the radio. Turn it off.
If you must watch it, strictly limit your intake to grabbing the news first thing in the morning or in the evening just to catch any essential updates, and even then try to get them from a modern news source which does not make it a point to lead with fear- or rage-inducing headlines.
A far better plan if you can set it up is to set your phone or email to only bring you the most essential emergency updates so you can stay abreast of the larger situation.
In this category you can also include personal contact or conversations with those people who have notoriously negative attitudes or do nothing but spread fearful rumors and trembling whispers.
Fear is always a liar, but enough exposure and listening to enough of them over and over and over and over will start to sow the seeds of doubt in even the most resolute mind.
You don’t need what passes for news in our era. Turn that crap off.
7. Stay in Touch
You may not have any say-so over why you’re in quarantine or isolation, and you may not get a choice in whether or not you get to have personal contact with the people that you care about, but unless the situation is truly dire you should have a way to reach out to your friends, distant family members and other loved ones.
Using phone, text, chat or email you can keep in touch with the people that care about you, and that you care about. No matter how alone you may feel don’t neglect this crucial step.
A conversation, a kind word of encouragement, some news from the outside world or within your social network or a funny shared story can make all the difference in your state of mind if you can’t actually be with that person.
Even better, if you have access to it make use of FaceTime, Facebook Messenger with video or some other video call app so you can put a face and expression to the conversation.
Just seeing the face of another person we like does a great deal of good for our mental and emotional equilibrium.
Enjoy those conversations, make those phone calls, reach out to the people you need to reach out to and, most importantly, remind yourself that this too shall pass, and pretty soon you all will have a new story to tell about this terrible trial over drinks or dinner.
Conclusion
Being forced to endure quarantine or isolation is a severe test of spirit for many people, and especially hard on those who are extroverts with many social connections that they depend on for their well-being.
Trying to tough it out, power through or just sleep through it is not a recipe for success.
You need a plan, one that will give you the mental and emotional nourishment and engagement necessary to keep you from turning on yourself in a bout of cabin fever.
Use the seven tips I provided above, all of them together, and you will have a solid plan for dealing with the metal effects of isolation.
Are anybody found a way to become lucid first time falling asleep? I have tried several WILD and VILD aproaches with various success, but they are inconsistent, which only tells me that it is not impossible to have one. The other thing I found it is that, people who fall asleep very fast or have strong urges to sleep can have better chances at this.
via Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views - Attaining Lucidity https://ift.tt/3dBLY2w
We are unabashed fans of [The History Guy’s] YouTube channel, although his history videos aren’t always about technology, and even when they are, they don’t always dig into the depths that we’d like to see. That’s understandable since the channel is a general interest channel. However, for this piece on James Clerk Maxwell, he brought in [Arvin Ash] to handle the science side. While [The History Guy] talked about Maxwell’s life and contributions, [Arvin] has a complimentary video covering the math behind the equations. You can see both videos below.
Of course, if you’ve done electronics for long, you probably know at least something about Maxwell’s equations. They unified electricity and magnetism and Einstien credited them with spurring one of his most famous theories.
Deriving Maxwell’s equations is a math nightmare, but [Arvin] doesn’t do that. He uses some amazing graphics to explain how the equations relate electricity and magnetism. A great deal of our modern world — especially related to any sort of radio technology — builds on these four concise equations.
One thing we didn’t realize is how wide-ranging Maxwell’s interest were. He contributed to astronomy by explaining Saturn’s rings, derived statistical laws about gasses, and worked on color vision, including creating the first light-fast color photograph. He also contributed to thermodynamics, control theory, and optics. Those were the days!
We really enjoyed the way the two videos support each other. Understanding the math is a big deal to us, but understanding the man’s life and the context he lived in is pretty interesting, too. We hope we see more such collaborations.
Not that we don’t do our part to try to tell technology history with a bit more depth than a typical history book. Do you remember [Rufus Turner]? We do. We’ve even had a few debates over who really invented radio. If you want more of that, you can always browse our history tag.
Getting put under lockdown is certainly no fun, but can also be very unsettling, and can seriously cramp what survival plans you may have for dealing with the event that caused the lockdown in the first place.
A city, state or nationwide lockdown will order civilians to shelter in place for the duration of the event, weeks, months or possibly even half a year or longer in order to hopefully buy time for governments to get a handle on a bad situation.
Once the call goes out for a mandatory lockdown it will be you, your family and what supplies you have managed together already for the duration until it is lifted. Maybe you’ll be allowed to go out for more supplies at certain times, but possibly not at all.
Lockdowns can be somewhat permissive or extraordinarily strict. Do you know what you will do about being placed under lockdown? Do you know how you will survive and maintain your sanity as well as your survival plan if it goes on for weeks or months at a stretch?
It is possible to survive and even thrive under lockdown conditions, and in today’s article we will be providing you with information, context and tips for making it through one intact.
Why Are Lockdown Orders Issued?
Most people think that lockdowns are issued only in case of epidemics, pandemics and certain terrorist threats, but they can actually be issued at the state or federal level for all manner of incident control and pre-incident safety.
At any level, a lockdown will always include a shelter-in-place mandate, and sometimes they will include curfews or other “temporary suspension of rights and civil privileges. It is hard to make the case that they are rights at all if they can be temporarily suspended, huh? Never mind that for now.
Far and away the most common cause for lockdowns is in response to the spread or release of harmful chemicals or some kind of pathogen.
It is much more difficult for any biological, be it bacterial or viral, to spread rapidly and exponentially among citizens if mass gatherings and free movement is halted.
By reducing the number of potential vectors for the virus or bacteria the spread is slowed, buying time for medical professionals, and disease control specialists to respond.
In a similar vein, a chemical weapon attack or an accidental chemical spill resulting from an industrial or transportation accident will be another reason to keep citizens buttoned up tight in their homes.
Your average residential home is in no way air-tight, but it does afford some chemical resistance if citizens are prepared and take the correct steps to keep the chemicals from getting into the inside air.
It should go without saying that you are afforded more safety inside a structure than you would be in the open-air with potentially lethal vapors and contaminants drifting invisibly towards you.
Another, sad, common reason for the issuing of lockdown in the event of a terror attack, or received intelligence indicating that a terror attack is imminent.
The reasoning goes that the less people are grouping together forming big, juicy targets for terrorists who want to sow mayhem, fear and panic. Then there is less likelihood that an attack will occur, and if it does occur the casualties will be limited.
One must also consider the tactical situation: if a city is experiencing typical road and foot traffic that will make it much easier for the terrorists to blend in while they infiltrate or attempt to exfiltrate after the attack.
If traffic is stopped and the streets are clear, anyone who is moving around in the open will be far easier to spot, meaning that hopefully the terrorists will be bagged.
There is one more nefarious reason why governments may issue lockdown orders to citizens and it is to protect themselves from unhappy citizenry.
When citizens get angry enough with the job that their government is doing and start agitating, protesting, demonstrating and even rioting for change, governments that have grown tyrannical may try to stuff a cork in it by issuing a lockdown order.
The reasoning is that such an order will make it illegal for citizens to be in the streets at any given time, and if someone is caught in the streets after an order is issued they might be arrested under the false pretenses of “safety”.
Safety for the government, of course, not for the citizens…
What Happens When a Lockdown is Issued?
In any form, a lockdown will bring the typical comings and goings of civilians as well as the gears of commerce to a grinding halt. Citizens that are not allowed to leave their homes cannot fulfill their functions in society as consumers and as labor providers.
That means no shopping, no one manning the cash registers, no one picking up the trash, driving the buses or anything else unless the government deems as essential to the continuation of society in relation to the crisis.
That is a highly contentious and debatable point, but that is how it goes.
If everyone is bottled up safe and sound in their homes, it does indeed make the government’s job easier whatever their purposes are. Government vehicles and government personnel can move around unhindered with clear avenues of approach and departure.
