Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
Here’s an interesting products: Midland’s XT511 Base Camp. According to the information I have this radio offers NOAA weather radio, AM/FM and 22 channel GMRS radio. Nothing special until you get to the cool part – it can be run off a handcrank. It also charges 5 watt Midland radio battery packs and anything that has a USB charge port. Sounds like a very cool goody. I would imagine the handcrank would run the AM/FM and the light, but if it also will run the 2-way radio part then you’ve got a unique product there. May have to get one and play with it.
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Continuing the saga of the surplus German rain ponchos I ordered from Sportsmans Guide………..
The replacements showed up yesterday. I sent them back three and kept one. They sent me another four. Upon initial inspection they looked fine, however closer inspection showed two had small repairs (with duct tape) and one had a small unrepaired tear. One poncho was perfect. So, Im gonna have to give a conditional thumbs down on these things. If you don’t mind the duct tape repairs then they are an excellent deal. I’ll keep the two good ones (out of the total five) and put them in storage and use the others for daily or vehicle use. It’s a shame, up to this point Id been pretty pleased with SG’s HQ catalog stuff. To be fair, they did take back the return and send replacements in a very timely manner. The repairs escaped my initial notice so it is entirely possible the person packing the order didn’t notice them.
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Had a day and a half of rain the other day and it went a long way to reduce (although not remove) the fire-related problems here. The air is much, much clearer and you can see the mountains again. Hopefully this little bit of rain (the first in over a month or so) will give the fire crews a break and allow them to get on top of things. I know several people, including one LMI, who were ordered to evacuate their homes. Fortunately everyone (so far) has come through just fine, but its always good to be prepared.
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Happiness is opening a box from UPS and finding it jam packed with lovely new-in-the-wrapper high-quality 30-rd AR-15 mags. (And I think that sentence has set a record for hyphenation.) What I am guessing will be my final batch of the C Products mags arrived today. If you want some, you know whatcha gotta do.
