Do you have a BUG OUT LOCATION selected?
I assume you have your disaster plan in place and your disaster supplies in place. What happens if your home is rendered uninhabitable by the disaster? What happens if your home is OK but the area where you live becomes too dangerous for you and your family to stay there? Welcome to the concept of a Bug Out Location!
If you Google the phrase "finding a perfect bug out location", you will find plenty of people who have a lot to say about the subject. Each family's situation is different. Some of you will be on your own, some will be a family of just two and some could be a family of 10 or more. Every circumstance is different. If you have not considered establishing a Bug Out Location IN ADVANCE of an actual disaster, this might be a good time to start.
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www.powerwerx.com
The above web location is one of the best known places on the web to get genuine Anderson Power Poles and related accessories. Some of the Anderson Power Pole items sold on the web are not genuine Anderson Power Pole items. Sometimes that is not a problem. Sometimes it is a major problem that can prevent items from mating together as they should.
A lot of the items on the powerwerx site can be a bit costly. The good news is that you can build most of them yourself and save a bundle of cash.
The most cost effective way to go about this is to have a ham radio put-together-party. The winter months are the best time to do these because most people have more free time in the winter months.
Step one is to find out who has the tools and who has the know how and experience to build the items you plan to build.
At the last one of these parties held in the Sugarhouse area, we found someone with the crimp tools, someone else with a pipe cutter, someone else with experience and tools to solder copper pipe and a couple of people with soldering irons (NOT soldering guns). We were building copper J-Pole antennas and antenna feed lines and power connectors for HT radios.
Some of the parts were procured in advance as people ordered and paid for their parts. Other parts had to be purchased by the individual owning the HT, such as the correct connector to plug into the HT to supply external power.
On the determined day everyone met at a preselected location. Those who brought the soldering irons did ALL the soldering (if you haven't done a LOT of it, you aren't going to be very good at it). One person did all the pipe cutting (the one who brought the pipe cutter). And one person did all the Power Pole crimping (the one who brought the Power Pole Crimpers). One person did all the copper pipe soldering (yep, the one who brought the copper pipe soldering equipment). Finally, one person tuned each antenna after it was finished. You guessed it, the tuning was done by the person who brought the antenna tuner.
Everybody left that day with a brand new perfectly assembled copper J-Pole antenna which was properly tuned and ready to use. I still have both of mine. One to use, one for backup.
Everyone should have the connectors and wires needed to get power from various external power sources and connect that power to your HT and your Mobile radios. Without a source of external power for your radios, you are only going to be on the air for a few hours in an actual disaster and then you will have to find a working AC power plug with 110 volts so that you can spend the next 6 to 8 hours recharging your batteries.
By the way, one of the MOST useful accessories for your HT radio is a back that replaces the standard battery and can hold enough double-A batteries to run your radio. They are available from many ham radio outlets for any radio built in the last 5 to 8 years. Further back than than and it gets a bit dicey.
73's from N7OZH
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