Anyone who is not in uniform, and is spotted moving around under a lockdown order is automatically suspicious and easy to spot.
Aside from whatever personnel are allowed to be operating while a lockdown is in effect, you can expect towns and cities to take on that eerie, deserted look that is so popular in horror movies: no buses, no taxis, hardly any traffic of any kind, barren sidewalks and dark, shuttered storefronts.
But no matter how sound of the reasoning of the government is, no matter how pressing the crisis, the suspension of commerce in totality or nearly so is always highly deleterious to the economy.
Citizens will not be able to access goods, services and other hallmarks of commerce in anything like the frequency they are accustomed to. Many small businesses that closed for anything longer than a month or so will probably not reopen.
Citizens who are not working at those businesses (that are closed) are probably not making any kind of income, or at the very least enough to pay their bills, including leases, mortgages etc.
During a lockdown your movement may be limited to certain hours, limited to movement for certain purposes or constrained entirely.
If you get caught out and about moving after curfew or for a non-permitted reason you could face punishment in the form of a fine, or even incarceration.
Governments that are running amok with power and looking to suppress their citizens are notorious for shooting people who are moving around during lockdowns.
The most civilized nations including all of those in the first world will typically tolerate short-duration lockdowns if they are done in pursuit of the civic good, things like an imminent terror alert, during a pandemic or epidemic, or in response to an industrial accident.
Unfortunately, most people are just not okay being trapped at home with just themselves or with their family for company, and will quickly succumb to cabin fever.
Additionally, people start agitating severely as soon as the economy starts tanking in response to a prolonged lockdown.
Recent Major Lockdowns
Lockdowns are not a theoretical exercise. They happen regularly on the small scale at the local level in response to various threats and happen less frequently but still often enough at the city level, even nationally.
The 20th and 21st centuries have seen their fair shares of major lockdowns, and below you can catch the highlights on a few of them.
Worldwide Viral Pandemic Lockdown, 2020
A virus that jumped from animal to man originating in China raced from localized outbreak to worldwide conflagration in the first quarter of 2020. Entire nations from Italy to the U.S. locked down entirely in an effort to halt the contagion.
Business closed, hospitals faced shortages of necessary supplies and implements and mass shortages of home goods and commodities like toilet paper rocked the world. Gatherings were banned, travel restricted, maintain distance, the works.
International agencies and national disease control specialists worked round the clock to ascertain the extent, effects and spread of the virus. A coordinated, rapid response of this magnitude is rarely seen, and people took notice.
When the initial reports came out, many people, including governments, did not act with the decisiveness they probably should have, and the virus spread geometrically in a matter of just a few weeks.
In no time, the same authorities who were downplaying the virus and the citizens who were largely ignoring it found themselves smacked in the face with an arguably necessary total lockdown: go home, stay home, and leave only for groceries or health care.
The results were predictable: major shortages resulting from runs on commodities, fear-motivated mass purchasing of guns and ammo, a surge in interest in preparedness and subsequent fear-mongering.
It remains to be seen what the long-term effects of this unprecedented global lockdown will be.
Brussels, Belgium Lockdown, November 2015
An expansive citywide lockdown was initiated in Brussels, Belgium back in 2015 in anticipation of a suspected terrorist attack, one that was due to occur very shortly after the infamous ISIS attack on Paris earlier that November.
The lockdown was done in support of public safety, and an extraordinarily expansive manhunt for a terrorist operative, himself a member of the terror cell that pulled off the Paris attack.
Not since wartime had a lockdown of this magnitude been instituted in Belgium, and the thoroughness of the government response was massively disruptive to the city, and to the civilians living inside it.
For five days citizens were confined to their homes, banned from gathering in public and living in a city that was virtually stilled and muted.
Schools, businesses and many other public and private institutions were shuttered for the duration. Public transportation, including buses, trams and subways, was halted.
In the aftermath, citizens described an eerie city that was seemingly traveled only by armored vehicles and squadrons of uniformed, paramilitary police.
Even social media networks were shut down at the request of the police in order to prevent the deliberate or inadvertent revealing of police concentrations, activities and movement to the subject of the manhunt and his sympathizers.
Boston, Massachusetts Lockdown, April 2013
Instituted immediately after the dreadful Boston Marathon bombing, Bostonians were put into an enforced lockdown that saw the entire city stop dead in its tracks while police hunted down the two terrorists who perpetrated the bombing.
Nearly every business was shuttered, citizens were ordered to remain inside and not come out, and public transportation was halted with the one notable exception of the airport.
After chases, some rolling shootouts and several close calls, the massive police deployment eventually closed in on the last remaining terrorist culminating in house-to-house searches in the Watertown neighborhood of Boston.
This lockdown saw both police and citizens riled up and left on edge as armored vehicles took to the streets in support of police operations and SWAT teams cleared house after house searching for a suspect they were sure was hiding nearby.
Some citizens were even detained in a case of mistaken identity before everything was all over.
Effects of a Lockdown
For introverts, misanthropes and work-from-home types, a lockdown is probably no big deal, but for the rest of us, including preppers, lockdowns can range from major aggravation to legitimate emergency situation in their own right.
This goes double if you are not prepared for an unknown duration stay trapped up indoors with little in the way of supplies.
In general, the longer a lockdown goes on, the larger and larger impact it will have on society, and the greater the chance that the situation will become untenable.
Let’s face it, some people just cannot stand to be in a room with themselves, or trapped inside their own head with nothing to do and no internet access. Cabin fever can indeed turn deadly, with rising tempers giving way to irrational behavior.
You can help minimize your need to go out as well as increase morale by making sure you are well supplied with all the food, household goods and other provisions you will need for a lockdown that may last weeks or months.
And you won’t just be dealing with just personal problems during a lockdown, either. No lockdown, unless it lasts for a day, maybe two, will ever do anything less than significant damage to a local economy.
Any lockdown that shuts down businesses, services and all the other gears of commerce will cost citizens and cities millions of dollars in waste and lost revenue.
The total or near total loss of income will see many people full dreadfully behind on their bills and even lose their homes.
An increase in crime is another companion to long-term lockdowns, with both crimes of passion and of opportunity rising while a lockdown is in effect and lasting a while after a lockdown ends.
Police, already being burdened with enforcing a lockdown or pursuing the duties that saw the lockdown get started in the first place, will often ignore calls regarding crimes of lesser nature, such as robbery and shoplifting.
Shoplifting often goes hand-in-hand with the stampede on stores that invariably follow the announcement or rumor of a lockdown.
Ultimately, lockdowns that run on too long, especially those featuring curfews if they are otherwise permissive, will usually result in significant civil unrest that culminates in clashes with police or military that are operating under the lockdown’s umbrella.
Perhaps the biggest problem with lockdowns is their suddenness: with the rare exception of growing civil unrest being a sure prologue to a lockdown, you will have no way of knowing when a lockdown is coming, how stringent its requirements will be, or how long it will last.
That means it is in your best interest to get prepared for a lockdown of extraordinary lengths as a prepper if you want to make it through.
Preparing for a Lockdown
For most lockdowns, most of the time, the single biggest thing you can do to get ready for them is to just be materially prepared with everything that you need:
The good news is that if you have been a prepper for any length of time, chances are you have all of this stuff in abundance already.
Most lockdowns don’t last for months, and the average one that lasts any length of time will only be a couple of weeks, perhaps a month, in the case of an epidemic or pandemic.
With just a little luck, you’ll have everything you need, and will be able to enjoy yourself more or less while you wait for the lockdown to be lifted. No need to go crazy or buck the system.
But if you are unfortunate in that you did not stock up in time on supplies, you are going to need to grab the essentials as fast as you can when the lockdown notice arrives since everyone else in the county will be doing the same.
If you are already nearby, you can probably hit up your typical grocery store or big-box store to get what you need while it lasts.
