North AND South lurking

[IfInDoubt]

Hi all, been a keen lurker on this and other forums for a while so thought I would sign up so I can add my thoughts where applicable

but by way of introduction:
I have been a ‘prepper’ since very young, probably inspired by Jerry Ahern’s Survivalist series of pulp fiction books back in the early eighties, and watching First Blood over and over again thinking I could do that (the ‘living in the wild’ bit - NOT the ‘conflict with authority’ bit). Obviously then as survivalism (as a phrase at least) fell out of favour I moved into bushcrafty type stuff (symbolically swapping my buckmaster for a puma white hunter). I have since moved away from bushcraft as a stand alone hobby (but have taken all the skills with me hopefully) as my intent would now be Get-Home and/or Bug-In

However, saying that, my career has taken me various places including having lived abroad in some ‘dodgy’ countries I value the practicality of having a grab bag (or whatever one of the 100s of acronyms you have) in a grab and go location. This has, dependant on location, usually contained such things as our passports, cash credit cards, maps, toiletries and anything else needed to get to the airport (and out of the country) as well as snacks for the journey

I am not prepping for any specific end of days scenario, but in an event such as power/water loss we would be ok for the immediate future before it would be time to re-evaluate the situation and hunt the neighbours with home made crossbows and razor edged bomerangs!! (that last bit was a joke by the way!!)

My current situation is that I live with my family (wife and kids) in the rural south but work in the rural north commuting every (or every other) weekend a separation distance of about 250 miles. This is going to be the situation for the next year or so and as you can imagine this has several complications that I need to factor in

i.e.
making sure there is kit (and knowledge) at home for the family
making sure I have enough kit with me at my work residence
making sure there is enough in my car so that if the absolute worst happened I can still get home

When I am away there is a lot of kit at home that my family may need in an emergency. The basics at present sit mainly in one location and is the usual ‘man’ stuff household tools, torches, first aid kits, rope, duct tape.

Second to this in what my wife refers to as the junk room (i.e. the spare room) are various packed holdalls and bergens containing all sorts of goodies (Bug-IN Kit), not packed in any logical way and I am sure my wife would have no idea what’s in them but of the worst happened she would have access to a lot of stuff which may be of use. I have also have a ‘long term’ bug out bag in the closet (not metaphorically) should I need to take to the hills

Personally I keep the following ‘modular systems’
EDC (wallet and pockets)
EDC plus (daysack)
GHB (in Car)
My personal Bug Out Kit (At workplace residence – this is where I live during the week)

I will elaborate in the relevant topic/thread where appropriate but I hope that’s enough for now.

remember if in doubt.......

[pseudonym]

Hello and welcome to the Forum.

That's what we like to see in an intro post.

[Quercus-robur]

Hello and Welcome to the forum.

Great intro, you seem to have a solid grasp on things.

Qr

[Arzosah]

Welcome to the forum!

As the others have said, great intro - can I just ask, with having to work so far away regularly, what have you done about communications? If the mobile phone towers went down, for instance? Radios need training, and power, and one thing I've heard of recently is having a schedule to be at a phone box locally - that would need a lot of co-operation with your wife, of course, but I'm just wondering if you've got your *own* kit that fills the need?

[tigs]

welcome to the forum

[IfInDoubt]

Welcome to the forum!

As the others have said, great intro - can I just ask, with having to work so far away regularly, what have you done about communications? If the mobile phone towers went down, for instance? Radios need training, and power, and one thing I've heard of recently is having a schedule to be at a phone box locally - that would need a lot of co-operation with your wife, of course, but I'm just wondering if you've got your *own* kit that fills the need?

thanks for all the replies, you're right comms in the event of a catastrophic incident would be an issue, aside from my normal mobile phone I have two cheap burner handsets on two independent PAYG sim networks in case there is some coverage left, in the house we have a landline and a handset that draws power directly from the telecoms trunking (and I have one in my car too should I find a suitable jack-in point) so if there was even a hint of a network in place I may be able to establish a link. The public phone thing sounds good but I would think the lines that operate them would be the same that operate the line to my house(?) otherwise it would be telepathy and pigeons (and I don't have either)

[Survivalist85]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

without too much detail how far north are you working and what industry are you in? great intro very neat and tidy. On the whole phone thing i have been reading lately (it may even be on here somewhere) that in an emergency (country wide) the public phone box network is one of the few "networks" that are kept live along with police and military / governmental lines. So worst case a good knowledge of your closest boxes would be great.

Oh and the late Mr Aherns books are amazing, hence my name!

Regards



Survivalist

[Arzosah]

comms in the event of a catastrophic incident would be an issue, aside from my normal mobile phone I have two cheap burner handsets on two independent PAYG sim networks in case there is some coverage left, in the house we have a landline and a handset that draws power directly from the telecoms trunking (and I have one in my car too should I find a suitable jack-in point) so if there was even a hint of a network in place I may be able to establish a link. The public phone thing sounds good but I would think the lines that operate them would be the same that operate the line to my house(?) otherwise it would be telepathy and pigeons (and I don't have either)

I like that post, IfInDoubt and actually, there's new stuff for me in there - SIMs for different networks, and a landline type phone for the car, even if you do need to find a jack in point. Good stuff.

[IfInDoubt]

I like that post, IfInDoubt and actually, there's new stuff for me in there - SIMs for different networks, and a landline type phone for the car, even if you do need to find a jack in point. Good stuff.[/quote]

You can pick sim cards up for 99p from most supermarkets, just activate them and top up a few quid and bingo just check they are not 'shared' networks (Tesco and vodaphone are, I think, the same carrier). You could just pack the sim cards but I keep the extra handsets as they are fully charged and give me a bit of backup comms power should my charger fail.

At risk of this intro post spiralling off topic I will look about the site and start posting elsewhere as appropriate.

In answer to an earlier question geographically I am between the dales and the moors in the north and near Salisbury plain in the south, as for my industry i'll maintain a bit of OpSec for now thanks

Again thanks for the replies I feel most welcome already

If In Doubt.....