SURVIVAL EQUIPMENTS

Another Christmas vacation meant spending time at my in-law's dining room table working on a project. This year, I decided to try to figure out the IR communication protocol being used by this retired Insignia portable DVD player remote control. The kids never really used the remote control and it still looks like new. My heart for re-purposing electronics wouldn't allow me to throw it away. Here's what the button layout looks like on the front of the remote.


I decided to use my USB Oscilloscope to read the data coming out of the remote control. My oscilloscope is made by Parallax and has two channels along with a very nice user interface.

I attached an IR LED to the Oscilloscope leads as follows:


I don't really know why using an IR LED works so well to capture IR signals, but it definitely works. I tried using an IR Transistor first to no avail - so this really did work best with the LED.

After the typical fiddling that goes along with grabbing new signals on an oscilloscope, I was able to capture this IR burst of data using the trigger capabilities of my oscilloscope.

I was able to zoom in on the header to figure out the carrier signal. As you can see in the lower right hand corner of my oscilloscope UI, there's a box called "Cursors". I was able to use cursors (or markers) to measure the length of a signal wave and discovered that it's approximately 35.7KHz. A little internet research will show that the typical commercial remote control uses a carrier signal of 36 to 38 KHz - so my measurements weren't too far off. This carrier signal is sometimes referred to as the "Center Frequency".


Next, I decided to measure the header signal along with the following break in the signal. This is used to indicate the beginning of a message or stream of data to the receiver. It appears the header is approximately 9 ms (milliseconds) or rather 9000 us (microseconds). This is followed by a 4500 us pause before the first bit appears.


Now we only need to understand what a bit is, and how to measure a "1" from a "0". I was able to discover that a "0" is a 55 us high followed by a 55 us low. The "1" is a 55 us high followed by a 165 us low. Either way, each bit is either 110 or 220 us long.


I then started counting bits and found out that the data transmitted from the IR remote control is 4 bytes long, with each byte being 8 bits long, adding up to 32 bits of data being sent each time a button is pressed. Here's a summary of my findings (I only analyzed number buttons 0 .. 9 on the remote control).

Carrier Signal = 36Kh
Header = 9000 us
Break = 4500 us
Off Bit = 1100 us
On Bit = 2200 us

"1" = 01000000 11111111 10100000 01011111 = 5
"2" = 01000000 11111111 01100000 10011111 = 6
"3" = 01000000 11111111 11100000 00011111 = 7
"4" = 01000000 11111111 10010000 01101111 = 9
"5" = 01000000 11111111 01010000 10101111 = 10
"6" = 01000000 11111111 11010000 00101111 = 11
"7" = 01000000 11111111 10110000 01001111 = 13
"8" = 01000000 11111111 01110000 10001111 = 14
"9" = 01000000 11111111 11110000 00001111 = 15
"0" = 01000000 11111111 01001000 10110111 = 18


I figured out that the 3rd byte contains the data and the 4th byte has the "not", presumably for error checking the data. So, for example, pressing the "1" key on the remote control sends the data stream 01000000 11111111 10100000 01011111 where 10100000 equals 5 in decimal.

I hope this is helpful to you. If you take time to decode your remote control - let me know how it goes for you! :)

Star Trek fans have likely heard the whirling whistle of the Tricorder. After talking with my son Paul about the challenge of designing a circuit to reproduce the sound, I came up with this implementation using three 555 timer chips.

The circuit has three astable multivibrator circuits (oscillators). Two of them have a high enough frequency to create tones, and the other is used to give the wobble sound.

The transistor and capacitor work together with the tone oscillator to make a voltage to frequency converter, allowing the lower frequency pulse generator to raise and lower the frequency of the second tone oscillator circuit. The remaining tone oscillator creates an additional high-pitched background tone heard in the original Tricorders.