If you are far from these typical stores try instead to hit gas stations, out-of-the-way or smaller chain grocery stores and backroads general stores since they are less likely to be targeted by teaming throngs of panicked shoppers.
The next thing to consider is what kind of travel restrictions the lockdown might place you under. A relatively permissive one will allow you to leave the house without difficulty if you need groceries or medical attention.
A very strict lockdown will have a no-movement order attached, meaning you had better not be caught out of doors unless it’s a real emergency.
Governments know this type of lockdown is untenable and will expect agitation, so you’ll generally only be dealing with those in cases of extraordinary threat or when your government actually turns on you.
A situation like the latter is where you’ll have some serious decisions to make as a prepper. What can you live with? What can you put up with? What can’t you live with? What can’t you put up with?
If you have to make a supply run are you willing to risk being arrested and imprisoned, or even potentially shot? If you determine that the lockdown is part of the problem, not the solution, do you have an escape plan and are you willing to risk escape or would you rather wait it out?
If you have been paying attention the whole time, that intelligence will pay off. Knowing who you are up against in that case, meaning who is doing the enforcing during a lockdown, will inform your plans.
Going Mobile under Lockdown
If you decide to be on the move during a lockdown and set out when you should be at home you need to keep a few ground rules in mind. The first and probably the most obvious is that you should take pains to avoid moving by foot or vehicle on any major roads and paths in your city.
It will never fail that these are the most heavily patrolled and watched, and you are almost certain to get into trouble. You should also try to move well before dawn or after dusk so long as you can still accomplish what you need to.
Before you set out, take a moment to analyze and plan your route, on the way to your destination and on the way back. You should have a minimum of two possible paths for both in case you run into a problem and need to detour.
Make use of any and all terrain that can help hide you from those who will hassle you if you are caught moving out of doors.
If you are in a city, this means you should move down secondary streets, through alleyways, underground and even through buildings if you are on foot.
If you are in a rural or suburban area, stick to the back roads, take long, looping paths to avoid major intersections and highways, and take advantage of any distractions you can.
This is another good time to remind you to account for the type of people enforcing the lockdown: local police, especially those in smaller cities and towns, are less likely to have any optical or sensory enhancements like night-vision to potentially catch naughty people like you moving around when they shouldn’t be.
You can definitely depend on standing military forces having such devices in abundance, which means that the darkness could be less than no protection for you and so you will have to plan accordingly.
The proliferation of drones at all levels of society also means that air surveillance and tracking are affordable and within the reach of everyone, including civilians.
Conclusion
Lockdowns can be enacted for all kinds of reasons in our era, and range from short, minor inconveniences to lengthy, scary impositions.
Ultimately, if you believe the lockdown is for an otherwise justifiable reason and the government has no plans of truly abusing or using punitive measures on the citizenry, you should take the time to get prepared and just wait things out in the interest of preventing a bad outcome for you and yours.
But if the opposite is true, if the government has given in to tyranny, you will have to make the call on when and if you try to escape the confines of the area that is under lockdown before doing so truly becomes impossible.
Although it isn’t that uncommon to have broadband radio coverage in a single device, going from 0 Hz to 1000 GHz with one antenna and receiver is a bit much. But not for the US Army it seems, because they’ve developed a quantum sensor that can cover that range.
The technology uses Rydberg atoms, which are atoms with a highly excited valence electron. They’ve been used for a variety of sensing applications before, such as reading the cosmic microwave background radiation. However, until the Army’s work there has been no quantitative analysis of using them for wide-spectrum communications.
If you want to read more about Rydberg atoms, [Dan Maloney] covered that last year. The basic idea is that one laser beam excites an atom to the Rydberg state and another laser probes the state of the atom. It seems the Army used a single split beam for both jobs with an arrangement of modulators.
The size of the Rydberg sensor was about a centimeter and the experiments compared the sensitivity to other sensors of similar size. Before you get too excited though, the sensor may be small, but the lab to house it isn’t. The team optically pumped rubidium with lasers. We’ve seen quantum radios that require more lab setup, though.
Putting food on the table during a SHTF event is the motivation behind why many folks start prepping. But, we must think ahead to how we will all continue to do the same post-SHTF as stockpiled supplies eventually dwindle, game is hunted out, and society begins to rebuild.
Unless an asteroid hits the Earth, life, as it always does, will go on. A vital part of any food security plan must also include a detailed section related to post-SHTF skills that can be used as a new career to put food on the table – and be used as a solid bartering service, as well.
1. Farmer
Learning how to farm to some degree is probably already a part of your food security plan. That’s great, but you will need to both do more and have more if your agricultural skills are going to be able to serve as a post-SHTF job.
Stockpiling seeds, as well as harvesting and properly preserving seeds from what you grow is also essential.
To have a successful post-collapse career as a farmer you must not only have enough land to grow what your family needs and have enough left over to barter for food items you do not cultivate…
You also need quality dirt, a growing spot rotation plan, home canning tools and supplies, as well as the manual or horse-powered equipment to work the land once the fuel supply has been depleted.
There are many different types of farms and farmers. The tips noted above were for a traditional vegetable gardening operation.
You could also operate a dairy farm with cows or goats – or both, a hay and straw baling operation, a fruit grove, nut farm, or cotton farm, for example.
The type an amount of equipment (and help) you would need to work as a farmer will vary depending upon the type of product or products you intend to grow.
You can also learn how to pasteurize milk at home to kill potential bacteria and perhaps offer a safer milk to both use and barter with to put food on the table post-SHTF.
2. Medical Professionals
Calling a doctor will not likely be an option during or after a SHTF event. Garnering medical care, be it emergency or routine, will remain difficult even during a societal rebuilding stage.
Even if going to medical school or nursing school is not a possibility for you, possessing or learning some type of medical skills – even advanced first aid, can help put food on the table after a doomsday disaster.
Paramedics, firefighters, EMTs, nurse’s aide or nursing assistants, veterinarians, and veterinary assistants should all be able to put food on their family’s table post-SHTF by bartering their medical skills.
You can often register for classes either online or at a community college to take at least entry level or non-credit courses in the curriculum designed to lead to a degree in any of the above noted fields.
In many communities that are served by volunteer fire departments, you can request to join to serve your community and the department will pay for the first aid, advanced first aid, and firefighting courses that will all prove useful during and after a SHTF event.
Grants to take state tested nursing aid level courses are also frequently offered in many states both at local learning centers and online.
In addition to garnering new or enhanced skills, you should stockpile as many medical supplies as possible for use in your post-SHTF career, and not just to use during the doomsday event on your own family.
Being able to offer medical care to both human beings and survival livestock may just make you the “richest” person in your area once the dust settles, and folks start to regain control of both their lives and the community.
3. Herbalist
This post-SHTF career is related to the demand for medical professionals noted above. Relying on modern medicine will not be an option for long during a SHTF event.
Pharmacies and hospitals are going to be extremely likely targets of looting during the early hours and days of a disaster.
Once those shelves are bare, refilling them during a doomsday event, and the societal collapse that follows will be a near impossibility – to say the least.
Learning the natural healing and prevention methods of old coupled with growing your own herbs, roots, medicinal plants, and “weeds” will provide the basic materials needed to launch a post-SHTF apothecary business.
Many herbalist classes exist online (some are free, but more in-depth ones are not) as well as at many community colleges and county extension offices.
Taking a gardening class to learn more about growing herbs, some of which thrive in the shade, will also help you to cultivate a stockpile of apothecary supplies that can be dehydrated and preserved for long-term use.
Some of the herbs, roots, and flowers most commonly found and used in natural remedies include:
Oregano
Chamomile
Peppermint
Lavender
Lemon Balm
Turmeric
Dwarf Moringa
Echinacea
Cayenne Pepper
Black Pepper
Clove
Anise
Calendula
Penny Royal
Rosemary
Marsh Mallow
Sage
Elderberry
Foraging for wild plants that can be dried and preserved for post-SHTF use can also aid in the stockpiling of herbal remedies base ingredients – and won’t cost you anything but the time spent hiking around your survival homestead or in the woods.
