(Part 2) Best products from r/PostCollapse

All bug out bags should have one thing in common: The rule of threes.

In survival situations, the rule of three states that you should preferably have at least three ways of performing any survival task. For a bug out bag, this means you should have the tools to perform each of the following actions in at least three ways:

Start a Fire

• Matches
  
• Flint & steel
  
• Lighter
  
• Focusing lens/mirror (Fresnel Lenses are best)
  
• Piston igniter
  
  Signal at a Distance
  
  
• Smoke generator
  
• Flares
  
• Signaling mirror
  
• Fire
  
  Generate Light
  
  
• Battery-powered flashlight
  
• Crank-powered flashlight
  
• Chemlights
  
• Fire
  
  Treat injuries
  There's really only one way to treat injuries, so rather than having three different ways of doing it, make sure you have the three essentials:
  
  
• First aid kit
  
• Training
  
• First aid manual
  
  Purify Water
  
  
• Purification tablets
  
• Hand-held filter (ceramic are the best, but activated charcoal work too)
  
• Container to boil it with (Starting to see how useful fire is, yet?)
  
  Stay Warm
  
  
• Mylar blanket
  
• Spare clothing
  
• You guessed it; Fire
  
  Obtain Food
  
  
• Compact snares
  
• Edible plant guide
  
• Collapsible rifle (if legal in your area), slingshot, crossbow, or other hunting weapon.
  
  As well as these items, you should have as much of the following as you can get:
  
  
• Three days' worth of water. Two liters is enough if you don't intend to sweat excessively, but twice that may be necessary.
  
• Three days' worth of food. Emergency Rations are extremely compact for their calorie content and are your best bet, as they can be eaten straight out of the package.
  
• 20' (or more) of rope that can support at least twice your body weight.
  
• Compass & Map. This isn't as necessary if you're very familiar with the area you plan to bug out into, but is still highly recommended.
  
• GPS. Most collapse scenarios will not see a loss of GPS functionality, and those that do generally don't project losing it for at least a few weeks in, long after you've (hopefully) established a secure temporary site. If you include one of these, a portable solar charger to keep the batteries topped off.

For Shelter-in-place:

• Admittedly, I'm a little slack on foodstuff... i have ZERO dehydrated emergency provisions (I want gluten-free, non-GMO, but all the choices are confusing so I need guidance on the best BRAND to purchase???). I have 3 travel totes filled with granola bars, trail mix, luxury snacks for the kids, coffee, bulk rice, bulk beans, bulk flour, bulk salt, canned chicken, canned tuna, assorted canned meats, sardines, spices/condiments... about 30days worth. I need 90days PLUS powdered milk brand recommendations.
  
• For water, I have 4x30gal food grade plastic containers with spigots. The water is recycled every 3 months and disinfected by unscented bleach (8 drops/gal). I also have 3x100gal WaterBOBS (http://www.amazon.com/waterBOB-Emergency-Drinking-Storage-Gallons/dp/B001AXLUX2) for a total capacity of 420gal of fresh water.
  
• For waste disposal, I have a hassock for 5gal bucket (and 50lbs of lime) as well as a full portable latrine.
  
• Some medical supplies (advil, tylenol, benadryl, plus left over meds) and Iodine tablets
  
• Basic supplies (disinfecting, cleaning and first aid) - 10x Bleach, 10x Hydrogen Peroxide, 10xIsopropyl Alochol, 10xWhite Vinegar, 10xApple cider Vinegar, 10xBaking Soda, 10xBorax, 5xAmmonia, 5xlaundry detergent, 5xcooking oil
  
• All my camping gear is packed in crates, ready for travel
  
• All my construction tools are packed in crates, ready for travel
  
• All my self-defense gear is packed in crates, ready for travel
  
• I have a small 5'x8'x trailer (plus tie-downs) to transport all my gear to my safer location
  
• Out of habit, I stockpile toilet paper, paper towels, plastic baggies, kitchen and contractor bags
  
  What's missing from my shelter-in-place plan??? A LOT, I think...
  
  
• No plastic sheeting for the inside/outside of the house (chemical/biological protection)
  
• No gas masks/MOPP suits - If it comes to this, I dont know if I want to survive - what are your thoughts???
  
• 4-5 5gal 'Jerry Cans' and manual transfer pump for gasoline (remember Katrina???)
  
