The first part of the Mountain House group buy order showed up today.I’m figuring the rest of it should be here over the next few days. There will be a few cans left over so if anyone wants to add or if you missed out and want to get something, there’ll be that opportunity.
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Someone on my friends list had a post about this service. In a nutshell, when Something Happens you get a message texted to your phone or pager. This is actually something I was curious about a couple years ago. I was flying to the east coast and when my flight approached the airport the pilot came on and said that we were going to be circling for a little while and he wasn’t sure why, simply that he’d been told to circle. My thought was that something 9/11-ey must have happened. (Never did find out what the story was, btw.) But if I had this service I could have surreptitiously turned on my cell phone and checked the text messages and see if thered been some sort of notification. This is admittedly much easier with a Blackberry-type device – just browse your way to a newswire and check the latest headlines. But, some of us are Luddites and only have cell phones.
By the by, I read somewhere that in times of emergency the odds are good that cell phones systems will be so overwhelmed that getting calls in/out may be tough but text messages may get through since they use, presumably, much less bandwidth. Maybe theyre routed differently as well, who knows? Worth investigating though.
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Whats the best rig for getting to Point A from Point Z when Points B-Y are smoking rubble? Find out here with “Ten Vehicles For The Apocalypse”. I think most of their choices are absurd but this one resonates with me:
Its a diesel motorcycle that’ll run on diesel, biodiesel or vegetable oil. Now thats handy.
My dream vehicle for the apocalypse. No secret. .
“By the by, I read somewhere that in times of emergency the odds are good that cell phones systems will be so overwhelmed that getting calls in/out may be tough but text messages may get through since they use, presumably, much less bandwidth. Maybe they are routed differently as well, who knows? Worth investigating though.”
I thought that the emergency responders had to use text messages during Katrina.
I assume text messages use less bandwidth, but since the message is text it can be transfered using protocols which allow the message to be split up and sent in different pieces and reassembled at a later point. I don’t know if that happens, but it could. Also it is easier to send a single message going one direction regardless of the other party being able to hear the message, than it is to send a bunch of messages back and forth to each other, while maintaining a constant connection between two parties (this is what happens in a regular phone call.)
I also read that text messages were sent over a higher priority channel so they were more likely to get though also in a time of emergency, it made sense to me.
Blackberry text messages are definitely routed differently. That they worked in the Katrina aftermath (and several other hurricane-type disasters) when cell phone service was out was what sold the rest of the U.S. government on them. This may well have skewed a few U.S. court cases in 2006.
After all, the training prerequisites are a lot lower for text messages than for CB radio….
Other text messages…I have no idea what’s typical.
SMS (those 160-character text messages) gets its own gateways, routing protocols, and message centers. It also has no real-time requirement as voice has, so SMS datagrams that are (say) one second old aren’t summarily thrown away. There’s a little-known acknowledgement feature (a return SMS when delivery is complete) and a configurable validity time. Definitely better than voice, in a lot of ways, for congested or crippled networks.
Something with a Continental or white multi fuel would have even more flexibility on fuels. I get 9-10mpg on the deuce, that’s in full up weight of 26,200 lbs. A cut down truck with singles and one less rear axle would do better. what suffers is the road speed with the double reduction axles….speed is the opposite of torque for obstacles and rough terrain though.
Ooohhhh…. Nice little woods runner!
Veeery nice! What is it, exactly?
It’s a 2.5 ton truck with one of the two axles removed and re hung with a different set of spring hangers. More or less, jack up the truck, drop the axles, sources some 5 ton front axle spring hangers, locate them on the frame, drill the frame, bolt them up, hang a single axle and get a driveshaft cut to the right length (not hard for a good shop). Makes for a zippier (for a deuce) vehicle and shorter wheel base. You can add a M105 bed to make a small short bed or other options that I’ve seen. That one has a contact maintenance bed from a CUCV installed which works rather well. In the bobbed conversion, they’re still 1.5 ton trucks (that’s off road) 2-3 tons on road (depends on how you did the springs). Bigger than any other pickup out there and cheaper, even with lots of modifications.