Never pick anything that you cannot 100% identify, know has not been sprayed with chemical pesticides, and it is legal to harvest.
Wild plants most often found in natural remedies include:
A successful beekeeping operation will also offer the SHTF survival prepper multiple avenues for bartering to put food on the table. The honey itself can be traded for food you do not grow or raise yourself, but that is just one way to use the bounty produced by the apiary.
Thanks to the potential natural healing powers of honey, it can be sold or traded with an herbalist for either herbs that you can use to flavor and add extra nutrients to the food you are cooking, or for post-SHTF “medicine” or aid.
A beekeeper can also rent out his or her hives to farmers and backyard gardeners to help pollinate their crops to foster a robust harvest – and in return share the food that is produced.
Honey can also be used as a preservative. A beekeeper could trade honey produced in the apiary to folks who needed it to preserve the meat and fruit they produce, in exchange for those same items.
The bees themselves can become a commodity for barter in a post-SHTF society. A full producing colony or quality queen bees can be traded for food and other goods and services a prepper needs.
Purchasing all of the supplies that you need to start beekeeping as part of your post-SHTF career plans – as well as quality bees, will typically run close to $400. But, almost everything you purchase can be used for many years, indefinitely.
Building your own beehive boxes and frames will greatly reduce the startup costs. The one thing you never want to skip on is bee quality, especially when it pertains to the queen bee.
Catching wild bees and incorporating them into your beekeeping operation is also an option – but it is one that takes skills, a few more tools, a good bit of time, and an enhanced risk of getting swarmed and stung a dangerous amount of times.
5. Rancher
Raising your own meat may make you a prime target during a SHTF situation, but if you can keep all of your survival breeding stock throughout the worst of the disaster they can be used for bartering for food, goods, and services post-SHTF.
When folks hear the term “ranching” they think of large spreads and big livestock, like cattle.
If you have ample acreage as part of your survival homestead, keeping cows would be ideal. But, you can keep medium or small livestock to feed your family and to barter with on substantially smaller plots of land.
The live animals can be sold as breeding pairs to other ranchers, farmers, and homesteaders that survived the long-term disaster or sold to butcher for meat.
While meat as a source of protein will be vital to the prepping family, garnering vegetables, fruits, and bread will be necessary as well.
6. Butcher
Being able to butcher live animals as a sole career (or a side business to run with a ranch) will be an in high demand post-collapse.
Setting up a home butcher shop that is purely for residential use does not require any type of government oversight if you live in a rural area where zoning laws and permit offices do not exist.
If you sell your services to the public in a pre-SHTF world, expect to deal with a lot of red tape and added expense.
7. Carpenter
Preppers who survive the SHTF event, have carpentry skills, and have stockpiled the manual tools to work in an off the grid world will likely also be in high demand.
When society begins to rebuild both in a figurative and literal sense, men and women who can repair or build homes, build outhouses, livestock pens and coops, and construct wood bridges etc. will have ample necessary skills to trade for food to put on the table.
Common Woodworking and Carpentry Manual Tools
Manual Drill
Tape Measure
Level
Claw Hammer
Chisel
Utility Knife
Sliding Bevel
Moisture Meter
Layout Square
Screwdrivers
Pry Bar
Caliper
Block Plane
Handsaw
Block and Tackle
Hacksaw
Featherboard
Saw Horses
Ladder
Sand Paper
Ball Ping Hammer
Combination Square
Divider Compass
Marking Gauges
Mortise Gauges
Striking Knife
Carpentry Pencils – Drafting Pencils
Straightedge
Winding Sticks
Folding Rule
Panel Gauge
Protractor
Pinch Rod
Feeler Gauge
Trammel Points
Frame Saws
Back Saws
Hand Brace Drill
Auger Bits
Spokeshaves
Rasps and Files
Drawknife
Nails
Screws
8. Blacksmith
In a post-SHTF world cars may not still be running or even if they are, getting usable fuel for them may not be.
Once gasoline and diesel fuel stockpiles run out, only those folks who can use and make their own biodiesel fuel will be able to operate vehicles and machinery.
It will be horses and not modern vehicles and farm equipment which will offer transportation and power in a post-SHTF world.
Once again, the need for blacksmiths will be readily apparent in every community. Blacksmiths who can make horse shoes, wagon wheels, fencing components, weapons, gates, and tools can trade their services to put food on the table, and for other goods and services.
Common Manual Blacksmith Tools
Forge
Anvil
Tongs
Turning Forks
Tong Rings
Tong Clips
Metal Woodworking Hammers
Swan Neck Hardies
Hardy Hole Size in Anvils
Hardy Tools
Hardy Shank Fittings
Holdfast
Cutting Chisel
Cold Cutter
Anvil Bick – Hardy Bick
Mushroom Hardy
Halfpenny Snub Hand Scroll
Hardy Swage
Rivet Header
Rose Petal Swage
Dog Bone Swage
Bottom Fuller
Top Fuller
Cheese Fuller
Cross Pein Hammer
Hofi Hammer
Clipping Hammer
9. HAM Radio Operator
Communication will be essential for many reasons both during and after a disaster. HAM radio operators will be able to warn members of their community about potential marauders, bad weather, and illness that is sweeping into the region by connecting with their peers around the state, country, and globe.
Information, as the old saying goes, “is power.”
A HAM radio operator that is willing to share or post news to help protect the community and to use his or her equipment and skills for residents trying to connect with loved ones away from the area, will definitely have a solid bartering service to offer in exchange for food and other goods.
In a pre-SHTF world, one would need a HAM radio operator’s license to legally.
Even if you may not need such a license during a post-SHTF disaster, taking the training and getting licensed now will teach you how to use the device, memorize frequencies, and connect with like-minded folks from both near and far.
The HAM radio should be stored without the battery inside in a Faraday Cage, as should any backup radios, receivers, boosters, and repair parts to protect them from any type of EMP or solar flare.
Being able to make patterns, sew clothing from scratch manually, and to repair damaged clothing, outerwear, and socks will eventually be a high demand career in a post-SHTF world.
Clothing will become worn a lot more quickly than it does not do to the increase in manual labor the survivors will be engaging in on a daily basis.
A seamstress (or sewist as they are now often referred to in our politically correct world) can also make clothing for children (who as we all know, grow quickly), and for the babies that will be born after SHTF.
In addition to being able to sew, a person who can knit, crochet, and quilt will increase his or her opportunity to barter services for food to put on the table for the prepping family.
Common Manual Sewing Tools and Supplies
Manual Sewing Machine
Thread – cotton, polyester, upholstery, quiltiny, etc.
Needles
Patterns – free and and incredibly cheap sewing patterns can be found online, downloaded, and covered in clear contact paper to preserve them for long-term use.
Seam Ripper
Bobbins
Chalk or washable sewing pencils
Measuring Tape
Size Chart
Sewing Scissors in both large and small sizes
Pinking Shears
Straight Pins
Sewing Box
Pin Cushion
Fasteners- buttons, Velcro, snaps, etc.
Thimbles
Needle Threader
Tracing Tool
Sewing Gauge
Get creative when stockpiling fabric. Check out yard sales for tablecloths, sheets, curtains, and other bedding items that are often sold for an extremely low price, and may even have stains or tears – making them cheaper still.
This type of multi-purpose fabric can be used to make baby sleepers, child pajamas, sturdy pants or lightweight sundresses.
Two of my favorite freebie sewing patterns guides even a novice seamstress through the simple steps to turn a pillowcase into a baby or toddler dress, and how to turn a man’s button down shirt into a dress for a little girl.
11. Mason
Just like with carpenters, a skilled mason will be worth his or her weight in gold. A skilled mason can repair or build bridges, retaining walls, structures, and even roads.