• A larger first aid kit with surgical needle/thread (enough to perform minor surgery or major trauma care)
  
• I need many more medical supplies (antibiotics, muscle relaxers, painkillers, steroids, topicals, bags of saline, etc.)
  
  any guidance on this list??

http://www.amazon.com/BlackHawk-65TI00-BLACKHAWK-Titan-Hydration/dp/B004T16OW4/ref=pd_sim_sbs_sg_1 I used this one for a 5 day mission. Maybe you don't need to move your whole group. Break this out in a small team to gather some things maybe a little hunting. It has webbing, but trust me you'll learn to love webbing man so many options with it. Camelbacks and nalgenes they are the best way to stay hydrated.

Guns, yes, be sure to follow the laws of your state, and practice, practice, practice.

I don't think barb wire is going to work out well, that brings attention to yourself. But you can add reinforcement to your door like a door security bar, I've seen them at Lowe's, too.

There are also bullet resistant windows out there but you said you didn't have a lot of buying power. Next best thing would be some heavy curtains, if you cant make the windows stronger at least make it so someone can't see inside. The thicker curtains or multiple layers prevent shadows from coming through so someone can't see where you are in the house. Iron bars on the windows might be possible, but you might not want to make your house look like a crack den, although, I have heard of windows that have the iron bars between the glass panes and painted white where if someone does break the window they can only get their head in.

Next, if you dont already have one, is an alarm system. Even if it's just one from Radio Shack that doesn't have monitoring with it, at least you will know if someone is trying to come in. Make sure that all the sensors have a battery back up.

Ok I've read a lot of this genre, I'll try and remember some of them..

( not all are a specific post-collapse scenario and may involve other causes of apocalyspe, but the post-apocalyptic scenarios are similar )

"Wool" great concept, sequels/prequels are out now.

"Extinction Point" quite short but liked this, debut novel, some lack of writing skill evident, but has a lot of potential.

"The Dog Stars" Sparse writing style, yet very emotional, interesting survivalist gun toting character involved who is very useful :)

"The Passage" This was a bestseller, and is mainly the aftermath of a total vampire apocalypse , many decades later, and how a small community of humans survive that.

"Swan Song" This is very dark, very bleak, but also slightly silly, very much similar to King's The Stand... which brings us to ...

"The Stand" Maybe one of his best? again, this is a fantasy novel somewhat, not your nitty gritty post collapse scenario, but its tangentially connected ( OP mentions walking dead, so if zombies are ok, I guess vampires and the devil are too )



"Song of Heaven" This is apparently a remake of a "Chung Kuo" series from a while ago. set in 2040s Cornwall, ENgland, after the total economic collapse of the world and descent into small fragmented communities. and then the Chinese....

This is all that springs to mind now, except for the ones already mentioned by others.

In terms of film, a little known New Zealand film called

"The Quiet Earth" is a great and criminally un-noticed thing.

This is an interesting reddit, just got linked here from a square sidebar ad...

If you are in USA, there are three levels of radio license- Technician, General, and Amateur Extra. Tech is pretty easy to get, General is a bit harder and needs a bit more studying, and Extra is the hardest. With each increasing level of license, you get privelages on more radio frequencies.

Hams have frequency allocations as low as 1.8 MHz all the way up to above 10 GHz. Each allocation or 'band' has different characteristics in terms of signal propagation, range, type of equipment and antenna required to operate, and who you'll find on the other end. Bands are often named by their approximate wavelength, for example 1.8 MHz is part of the 160 meter band, because radio waves at 1.8 MHz have a wavelength of 160 meters. Radio waves in the 144 MHz band have an approximate wavelenth of 2 meters, thus 144MHz is part of the 2 meter band.

However to keep things simple for a newcomer, there are really two things to think about- HF and VHF+. HF covers 1.8 thru 30 MHz (160 meters through 10 meters). HF (High Frequency) requires larger, somewhat more expensive radios and larger antennas to correspond with the larger wavelength. HF radio signals will (depending on your location, which band you're on, time of day and sunspot activity) bounce off or be conducted by the atmosphere and thus will propagate significantly farther than line-of-sight. Using HF radio transmissions, it's possible to communicate with people on the other side of the world! Also when you see ham radio depicted in movies, this is usually what you see, and they usually get just about everything about it wrong.

