Forest for the trees

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There’s the old saying about ‘not being able to see the forest for the trees’. Lately, I’ve been so busy posting about the goings on at the Beta Site that I’ve pretty much ignored the other things going on in this world. I mean, look at the blog posts before I got the Beta Site…then look at the posts after. Big change in content and frequency of particular types of content.

It was kind of to be expected, I think…but that sort of narrowed vision is not going to do anybody any good. There’s the increasing chances of Big(ger) Bad Things happening on the international level, Socialists are actually starting to win elections that matter, inflation is continuing, and there’s just a more pronounced mood of uncertainty. But, thus far, all those ‘funny feelings’ about the current situation, going as far back as the beginning of this blog, have turned out to not really lead to anything. But, thats no guarantee that things will ‘work out’ this time.

Believe it or not, the Beta Site has actually lowered my level of preparedness. How, you may ask? Easy. My primary residence, which contained 100% of my preparations against the uncertain future, now contains a good bit less since a bunch was moved to the Beta Site….which means I went from one location that was 100% of what I thought I needed, to two locations that each had less than 100% of what I needed. Thus, being at either location is an exercise in being less prepared than I was when I had just the one location.

I need to ‘re-stock’ my main residence on some of the things I’ve moved to the Beta Site. Mostly things like tools, clothing, camping gear, and that sort of thing. But, for example, my Sawzall is up there which means I am without a Sawzall down here. What I’ve been thinking of doing is keeping the cordless stuff at the Beta Site an keep the corded stuff down here. Milwaukee M18 7.25″ circ saw? Goes to the Beta Site. Makita corded 7.25″ circ saw? Stays here in town.

One thing that is definitely non-negotiable is that I need to pick up another Honda EU2000. I cannot be without a generator here in town. The risks are too high. A generator in town is generally just relegated to emergency use, a generator at the Beta Site will get a good bit more use since there’s no electric up there. As a result, right now, the generator sits at the Beta Site, leaving my primary residence without.

Since winter is going to be a time of minimal development at the Beta Site, I’ll be using the time to financially heal up and get ready for next year’s big purchases – well and septic. I was lucky this year in that the Beta Site was able to ‘open for business’ around the beginning of May. Im going to lan on a June 1 “opening day” up there but I suspect I’ll be able to get in there and do stuff before then. But for financial planning purposes, Im going with June 1. That gives me about 24-28 weeks of no major activity at the Beta Site to heal from this years expenditures and save up for next years.

In the meantime though, definitely gotta fill in the gaps here at the primary residence.

Not as smart as I thought

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So the terrain at the Beta Site is, to put it mildly, challenging. There’s a lot of up-n-down. This means that the Starlink signal faces some terrain obstructions in terms of range. I had wanted to get one of the remote cameras at the top of the hill (“Roadtop”) which is where 90% of the gamecam pics I post is. The problem is that the range of the wifi didnt quite make it that far.

I normally set the Starlink up on the wooden deck I built out in front of the cconex. This weekend I decided to move things around a bit. Most notable, I moved the Starlink onto the roof of the conex, giving it more line-of-sight to the cameras and I moved the solar panels up there as well.

Before I did that, though, I charged the Jackery up to 100% using the Honda EU2000. Once I did that, I unplugged everything, precariously carried it up a ladder, and set it all back up. I turned the Jackery back on, plugged in the Starlink, and I was in business.

Except for one little detail. The display showed an output of about 15w, which is about average for the Starlink. But on the input side, it said it was receiving 0 watts input from the solar panels. THat can’t be right, thought I…its bright sun and there’s no obstructions. Those panels should be kicking out at least a 100w. So I checked all the connections. All good. Zero watts. So I unplugged everything and replugged it back in. No watts coming in. Spent twenty minutes going thorugh YouTube and Reddit links looking for tips. And that’s when the penny finally dropped.

You can’t put gas into a tank thats already full. The reason the Jackery was showing 0 watts coming into it was because the battery was at 100% full…as such, the battery management system shuts off the input from the panels. To double check, I disconnected the panels, put a high draw device on the battery, and when the battery charge hit 99% I plugged the panels back in. Display showed 125w incoming.

So, as the post heading says, I’m not as smart as I think I am.

On the bright side, moving the Starlink 12 feet higher did, in fact, extend the range of the wifi and I got the camera exactly where I wanted it at the roadtop. If CostCo still has them in stock, I’ll pick up one more camera and see if I can get on mounted on the alternate-entrance road.