A community determined to protect its boundaries from marauders could keep a mason busy building walls, LP/OPs, setting fence posts and gate posts as well as other self-defense and boundary related structures for many years. As the community grows, so will the need for quality masonry.
Common Manual Masonry Tools and Supplies
Square Notch Trowel
Margin Trowel
Brick Hammer
Cold Chisel
Wire Brush
Mortar
Veneer Mortar
Level
Aggregate
Portland Cement
Rebar
Ready Mix Concrete
Yard Stick
Measuring Tape
12. Potter
A potter can make not just plates, bowls, pie pans, and mugs but also storage vessels for food, foraging, and other necessary supplies that need to be contained and portable.
Once the Mason jar lids run out people will resort once again to pottery to store food. Pottery creations can also be used to make growing containers for survival gardens, to store root vegetables, as well as for cooking and hauling water.
Common Manual Pottery Tools and Supplies
Manual Pottery Kick Wheel – commercially manufactured or DIY
Kiln – commercially manufactured or DIY
Earthenware Clay
Stoneware Clay
Porcelain Clay
Metal or Nylon cut off wire tool
Chamois Cloth
Wooden Rib Tools
Pin Tools – for making pot lids and removing bubbles from the clay
Throwing Stick
Bevel
Trimming Tools
Glaze – commercially manufactured or DIY
Scale Texture Tool
Roller
Hole Cutter
Triangular Loop Tool
Scraper
Wire End Tool
Two Sided Handle Maker Tool
13. Rope Maker
Learn the bushcraft skill of ropemaking (among others) to increase your chances of bartering for food and other necessary goods and services in a post-SHTF world.
If we either suddenly or slowly find ourselves living back in an 1800s world, ropes will be commonly needed “tools.”
Ropes will likely be used as part of block and tackle to lift heavy objects once machinery has run out of fuel, to tie down goods on the way to the community market place, for climbing and rappelling, guylines, to construct tent-like structures, to lead and secure livestock, in wild game traps, to bale hay and straw, and to tow wagons and trailers – among many other uses.
Common Manual Rope Making Tools and Supplies
Manual Rope Making Machine
Rope Wrenches* in a variety of sizes and widths
Rope and Pulley Traveler Board
Bench or wall to mount the rope making machine too
Tape Measurer
Handheld Anvil Cutter
Whipping Material – to secure the ends of the rope
Electrical Tape or waxed lacing cord to cover the ends to prevent fraying
Ropemaking material
Rope tools (or wrenches) are an essential, but a far lesser known part of the rope making process.
A rope wrench looks somewhat like a forked stick, and is designed to hold three strands of rope. It can also be attached to another wrench to form a cross shape so the rope can be composed of four strands.
Natural Material Rope Can Be Made Out Of
Milkweed
Hemp
Dogbane – Bast
Flax
Cedar
Leather Root
Yucca
Nettles
Agave
Cattail
Douglas Iris Bark
Basswood
Willow
Beach Lupine
Cotton
Whole Stem Stule
Straw
Jute
Juncus
Sisal
Rawhide
Animal Sinew
14. Leathercrafter
A leathercrafter can make and repair equine tack like saddles and saddlebags, boots, gloves, satchels, footwear, straps, basket handles, and clothing items.
Learning how to tan your own animal hides will increase the availability of free materials to work with while learning or honing leather crafting skills before the SHTF.
When properly tanned, conditioned, and stored, leather will keep for many, many years.
If you do not raise your own survival livestock or hunt, check with a local butcher or hunter will often give you the hide of an animal if asked so they can avoid dealing with getting rid of the unwanted part of the animal.
Common Manual Leather Crafting Tools and Supplies
Heavyweight needle designed for leather
Awl
Measuring Tape
Sharp Knife – Utility Knife
Thick thread designed for leathercrafting
Cutting Board
Stitching Clam or Pony
Spacer
Leveler
Groover
Anvil
Creaser
Prickling Irons – Chisels
Burnishers
Edgers
Folder Creaser
Gouge
Measuring Tape
Hand Press
Rivets
Dies
Leather Thickness Gauge
Hammer
Maul
Mallet
Leather Punches
Leather Wax
Leather dye and deglazers – optional
Rivet Setters
Thick sharp scissors and/or rotary cutting tool
Square
Skiver
Pricking Wheel
Strap Cutters
Leather Stamps – optional
Stitching Groover
Strop
Compass – Wing Divider
15. Sawyer
Every home that does not already heat with wood will need to convert to this natural energy source in a post-SHTF world unless they power with solar panels or other off grid power systems that are still functional.
A sawyer – or wood cutter, will be able to put extra food on the table by cutting and delivering firewood to the homes of survivors as well as businesses or makeshift community offices that emerge during the society rebuilding stage.
Even during the warm weather months of the year or if you are riding out the apocalypse in a hot climate, firewood will still be necessary to use for barter.
It will be needed for cooking, purifying water, pasteurizing milk from dairy livestock, and to boil water for disinfecting medical tools.
Blacksmiths will also be in need of a constant supply of firewood to heat their forges as will potters to power their kilns.
Common Manual Sawyer Tools
Pickaroon
Splitting Axe
Wood or Steel “can’t hook” tool
Curved Draw Shave
Hatchet
Pulaski Axe
Maul
Long Handled Brush Clearing Hook
Tool Ditch Blank Blade
Crosscut Saw
Two Man Crosscut Saw
Tree Loppers
Pruning Saw
16. Cooper
Being able to make barrels will keep a SHTF survivor busy and his or her family well fed. Barrels will be used to store any number of food items being kept both residential and transported to a market for barter.
Water will be toted and stored in barrels and wooden buckets, as will fish, and so on.
Once society has started to rebuild a volunteer fire brigade will likely form to help protect the homes and other structures in the community. They too will need ample buckets to use for firefighting.
Common Manual Tools Used By Coopers
Hoop Driver
Coopers Hammer
Rounded Draw Knife
Hollowing Draw Knife
Coopers Hand Adze
Sun Plane – Topping Plane
Cooper’s Croze
Howell or Chiv
17. Cobbler
Possessing the ability to both make and repair footwear will help a doomsday disaster survivor put food on the table for the prepping family after a SHTF event.
Shoes and especially boots, must remain in good repair for folks to complete the daily and physically demanding tasks that will need accomplished in order to not just survive, but thrive after a massive disaster.
A cobbler, especially one with leather crafting skills, will be easily able to barter footwear repair and making services for food, good, and other essential services.
Children will need footwear replaced even more frequently than adults due to their growing feet – ensuring a steady supply of customers long into the future.
Stockpiling shoe and boot laces of all sizes, leather, rivets, and sole inserts will help ensure you have the supplies you need to start making shoes and boots once the need arises, or make some now in a variety of sizes so you can trade them for food at a moment’s notice.
Common Manual Cobbler Tools
Manual shoe repair machine – optional but so highly recommended
Awl
Shoemaker Hammer
Shoemaker Rasp
Shoemaker Pincers
Shoemaker Knife
Pattern making supplies: Shoemaker tape, Straight Angle Ruler, Shoe Last, Utility Knife, cardboard, compass, 4A paper, pencil or erasable pen
Thick leather for upper and lining
Texon and Shankboard for insole cardboard coverings
Vegetable tanned leather for heels and soles
Shoemaking nails
Hardwood or Steel shanks – depending on shoe type
Contact glue
Reinforcement Tape
18. Gunsmith and Reloader
Making and repairing firearms might seem like a risky proposition during a SHTF event – and it may very well be. In a post-SHTF world, as society rebuilds, the risk that comes with helping others remain armed will be reduced, but not necessarily zero.
That being said (alright, typed) you could become a doomsday millionaire of sorts if you possess both the skills and supplies necessary to work as a gunsmith.
A gunsmith who is also an accomplished ammo reloader only serves to advance his standing in the community as well as the ability to barter for food and others goods and services. Anytime you barter firearms of any type, you run the risk of having those same goods turned on your and your family.