Here's the circuit:












Here's the parts list:

R1 - 100k
R2 - 1k
R3 - 10k
R4 - 1k
R5 - 1k
R6 - 56k
R7 - 82 (modify for proper volume with your speaker)
R8 - 56k
R9 - 47k
R10 - 1k
R11 - 100 (modify to proper volume with your speaker)

C1 - 0.01 mf
C2 - 6.8 mf
C3 - 4.7 mf
C4 - 0.01 mf
C5 - 1.0 mf
C6 - 220 mf (power filter capacitor)

D1 - N4148

S1 - SPDT
S2 - SPDT or SPST

BAT1 - 3.7V Li-ion (tone will change with higher voltages - this circuit performed best at this voltage for me)

SPK1 - small 8 ohm speaker

Q1 - 2N3904 NPN bipolar transistor

IC1, IC2, IC3 - NE555 (could be modified to use NE556 dual-timer or NE558 quad-timer)

If you build this circuit - please let me know, I would love to know if it worked correctly for you too! :)

SOG SEAL Pup Elite, black TiNi finish and Kydex sheath


Straight edge version

Blade length- 4.85 inches
Overall length- 9.5 inches
Weight- 5.4 ounces
Blade- AUS 8 steel
Handle- Glass reinforced Zytel
Made in Taiwan



So this knife is designed for, as per the name the US Navy SEALs so a huge part of this knife is to be able to perform in salt water so corrosion resistance is a huge factor.
The handle has a great and I mean great feel to it an especially when wet it still seems to stick to the hand with the textured handle.
Now this version is an upgrade to the SEAL pup and has thicker steel stock (.185)
the handle is longer, the blade is shaped slightly different and the rasping allows better thumb placement.
This knife has great balance in the hand and in combination with the Velcro kydex attachment can be placed almost anywhere.
The sheath has a notch built in which allows you to cut cordage without removing the knife which is a great feature.
While kyaking this past summer I used the velcro sheath to attach to my lifejacket which was very handy!
The knife comes with a Nylon sheath as standard and I paid extra for the Kydex option.
I was looking for a "survival" knife and this blade seems to have hit the target for me.
I highly recommend this knife.

Now this subject is discussed everywhere as to which type of knife to carry, how many to carry, which brand, which size etc etc.
Knives are as personal as car's and its all about trying to find the knife or tool that can achieve the most tasks that seems to be the holy grail.
So Im going to discuss the knives I have chosen currently and then as my knowledge expands most probably my carry options will change.

Now the first things you need to look at are whether you are in an Urban or wilderness situation.
Next you need to decide what tasks you want your knives/tools to perform.

So I live in an Urban enviroment but if I had to leave the city then I would be in a wilderness situation. So my current options for around town or my EDC (Every Day Carry) is the Cold Steel Mini Lawman folder.
My options for my BOB I have a KBar camp knife for general duties, SOG seal pup elite, hand saw and a gerber suspension multi tool.

I'll discuss all of these in further detail below but basically my thoughts are that in a city a small blade folding knife is adequate for small tasks, opening mail, cutting string,wire etc, opening boxes.
Now this knife is small enough not to look threatening if I deploy the blade or if its seen in my pocket, the last thing you want is to be seen as the guy who carries a big scary knife around.
The other reason I decided on a EDC was after I saw two events on CNN, both happened within a close time frame but the one that sticks out is where a woman and her kid where in a mini van or SUV can't remember the type of vehicle, and basically somehow the woman rolled the vehicle and it came to rest upside down, everyone was in a seatbelt but then the vehicle caught fire!
The vehicle was well alight when some off duty firemen went to assist, they managed to pull the woman out and then even though the vehicle could have exploded at any time.
On the first attempt they had to break the windows with bare hands,then when the fireman tried to get the child out the seat belt had malfunctioned and couldnt be freed, no matter how much they tried it was stuck, now remember the vehicle is up in flames and all of this is taking minutes to occur. So on the news cast the next thing you hear is the fireman shouting "Has anyone got a knife?" "Somebody get a knife!"
Eventually a knife was found in someone's house and the child was rescued with some burns but I think survived.
Now this child could have burned to death because nobody in the crowd who had gathered had a knife, ANY knife small large anything would have helped at this point. So Im guessing after this event the fireman went out the next day and purchased pocket knives!
This in turn made me decide to do the same.
Mankind has used tools and sharp implements since cavemen times but now due to a number of reasons its not seen as necessary by most people to carry a knife and in fact in a lot of western areas its against the law to carry a blade or its restricted to a certain length, the length allowed depends on the area you live but generally I think its basically the distance to the heart.
Now of course theres a HUGE amount of discussion that could be made here but Im not going to do this, needless to say ANY sharp implement could be used to stab someone.
Western countries all have similiar knife laws and you could argue in todays world why do you need to carry a knife, but if you look a the rest of the world knives are still carried as tools!
So basically keep within the laws of your area and always assume the bad guys are going to ignore this whatever.