And speaking of power, I found this guys YouTube to be wildly informative. Especially this particular video for a simple and somewhat portable PV system. 

What I have up at the Beta SIte right now is okay for the immediate short term. But those flexible folding panels aren’t as resilient as purpose-built ones, that battery is not large enough to cover my anticipated needs and contingencies, and at some point hteres going to have to be a significant expenditure to get something a little (or a lot) more serious. That’s one of the things on tap for next year. In the meantime though, this little setup is delivering for my rather small needs at the moment. But next year…different story.

Didn’t expect that….

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While I don’t need no stinkin’ badgers, I apparently have one:

(Note, thats a badger…not the Badger.)

Just rolled in the door from the Beta Site. Did a redeployment of Starlink, Jackery/panels, wireless cams, and a few other things. Biggest lesson learned was that Im never as smart as I think I am. But…gotta cook dinner and get ready for work tomorrow, so details about this trip will be tomorrow, most likely.

Hope you all had a happy Paratus!

Hamilton Gun Show

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Rolled into the Hamilton gun show this afternoon. Really, the only t hing Im looking for at a gun show these days is a good deal on large ammo cans. I have plenty of guns..although not necessarily enough guns…so it really takes a good deal to catch my eye and catch my wallet. But…managed to find one:

Found a paperless like-new Ruger 22/45 MkIV. I already have a new model 22/45 sitting in the safe, but one is none, right?

I also stopped by Trader Bros on my way back into Missoula. They do have some odd and interesting stuff from time to time. I sifted through a bin of holster, and there were some very nice new Galco pistol holsters in there at outstanding prices ($25). There were also some Bianchi UM84 magazine pouches. These ones accommodate double stack 9mm mags, so these will wind up being allocated across my mountain of Ruger P95’s.

Price?$7.50 ea. Sixty bucks for all eight. Seemed like a good deal to me.

The Bianchi UM84 holster isn’t a great holster,  but it isnt really that bad either. Its big appeal is that it accommodates a very broad range of pistols. My bulky P95’s, 1911s, HiPowers, Smith and Wessons, etc. Nowadays you can find surplus ones in the junk bins at gun shows for less than $20. I’ve never met anyone who used one in the military and liked it, but for bouncing around in the woods its been just fine for me.

Off to the Beta Site tomorrow.

Paratus 2026

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Happy Paratus, my droogs!

As we have come to expect, today is the third Friday of September which means today is Paratus – the holiday of survivalists, by survivalists, for survivalists. And, if you’ve been reading this blog with any regularity…well…like it or not…youre probably a survivalist.

So, grab your new gear, get out there, and do some preparedness-related things…go practice, go train, go stockpile, review supplies, coordinate with friends…while you still can.

Enjoy the holiday!

Cold weather Jackery musings

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So, the background here is that The Jacekry, which has been working out quite well, has a hiccup – because of the type of battery it uses, charging it when the temp is below freezing will damage the battery. The battery will output power below freezing, but it will not recharge since the battery management system in the Jackery will disable the charging circuit when the temp is too low.

Now, the obvious solution is to keep the unit someplace where it will be warm. However, no such option is available at the moment. Even if I put the Jackery in the conex, it is still just in a large unheated box. It will get just as cold in there as it will outside. No help there.

But…it occurred to me that the Jackery, as it is running, has a cooling fan running. Why does it need a cooling fan? Because it generates some degree of heat. Hmmm. So, hear me out, what if the Jackery was placed in an insulated box that retained that heat to keep the unit above freezing? The type of battery used by the Jackery does not off-gas like other batteries, so thats not an issue. And, any container wouldnt necessarily be airtight anyway….think something like a styrofoam cooler with a couple small holes punched though for the cables.

This is something I need to experiment with while the weather is still reasonable. There is, of course, a couple risks here. One risk would be that, on a particularly unseasonable day, temps could get high enough that there might be a risk of overheating. I believe I can mitigate this by setting the Jackery to shut itself off and then restart in several hours (the app gives you the option of setting times for it to run). The problem with that is it would mean that when the Jackery restarts Starlink would re-boot and while I admire what Elon has created, theres no guarantee the reboot wouldnt require me to be there hands-on for a problem.

The Jacekry app indicates the  temperature at the unit. So, on my next trip up there, drop it in an insulated container and track the temperature for a few hours while Im up there and see what happens.