Arming your community and training all members to serve as a militia will, in contrast, help keep you and your loved ones safe. Both possible outcomes are solid points to ponder when considering gunsmithing and/or reloading as a post-SHTF career choice.
Common Gunsmith Tools and Supplies
Gunsmith screwdrivers with tapered and beveled heads
Gunsmith pinch pin set
Armorers wrench
Gunsmith Hammers and/or ball pein hammers
Gunsmith rawhide mallets
Laser bore sighter
Calipers
Hex key set
Gun Vise – bench vise
Bench Block
Standard screwdrivers set
Torx head drivers
Gunsmithing feeler gauge
Needle files
India stone
Dremel set
19. Tinker
Making cookware and tools from tin is a skill that has been almost lost in our modern society, but one that will surely see a staunch resurgence in a post-SHTF world.
Not only can a tinsmith make household goods, he or she could also use their skills working with light metals to repair machinery, built traps, and fencing.
Common Manual Tinker Tools
Pelican snip
Tin snips
Pliers
Copper soldering bits
Oblong hole puncher
Soldering iron and accessories supplies
Angled piccolo seaming pliers
Flange and curve bender
Straight piccolo seaming pliers
Single and double seaming tools
Double lock seamer
Lap joint seaming pliers
Vice grip wrench
Bender tool
Seam opening pliers
Picard hammer
Crimping pliers
Bottom swage
Bending pliers
20. Farrier
All of those horseshoes the blacksmith made are not going to hop onto the hooves of horses all by themselves.
A farrier, or a person who doubles as a blacksmith as often happened during the pioneering days, will have no shortage of work to use as barter for food in a post-SHTF world.
Horses that are used for heavy agricultural work and wagon pulling, will need their hooves trimmed and shoes replaced a lot more frequently that the pleasure riding horses most farriers serve today.
A horse’s health is deeply linked to its feet and no survivor with a horse will want to chance their primary source of transportation turning up lame by neglecting proper horseshoe replacement and hoof care.
Common Manual Farrier Tools
Solid grip nail puller
Forge
Anvil
Hoof pick
Shoe puller
Hoof testers
Sharp knife
Nippers
Rasp – in varying sizes
Tongs
Straight pein hammer
Cross pein hammer
Pritchel – a pointy chisel
Rounding hammer
Nailing hammer
Nail cutter
Clinchers
Clinch block
Hoof gauge
Hoof stand
21. Wheelwright
Another blacksmith and farrier type post-SHTF career that will put food on the table is that of wheelwright.
Wagon wheels will not only need to be made, but also repaired on a regular basis. Wheels will not only be needed for wagons, but also for off grid power sources like windmills.
Common Manual Wheelwright Tools
Broadax
Goose wing axe
Adze
Chisels in various sizes
Felling axe
Auger
Nails
Claw hammer
Ball pein hammer
22. Water Hauler
If you have a natural spring, creek or pond on your property that supplies more water than your prepping family can use (or if live next to a river), you could become a water hauler.
Delivering water to other members of the community in exchange for food or other goods and services will require a sturdy pulling team of mules, donkeys, or horses, a wagon, and containers of some type to hold the water.
23. Basket Weaver
Just like the need for buckets and barrels will increase substantially in a post-SHTF world, so will the need for baskets.
Simple bushel baskets will be needed to house and transport the garden or farm harvest, to take goods to market, to make fishing traps, wild animal traps, and a host of other common household, farm, ranch, and small business uses.
Basket materials can be woven into simple fences to keep small critters out of growing plots, to use as tomato cages, to make trellises for plants to grow upon, and to be used as sitting or hanging planters.
Common Manual Basket Weaving Tools and Supplies
Saboten Pruning Shears
Chip Carving Knife
Angled High Precision Shear
Plato Cutter
Basketry Shears
Maxi-Shear
Plastic Folding Tool
Sanding pads
Caning Awl
Mini Spring Clamps
Spring Clamps
Long Nose pliers
Hippo Clamps
Glue
Weave Rite Tools in various sizes
Hand plane
Heavy duty awl
Spoke weight
Reed gauge
Natural Fibers Used For Basket Weaving
Bamboo
Various grasses
Oak bark
Willow
Honeysuckle
Reeds
Cattails
Cotton
Various vines
24. Teacher
Once society starts to rebuild parents with children will need them to learn how to read, write, do math, and understand useful science concepts (especially agricultural ones) and want them to learn American history.
Everyone will be working either in the home, on the farm, or in some other capacity that serves to build and protect the post-SHTF community – meaning someone will need to tend to the children when they too are not embroiled in chores.
The old-fashioned one room schoolhouse will likely again develop, with the children starting school after the harvest, and ending the year before planting time.
A bachelors in education will be great to possess, but merely the ability to teach children the basics along with useful information they must master in the new world will suffice.
Homeschooling parents, of which there are many in the prepping community, will be especially well positioned for such a post-SHTF career choice.
Stockpiling pencils, chalk, buying or making individual chalkboards, laminating learning activity sheets, buying or making learning games, and using the Charlotte Mason concept of hands-on, “living books” instead of textbooks.
Outdoor learning will also be a huge advantage for both the teacher who needs supplies, and for the students who need to learn the skills they will one day use to both support themselves, survive, and then thrive in a world that will be far unlike the ones their parents grew up in.
Wrap-Up
In addition to these 24 jobs that will put food on the table post-SHTF, preppers can also barter their hunting, archery, and angler skills to trade a protein rich food source for milk, fruits, vegetables, honey, etc.
An enterprising prepper might also want to build what could be used as a barn or farm machinery equipment shed now and a trading post after the long-term disaster and trade space at the market for food to feed their family.
Most preppers likely have some of the skills and some of the supplies needed to engage in the post-SHTF careers already in their possession.
Choose one or two of doomsday disaster career choices, and focus on honing your skills to master all necessary aspects of the job and then cross-train members of your family so they can help your run the business – or go solo in case you are hurt, sick, or do not make it through the first phases of the SHTF event.
We’re used to LoRa as a free-to-use digital radio protocol allowing not-very-high data rate communications over distances of a few miles. It’s made all kinds of distributed sensor systems a breeze, and some experimenters have made an art of achieving communication over hundreds of miles. But what would happen if you took a brute-force approach to LoRa and simply wound up the power?
For those not familiar with radio propagation, radio waves bounce off some surprising things. In this case the aim was to bounce them off the troposphere, but while radio amateurs and LoRa distance chasers wait until weather conditions deliver a so-called “lift” in which the troposphere is especially reflective, here the experiment was performed under normal flat conditions. The result characterizes LoRa’s possibilities for everyday extreme-range mode rather than chasing records, and in that there were some interesting results. The reflected signal was receivable in bursts with low but consistent signal strength, with the limiting factor during the test as that they ran out of land upon which to drive in the southernmost peninsula of New Jersey. We’ve heard of War-Driving for open WiFi… does this car dashboard setup count as LoRa-Driving?
LoRa is designed as a protocol tolerant of low signal levels and some packet loss, so this experiment is an interesting demonstration of its possibilities when used at higher powers under a licensed transmission. It shouldn’t be possible to use the 70cm band for reliable tropospheric propagation under non-lift conditions, but this shows that it can be done. Meanwhile, take a look at a previous attempt to push LoRa using a balloon.
It is no secret that serious prepping is hard work, and maintaining personal readiness is a never-ending task. That being said, all work and no relaxation makes for frayed nerves and grumpy attitudes.
One traditional and time-honored pastime in America is watching movies, be it at home or out at the cinema.
Pretty much all the preppers I know naturally enjoy watching movies in the survival genre, in one form or another.
Not only does it make for high-quality entertainment watching people struggle to survive in some fantastic situation, but we can also learn a thing or two from these movies in the case they are based on true or even certain fictional events.