VHF+ (Very High Frequency) generally refers to 50MHz (6 meters), 144MHz (2 meters), and above that is UHF (Ultra High Frequency), including 440MHz (70cm). While 6 meters will sometimes propagate, 2 meters and 440 generally won't which limits their range to line-of-sight communications, as in not over the horizon. However they can be used with smaller, less expensive radios (a basic new 2m radio can be had for under $100) and smaller antennas. Portable radios (walkie-talkie type) are common in VHF+.

In 2 meters and 440 you'll find almost all the ham radio repeaters that are on the air. A repeater listens on one frequency, then when it hears a signal it re-transmits it in real time on a different frequency. When you want to use a repeater, you program both the TX and RX frequency into your radio, so it automatically changes to the 'input' frequency when you push the transmit key, and switches back to the 'output' frequency when you let go of the transmit key. Many repeaters are mounted in high places such as radio towers or buildings, and often employ back-up power and other such disaster proofings. A repeater will usually be maintained by a local amateur radio club, and also serves as a sort of meeting place for that club. Much like we come to Reddit to talk about things, or to a specific subreddit to talk with a particular group, hams will go to their local repeater to talk with other local hams.

It's here that most of the radio-over-IP stuff comes into play. The majority of radio-over-IP installations are connected with a repeater. So that way a computer-based user can connect their computer to the repeater and communicate from his computer headset with radio users on the repeater, or vice versa. A repeater user can also use DTMF tones and the keypad on his radio to command that repeater to make an IP connection to another repeater. Once this happens the two repeaters, which may be a large distance apart, are linked over IP so whatever anyone says on either repeater comes out the other repeater.

It's also important to note that with radio, and with radio-over-IP by extension, only one person can talk at a time. This means some etiquette is required, as well as a way to easily disconnect IP links when they are no longer desired.

Now on the theme of survival... If you're into survival and disaster prep type stuff you'll probably like ham radio as a hobby, because a lot of hams are into that sort of thing and much effort is spent creating redundant/portable systems that can function with little or no outside support. To that end, IP links as a concept are considered non-reliable by the ham radio community at large. For an RF (radio) link to work, you just need the radios at each end working. For an IP link to work, all kinds of random stuff has to be operating, including the servers for that IP linking network, internet connections to and from them, internet connection to both repeaters' ISPs, etc. So while hams have a lot of fun with IP links, we don't rely on them for anything other than fun.

As far as computers- almost any radio can interact with a computer in one way or another, often using an external interface like a West Mountain Radio RIGBlaster. At a basic level these let a computer transmit and receive sound from the radio (which can be used for a data connection). With a more advanced connection, the computer can talk to the radio's computer, change frequencies, set modes, etc.


Now back on the subject of licensing- if you understand the basics of how a radio works, getting the Tech license won't be hard, you can probably study for it in a day or three. Tech lets you get on all VHF+ but not much HF. If you want HF, get General, you can get almost all of HF with a few small exceptions, and the studying isn't that hard. Whichever level you choose, you have to pass the levels underneath it too. So to get a General license, you first have to take and pass the Technician test.

I suggest a book called the ARRL Ham Radio License Manual. That will give you everything you need to get your Tech. Then for general you need the General Class License Manual.

There are also a lot of sites online that let you take practice tests.

Feel free to reply or PM me if you have any questions...

Two important things happen (I'm sure there are more, but two come to mind):

1. By enclosing the heat it can be more effectively channeled to the place where the heat is needed.
   
   
2. By ducting the fire a bit, it burns more of the woodgas before it escapes.
   
   Also, good luck cooking breakfast with a fistfull of twigs in an open fire.
   
   Things like this portable gasifier stove are even more efficient because it burns more of the gas.

Hoboy. Got a couple that I've tried and used in emergency situations.

First, you need a knife. No matter what. I recommend the Gerber Gator. Mine has been holding strong for the last 8 years, and I always keep it in my pocket, unless I'm flying somewhere. Holds a serious edge, no matter how you abuse it.

Water is a big deal. I have these stashed in my BOB, my car, and a couple floating around the house. Used one on a camping trip, drank boiled water from a murky stream, water tasted delicious and I didn't get any bugs from it, so there you go.

