We have a great community growing here and a good core group coming to our events regularly. While it's great that we're getting better prepared and connected to each other, we should also be spreading the word among other pro-America groups in the area as much as we can without compromising our own personal security.
As far as I'm concerned, the more prepared the good people in our area are, the better. Here are some ideas I've had about how to do that and I hope you'll contribute some ideas of your own.
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Idea 1: Wear AMCON gear, or something equivalent, when you go to places with like-minded people.
I bought a t-shirt and I'm going to start wearing it whenever I go to a public gun range. They also have patches if you're into patches, or if they run out of shirts again.
https://fieldcraftsurvival.com/collections/apparel/products/american-contingency-t-shirt?variant=32323673915427
https://fieldcraftsurvival.com/products/american-contingency-patch
I generally prefer to not wear gear that advertises my political beliefs or what groups I'm a part of, but when I'm going somewhere that's likely to have many 'friendlies' I think it's worth the small risk.
Besides the gun ranges, where else would there be high concentrations of people who don't hate America? Maybe at the HAM radio testing event in a couple weeks?
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Idea 2: Participate in other local groups, online or in person.
We aren't a political activism organization, but something tells me that people in the Tucson Trump MAGA group may agree with us about many things, and some of them could benefit from learning about personal preparedness. I'm going to try to make it to some of their events and chat with people to see if anyone is interested. You could also just post comments on their Facebook page.
I'm sure there are other clubs and groups in town where there are likely to be people who would benefit from our group. If you are already a member of one, get the word out!
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Idea 3: Talk to people at your work, your church, your homeschool group, etc.
It used to be that 'Preppers' were seen as slightly crazy. I thought that myself. Now it's 2020, and we all see things a bit more clearly. Don't be afraid of social stigma when promoting personal preparedness more openly. If you know good people, those are people we want to help get prepared.
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That's all I have for now. I'm looking forward to seeing the ideas you all come up with.
[I'm reposting this to the top because we have a number of people who still need to get their ham license!]
For anyone near Tucson who hasn't already gotten your Ham license or is interested in upgrading what you already have, here is some info based on my experience of getting my Technician and General licenses recently:
- Free testing is available monthly in Tucson. Next event is March 8th @ 7PM . https://k7rst.org/testing.html
-- There is no preregistering. You just show up, but I highly recommend being there a half hour early to get in line. I was there 15 minutes early and waited a little more than an hour before it was my turn to take the test, and then there's more waiting in between exams if you take more than one.
- There is also an online testing option available now. It generally costs ~$15 and you need fairly decent internet, a computer with a webcam, and a phone with a camera. (Thanks to @freebirdie for sending me the info on this).
-- Look here to find a session that's open: ...
I've been meaning to document this for quite awhile but things kept getting in the way. I've been writing this slowly over the past several weeks now, and am finally ready to post it!
I've created a simple automated planter for low-effort food gardening that seems to work pretty well for a a decent number of different plants. This was originally inspired by Larry Hall's "Rain Gutter Grow System", and then I fused it with the general concept of bottom-watered reservoir planters, which you can find everywhere.
Larry Hall's video should show up at the end of this post:
One implementation of a standard, non-automatic, bottom-watered reservoir planter:
https://www.amazon.com/GroBucket-Watering-sub-irrigated-Container-portable/dp/B079CT29RZ/
My goals were to keep costs relatively low, minimize water usage, and minimize the weekly time I need to put in to maintain the garden. I don't mind spending a bit more time to get something set up if that means I don't have to remember to do another ...
I've recently upgraded my VHF transceiver capability, and it has made a huge difference. We ask everyone to have a radio of some sort, and the cheapest Ham radio that works is the Baofeng UV-5R. I don't want to ask people to spend a ton of money, but from my own experience I do think upgrading is worth the extra expense. The receive electronics on the UV-5R are low-quality so they don't seem to work well with external antennas. A lot (or all) of the advantage you'd get from putting an external antenna up on your roof is lost when you plug it into the UV-5R.
The tranceiver I bought is the Yaesu FT-2980R:
https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-015771
Unfortunately they just raised the price by $20, but it's still only $150 (or closer to $170 with shipping and tax). Note that it's a VHF only radio and is very simple compared to the more expensive models, but it is a beast of a machine that can dump 80W of power if needed.
This radio works well with every external antenna I've tried, and it's well suited to ...