It can be a sobering exercise to put yourself in the protagonist’s shoes and wonder how you would have fared facing the same grim fate.
Completely fictional or based on decidedly real accounts, today we are bringing you a list of the 20 best survival movies for you to check out.
Deepwater Horizon, 2016
A film based on the 2010 disaster that occurred on the eponymous oil drilling rig off the coast of Louisiana, this film centers on the mishaps, human error.
It’s also about the subsequent chain reaction of mayhem culminating in a massive explosion that resulted in the total loss of the oil rig, 11 fatalities, and one of the worst oil industry disasters in history.
Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, and John Malkovich round out an excellent cast portraying the crew of the rig and BP officials as the former struggle to survive the rapidly deteriorating and increasingly lethal conditions on the ill-fated installation.
A completely true tale of survival and a harrowing escape in the middle of the unforgiving ocean. The ending of the film has some truly moving and gut-wrenching scenes of the families reuniting with the rescued workers, minus of course those who perished in the inferno.
Deliverance, 1972
Deliverance is an infamous and acclaimed film chronicling a deep country canoe trip by four big city businessmen, two portrayed by none other than a young Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds that wind up getting in way over their head somewhere in the darker corners of Georgia.
After two of the men are separated from the others in their canoe, they encounter hostile locals and are taken captive, culminating in a horrifying rape scene before their companions arrive and kill one of their attackers and drive the others off.
Things go from bad to worse as they encounter rough water during their down river escape, infighting threatening to split the group and sustained gruesome injuries before finally escaping. A beautifully shot film, and one that will definitely fry your nerves.
127 Hours, 2010
127 Hours is a true, biographical survival drama starring James Franco that tells the tale of climber and outdoorsman’s Aron Ralston’s entrapment and desperate escape from a canyon after a chance slip sees his right hand and arm crushed by a boulder.
The remainder of the film shows the shocking tale of what he endures and is forced to do in order to self-rescue and survive.
This film is extremely notable for Aron Ralston’s near total endorsement of the events as portrayed.
This is about as real as a survival film can get, and this is a scenario that could happen to almost any of us who venture into remote and unsettled places.
Gravity, 2013
Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, is a tense, claustrophobic survival thriller set in space.
After Russia blasts a decommissioned satellite with a missile to disable it, the resulting and ever-expanding cloud of debris orbiting the Earth results in a chain reaction that destroys the space shuttle during American astronauts’ mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
What follows is one of the most anxiety-inducing, beautiful, isolating and claustrophobic survival situations imaginable, as the two surviving astronauts desperately try to make their way to the International Space Station and then, hopefully, back to earth.
This film is especially notable for how it deals with panic, loss of communications and the protagonist’s logical approach to problem-solving in an emergency.
Alive, 1993
Based on Piers Paul Read’s book, Alive is a grim, fascinating movie focusing on the real life story of the Uruguayan Rugby team’s plane crash, and subsequent survival trial in the Andes Mountains in 1972.
After encountering turbulence, the plane ferrying the team to Chile for a match smacks into the side of a mountain and breaks up. Several people died in the crash, but many more survived with varying injuries.
Things start to go from bad to worse as they must fight the incredibly harsh and cold climate high in the mountains, little to no supplies including food and aborted attempts to rescue them.
Ultimately, they resort to cannibalism in a desperate attempt to remain alive while several smaller parties break off in an attempt to affect self-rescue. This is another all-too-real survival scenario that any of us could face today.
Lone Survivor, 2013
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch and Eric Bana, Lone Survivor is based on the 2007 book written by Marcus Luttrell, a United States Navy SEAL.
He was part of the disastrous Operation Red Wings mission in the Afghanistan war, which was an attempt to locate Taliban leader Ahmad Shah.
In the course of completing their mission, the SEALs are discovered by goat herders whom they decide not to kill.
The decision is made to abort the mission, but before they can get away they are attacked by Taliban forces who were alerted by the same goat herders.
Heavily outnumbered, outgunned and deep within a hostile territory, the SEAL team is killed one by one except for Marcus Luttrell.
Badly injured and with rescue uncertain, this movie shows the events surrounding the ill-fated Mission and Luttrell’s attempts to survive against all odds.
28 Days Later, 2002
At the time of its release, 28 Days Later was a groundbreaking and absolutely chilling spin on the then well-worn and well-trod zombie apocalypse films of the day.
The story stars Cillian Murphy as a bike courier who wakes up from a coma inside an absolutely deserted hospital in London.
Finally regaining his strength and exiting the ravaged facility into a likewise ravaged and seemingly empty London, he is horrified to discover that a virus, one that induces unstoppable, bloodthirsty rage in the people infected by it, has turned the city and likely the British Isles into a nightmarish wasteland populated predominately by the infected.
His struggles to survive while reconnecting with what few survivors remain, including those with ulterior motives, has become the stuff of cinema legend and is a bleak, gritty take on a genre that is usually filled with non-stop, schlocky gore or over-the-top camp.
Although the infected denizens are not really zombies in the strictest sense of the word, this is the film that popularized the notion of “fast” zombies as the premiere horror threat in the aughts.
The Way Back, 2010
Starring Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Saoirse Ronan and Colin Farrell, The Way Back Tells the story of a young Polish army officer trying to escape Soviet incarceration deep in a Siberian gulag in the wake of World War II.
After forming an actionable plan with a few fellow prisoners of various nationalities, all incarcerated for various reasons, they all set out on foot across Siberia trying to reach Mongolia.
In the course of their incredibly long exodus they face trials and tribulations presented by the frozen starkness of Siberia and the burning Gobi desert.
Only their will to survive, and a few interventions by providence see some of the escapees survive.
An excellent movie about endurance, perseverance and the risks one will face in extremely austere environments. An all-star cast and compelling narrative make this a can’t-miss survival movie.
The Grey, 2011
The Grey is a thoroughly modern take on a classic man-against-wild tale. Liam Neeson stars and renders an excellent and nuanced performance as a sharpshooter working to protect oil company operations in Alaska.
Apparently large wolves have been threatening the workers at various sites and Neeson’s character is there to thin them out and keep them at bay.
Struggling against his own nihilism, the sharpshooter and other oil workers are soon involved in a plane crash in the middle of the unforgiving and merciless Alaskan wilderness.
Some of the men die of their injuries and others are picked off by wolves stalking the men’s every move. The rest of the movie centers on the dwindling party’s desperate trek through the magnificent and deadly landscape fighting back not only against hostile wildlife, but against the sheer danger posed by the environment itself.
The movie’s themes of faith and the lack thereof, perseverance, struggling against infighting and coming to grips with impending mortality makes for an entrancing tale.
Lifeboat, 1944
One of Alfred Hitchcock’s more underrated films, Lifeboat tells a story of British and American civilians, sailors and merchant mariners who are all crammed into a small lifeboat after their ship and a German submarine sink each other in combat.
Also among them is a single survivor from the German sub. As the film unfolds, the survivors must deal with all the shortages one would expect being trapped on a lifeboat in the middle of the sea.
Extreme rationing of very limited supplies, mistrust, arguments over who should be in charge, and eventually the onset of madness from both despair and the drinking of seawater.
Later on, people must deal with the fallout of discovering that some on the lifeboat are not who they said they were, and some people did not offer everything they have to give. With stress mounting, the lifeboat’s occupants must come to grips that the greatest threat may come from within.
Jungle, 2017
A film based on a true story of Israeli Yossi Ghinsberg’s ill-fated and ill-advised trek into the Amazon rainforest in 1981. In the movie Yossi, here portrayed by Daniel Radcliffe, travels to Bolivia intent on journeying into the very heart of the Amazon.
While there, he has the misfortune to run into an Austrian man named Karl who tempts him into an adventure to see an unknown Indian tribe deep in the jungle, claiming to be friends with the people.
After gathering supplies Yossi and two acquaintances set off with their erstwhile guide into the jungle.