Flashlights are important. This is where you might scoff: The best handheld lights I've purchased are, hands down, these cheap things from the 99 Cent Only stores. We used them during the big blackout of 2010 here in Dallas, aka the Snowpocalypse. My house was without power for 5 days. Hand-cranked, bright as hell, durable, and cost a buck each. Amazing little lights. I went out and bought 10 more of them after that. They're now in every room of the house, and I have given them to friends as gifts.

Aside from flashlights, we used a Coleman Rechargeable in the main living room as well. I sing the praises of this light all the time, and show it off to friends. Comes with both a wall charger, and a car charger. Both chargers tuck into the base for easy storage. This light, on the low setting, is rated for 10 hours, but we used it for 14 hours one night without draining the battery. Low is good enough to read by. High Setting, however, is literally painful to look at directly. If you need it, this lamp can get amazingly BRIGHT, impressively so when you realize it only has one LED bulb. During the blackout, we charged it during the day in my car. Great investment.

Tying materials are damned important, says this guy who loves bushcraft and has seen a couple of disasters firsthand. Get you the following:

• Paracord
  
• 20# test fishing line
  
• Heavy duty cotton thread
  
  They're inexpensive, and if you ever need them, YOU WILL be happy to have them on hand.
  
  Get thee to an Army/Navy Surplus and buy a shit-ton of cheap P38 can openers. Fuck buying them online, unless it's bulk - my Surplus store sells them at $.20 a pop, or 6 for a dollar. I always keep one on my keychain. They're absolutely invaluable.
  
  A good DC inverter for 12v car sockets turns any car into an instant, medium-powered generator. I keep one in my car, as does my wife.
  
  Buy a handcuff key and keep it on your keychain, along with a mini LED light and a P38. Never know when you might have to use it.
  
  FIREMAKING TOOLS ARE A MUST. Bic lighters, Magnesium/striker fire blocks, waterproof matches, hell, I once started a campfire with a magnifying glass. Keep fire tools handy and ready.
  
  Aside from all that, I can only note the following: Lightsticks, a first aid kit, bottled water, a machete, a good length of proper boat anchor rope, blah blah, normal survival shit.

The best online is sunforce at amazon. I have this kit. http://www.amazon.com/Sunforce-50048-60-Watt-Solar-Charging/dp/B000CIADLG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332840081&sr=8-1

It's great. I run off 3 deepcycle marines. that's all you need to buy extra. The kit comes with everything else. Hope that helps.

Other how to books of an anarchistic nature:

• Making Stuff and Doing Things
  
  
• Recipes for Disaster
  
  There are a whole ton of books and military surplus gear out there, a lot of which can be found with a simple amazon or google search.
  
  I personally like this series of books because they are not bug out only. There is a lot out there that is more prepper/survivalist oriented. For a more rural perspective the Foxfire books a long with the Country Wisdom books and Mother Earth News
  
  In addition there is stuff like the Open Source Village Construction Set and quite a few other online resources like make and instructables that are the same deal just in a different format.
  
  A piece of advice would be not to get caught up in the cultural presentation of information there is a lot of great post-collapse, survivalist, whatever, information out there that is not presented as such.

You may be right, that's why it's important to minimize the brightness of screen to save the power. However, I'm sure you can use the solar power charger to power the netbook or something. Anything works with solar, really.

Besides, netbooks are probably best for college students, depending what you use it for.

EDIT -

Look at this one. http://chinagrabber.com/12000-mah-solar-powered-laptop-rechargeable-battery-solar-12000mah.aspx

http://www.amazon.com/Solar-Laptop-Netbook-Adapter-Charger/dp/B0047NEDCW

"Soft Apocalypse" by Will McIntosh

• Parts of the story are a bit like a dating book, but enjoyable. But the idea of a slow moving apocalypse is very realistic, and pretty much certain, assuming we don't have an event that triggers a faster one first.

Consider books about Germany after WWII -https://www.amazon.com/After-Reich-Brutal-History-Occupation-ebook/dp/B00PM8I1G0/

Nazi Germany was the only modern country to face an actual apocalypse. They deserved it. Don't get me wrong. But stories about how people faced it might be relevant.

For example, the best way to preserve large amounts of wealth is with precious gems. Not only are they valuable, they're mobile. How many gold bars can you shove up your ass?

The Zombie Survival Guide is for more than just surviving zombies. It's all about survivial in a post apocolyptic world. It just also includes guides to dealing with zombies. Very useful for exactly the desire you want, and even more useful in the event of z-day.