And speaking of, local Costco has the same package I have of Jackery back in stock. However, it is not on sale as it was when I bought. Still though, I’ve been pleased with it so far and even at ‘full price’ I’m tempted top get another.

Anyway, I’ll let you know how this experiment goes.

Paratus Approaches!

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Paratus, the holiday by, for, and of survivalists, is this Friday. 

Cards are scheduled to be here Wednesday, which is cutting things a bit close, but I’ll do my best to have them in the mail the same day. If you got a card last year, youre probably still on the list for this year.

I’ve had a couple people send some early Paratus gifts, and for that I thank you greatly. It’s a bit heartwarming that most gifts come with a note about how the giver is heappy to read about the progress at the Beta Site and then add some words of encouragement. Thats pretty cool.

It occurs to me that this will be the first Paratus since I got the Beta Site…I guess it was a wildly expensive Paratus gift to myself 🙂

Anyway, Paratus is this Friday and, as always, I hope you take the time to observe it by getting out there and doing something purposeful to increase your level of resilience to whatever nightmare fate is brewing up for us.

Camera and battery update

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So its been a week since I left the Jackery and panels set up at the Beta Site and left Starlink running off it so I can get live camera feeds from up there. How has that worked out, you ask?

TL;DR: awesome.

The first three days of the week were rainy and virtually sunless. As a result, the Jackery hit a low of 51% charge. After that, the sun came out and that brought it up into the mid-70% range, then 80%, and for the last two days its beein in the 93-100% range. So, for that entire length of time, Starlink was consistently running 24/7. Because there was active internet there the whole time, I could check the battery charge as often as I wanted and get real-time metrics. Here’s a few screenshots from the Jackery app:


As you can, at this particular moment in time the Starlink was drawing 17 watts. It’s draw fluctuates anywhere from 10 to 35 watts depending on how much data is going as opposed to just ‘standing by’ with the cameras off. However, what this seems to indicate, and Im an idiot in regard to electricity so perhaps Im being naive, is that for about every one hour of sunlight I’m getting about ten hours of internet.

In addition to the information shown above, it also tracks historical energy input from the panels. Observe:

SO, long story short, this was enough to let me remotely access the two remote wireless cameras I had set up. Each individual camera came with a small solar panel to power it’s internal battery. I replaced the came-with-it panel with something a little larger becase nothing kills like overkill. At one point during the three days of rain the cameras got down to about 60% charge but once the sun started doing its thing theyve been in the high 90%’s ever since.

Because I’m concerned about battery conservation, I havent left these cameras running 24/7. I just check them a couple times a day to see how the weather is up there. Because they are not running 24/7, the individual cameras seem to be doing a good job of staying ‘topped off’.

One issue I’ve had is that as I was placing a second camera, I was limited by the range of the wifi connection from the Starlink. If I’m going to continue this project, I need to move the Starlink to a location that is withing range of both cameras.

Speaking of cameras. It turns out that CostCo sells the same brand of camera but the next higher grade for only $20 more than the ‘entry’ camera from this brand that I picked up. DIfference? Separate zoom lens, remote control floodlight, and a bunch of other nice features. Absolutely worth the $20 difference, hands down. CostCo is selling it at $119, and Amazon has it currently for $139.

Unfortunately, as much fun as I am having with this, it’s going to have to come to an end soon. It appears that the Jackery battery is of the type that does not do well with being recharged when it is below freezing. What this means is that if I want to continue this fun over the winter, I need to put together a battery/charging system that uses batteries that are indifferent to being discharged/charged at temperatures below freezing.

This isn’t a flaw with the Jackery…it’s not marketed as an all-season outdoor product. Its marketed as a camping and blackout sort of gear. In those capacities, it seems to be excellent. For my purposes, its great for use during the summer  months but for winter use I’m going to have to come up with something else. And, yes, the make self-heating lithium batteries but heating via electricity is incredibly inefficient and high draw.

Over the winter the batteries would be sitting in the unheated conex, so any battery solution must be predicated on that kind of environment. More research awaits.

But, in the meantime, I’m really enjoying how this is working out so far. If I lived in a place where freezing temps were not an issue, like the southern states, I’d totally have this setup going all the time.

I’ll be heading up to the Beta Site tomomrrow to install a third webcam over the area where the bears have been munching that dead mule deer. I’m exceited to see if I can get some live-action bear cam.