The villagers are real and friendly, but on the way back out of the jungle the feet of one of the men start to give out, and a series of decisions made to ease the trip start to go from bad to worse, and do not let up.
The deep jungle is one of the most unforgiving and uninhabitable places on Earth, and this film certainly does a fine job of portraying the challenges that the men face if they want to escape.
The 33, 2015
Remember the 2010 collapse of the San Jose mine in Copiapo, Chile? The one where a radical rescue operation was staged using large-bore drills to rescue the survivors?
This is the movie based on those actual events. 33 local workers in that mine were trapped over 2,200 feet underground and more than three lateral miles from the mine’s entrance.
Against all odds, they survive the collapse of the mine entrance tunnel and make it to a rescue chamber. But once there they are disheartened to find that the required medical kit has no supplies at, installed ventilation shafts have no emergency escape ladders, and the radio is not working.
What follows is an amazing test of self-control, faith and human ingenuity in the rescue attempt. This movie provides great examples of how to focus on what is really important and maintaining self-control even when a situation seems hopeless.
No matter how dire things get, there is always a solution.
The Revenant, 2015
Only loosely based on the life and events surrounding the wilderness trial of one Hugh Glass, The Revenant is nonetheless a brutal, beautiful and astounding story of survival.
Fur trappers injured in a fight with local Indians in the winter of 1823 are forced to flee with their prized cargo as far as they can.
Hugh Glass, portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio, is left for dead by the treacherous John Fitzgerald, played by Tom Hardy, after he is savagely mauled by a mother grizzly bear.
After attempting to smother Glass who is on the brink of death and slowing down the party,
Fitzgerald kills Glass’s son who catches them in the act. Somehow, someway he survives his injuries, and sets off on an odyssey of revenge and survival.
Very few survival movies manage to truly sell just how dark, dangerous and deadly the remote places of the world are. The weather itself is as big a threat as any rampaging band of Native Americans, duplicitous hunters and hostile wildlife.
Glass’s will to survive is really something to see, as his endurance and perseverance take on an almost mythological air.
Everest, 2015
Josh Brolin leads an ensemble cast in a film that chronicles the real-life events of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster.
The events revolve around two groups of climbers on the tallest mountain in the world, both led by commercial guides.
Suffering from altitude sickness, snow blindness and all the other attendant illnesses and ailments that are all too common in such a hostile, alien environment, the climbers will to survive and endurance are put to the ultimate test when a blizzard overtakes them.
One climber becomes disoriented and falls to his death. Another dies from either exposure or lack of oxygen. Climbers returning from the summit lose the trail since the blizzard covered it completely.
Another climber goes mad, removes his clothing, and slides down a slope and over a precipice to his death. The situation continues to deteriorate before proper rescue operation is mounted.
A cautionary tale about survival in hostile environments even among the most well-trod and most watched paths. You can never cheat the mountain.
Into the Heart of the Sea, 2015
A movie about the sinking of the whaling ship Essex in 1820, itself a true account that inspired the American epic Moby Dick.
An inexperienced captain and a slighted first mate bicker about the best way to handle the ship and proceed on their whaling voyage before departing the Atlantic Ocean entirely for the, hopefully, more bountiful grounds in the Pacific.
Rounding Ecuador, the crew of the ship meets a dispossessed Spanish captain who tells them that a massive and hateful whale destroyed his ship and killed six of his crew.
Dismissing the unlucky captain, the Essex and its crew plows onward, finding the rich whaling grounds they seek, but also drawing the ire of the forewarned white whale which promptly breaks the Essex in half.
The remainder of the crew is facing a voyage of hundreds of miles back to shore with extremely limited supplies spread among three small whaling boats. Along the way they face starvation and are pursuit by the mythic white whale itself…
Shackleton, 2002
Starring Kenneth Branagh as the eponymous and legendary explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, this two-part mini-series movie chronicles the astounding and true story of Shackleton’s 1914 voyage into the Antarctic aboard his ship Endurance.
The events surrounding the ill-fated Voyage are well-known: the trouble begins with thick sea ice, and abominably low temperatures besieging the ship. The ship is sturdy, but eventually the weight and pressure of the ice are too much, and the ship is crushed.
Shackleton swears an oath to rescue his men, and undertakes an incredible journey across the frozen flows of the Antarctic.
After a voyage of immense strain and weariness, they find a whaling station which dispatches rescue parties to collect the entirety of the Shipwrecked crew. Incredibly, unbelievably, the entire crew of the Endurance survives the ordeal.
The Road, 2009
Based on author Cormac McCarthy’s chilling and touching novel of the same name, The Road is a simple and grueling movie about a father and son struggling to survive an unknown catastrophe that has seemingly wiped out the majority of the population.
Traveling along the highways southbound in order to survive an encroaching winter, they must scavenge for supplies, avoid capture by roaming gangs of hostiles, and all the while struggle against the enormity and crushing weight of despair and hopelessness, a struggle the father calls “carrying the fire”.
Portrayals of absolute lack, a father’s love for his son, and willingness to do absolutely anything to protect him as well as the cost of the loss of humanity entirely are viewed in excruciating and occasionally beautiful detail. A rare masterpiece of a film that can rival the novel.
A Quiet Place, 2018
A rare sci-fi horror survival film, A Quiet Place focuses on a small family as they struggle to survive in a world made empty and gone quiet against its will.
The mysterious arrival of insanely predatory and seemingly unstoppable extraterrestrial creatures with extraordinarily acute hearing means that only those who can maintain absolute silence in their daily lives will have any chance of surviving.
While the premise is fantastical, the practical problem-solving and survival methods displayed in the film are extremely thought-provoking.
The bonds of the family, led by actors John Krasinski and Emily Blunt, as they struggle through childbirth in such a hostile situation as well as raising their deaf daughter (whose reliance on sign language made the family better equipped for the terrifying situation than most) are portrayed realistically, and touchingly throughout.
The Martian, 2015
Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, astronaut Mark Watney is stranded on the planet Mars in the year 2035 after his crew mistakes him for dead after being struck by a dust storm while exploring the Red Planet’s surface.
Facing a damaged environment suit, almost no supplies and the near-certain likelihood he will die on the iron-rich soil of Mars, Watney plans to survive until the next manned mission is due to arrive almost four years later.
His sheer ingenuity and overcoming seemingly insurmountable and impossible problems are really something to see put to the screen, and are excellent examples of remaining solution-focused even when hope is, literally, half the solar system away.
During his trial, Watney improvises a garden, tends to his own wounds, and makes surprisingly resourceful use of any and all materials available to him on the foreign planet.
Cast Away, 2000
One of the quintessential survival films of our era, Cast Away shows us what happens when a man obsessed with time is put in a situation where he has plenty of it, and little else.
Chuck Noland, masterfully portrayed by Tom Hanks, is a punctual time- and efficiency-obsessed system architecture analyst working for FedEx.
When the plane he is flying on goes down over the Pacific Ocean after encountering a powerful storm, he is barely able to escape aboard an inflatable life raft.
Regrettably, the raft’s emergency locator transmitter is lost, but he’s eventually washed up on a deserted island, the quintessential mental survival scenario of most of the readership.
Noland is then forced to survive with only his wits and what few things he can find on the island or scavenge from washed up debris and packages.
The struggle to provide shelter, clean drinking water, food and make fire covers all of the essential survival tasks that every single prepper will face in almost any long-term survival scenario. A tremendous and entertaining film, and definitely a thought-provoking one.
So, Which One Will You Watch Tonight?
There you have it. A list of the 20 best survival movies, from the fantastic and the fictional to the all-too-real and the sublime. While any of the films on this list will certainly do its job of entertaining you and your family, you can get a little bit more out of them if you put yourself in the protagonists’ shoes.
What would you do in the same situation? What would you have done differently? Do you think you would survive as they did, or could you do better?
Keep your thinking cap on while watching these films and any of them can provide good fodder for serious survival discussion.