In the Bush

In a survival, hiking, camping, bug out scenario you need to be able to perform certain tasks, splitting wood for fire, for shelter, for preparing game, self defense,making tools, etc etc
Everyone has to decide on their carry options regarding weight and situation.
I have decided to pack the hand saw to give me my first level of wood preperation, the saw I have is from Coghlans and is very light and very sharp. Using a saw is an easier way to cut wood and also will use up less calories in a survival scenario.
The saw blade is the weak link and unless you carry spare blades there is always the possibility of it breaking, so this is where the KBar camp knife comes in, this is my next option for splitting wood and general duties, the SOG would be a knife to carry on my person and is still capable of splitting wood if needed and can do a lot of smaller tasks. Both the Kbar and SOG are full tang knives and are very strong so most tasks would be covered.
I think its reasonable to carry 1 large fixed blade, 1 medium fixed blade, 1 saw, 1 folder or multi tool.
This combination is open to whatever brand type of knife you like, I dont carry knives with saw options on the blade as I find it almost impossible to sharpen saw edges correctly and especially in a survival situation, again personal choice.



Cold Steel Mini Lawman


Scales are black G10
Overall length 6.38 inches
Blade length 2.5 inches
Blade steel AUS 8A Japanese stainless
Lock is the TRIAD system
weighs 2.6OZ
Blade thickness 3mm
Stainless steel carry clip

Now this is my first folder in over 20 years and I remebered the last one always failing due to the lock, this TRIAD system is touted as a very safe unit.
I have had no problems to date.
It fits nicely into any pocket although the carry clip is really stiff, so it wont fall out but it will possibly destroy some pockets over time.
It cam pretty blunt and to be honest Ive struggled to keep a good edge on this possibly just due to the blade being pretty small.
I have a lanyard attached to the knife which is very handy, the black TiNi finish is just starting to come off which kinda gives it character I guess.
The G10 scales are very good in the hand and the finger grooves are really deep giving you great safety there when using.
its a little hard to open one handed and not as fast as others ive seen on the net.
You have the option to change the carry clip to the other side if needed.
I would recommend this knife to a first timer as its reliable and small I just need to get my sharpening skills down!

FIRE
Now a long long time ago.....Wait! Its not really that long ago when Mankind needed to be able to make fire to survive, In fact in huge areas of the earth people still need this skill to get through each day.
So how is fire relative to us today in the age of technology and electricity?
Well think of the scenarios that could happen to you, In an urban enviroment most of us are lucky to have electric or gas to make our hot water, cook our food, wash our clothes light the house and keep us warm. So what if the power goes out? this couldnt happen to me well never say never.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/08/14/power.outage/
This is one example of a lightning strike causing major disruption within Canada and the United States.
Now living in the prairies of Canada we tend to get very frigid weather for at least 4 months at a time and if we lost power we would have no way of heating, eating, lighting in fact doing anything.
So what are some easy things that could be done to plan ahead for such a scenario?

Well I keep around the house a number of cheap Bic lighters, matches, candles, 3 flashlights and 1 headlight, 2 small gas stoves and obviously lots of warm clothes.
with these options I could survive for some period of time.
Now what to use in the wilderness? If you head into the wilds for a camping trip or a hike you need to carry some form of fire starting, for 2 reasons really, one being a planned hike and second the possibility that something happens and you end up stuck in the wilds for longer than planned and your fun hike turns into a survival scenario.
I have been researching lots of ideas on the net and you tube and the following are the items that I find would work for me.

1/ Bic lighter I would carry 2 but be warned if they get wet they wont work and if its really windy they wont work, but they are cheap!
2/ Some kind of butane stormproof lighter is a good idea I have the Windmill Trekker which has a large fuel tank and is good in 80 MPH winds.
3/Magnesium block, these are solid blocks of magnesium which is stable in this form, with a knife you scrape off a pile of shavings and use the striker on the other side to ignite. The blocks are cheap and create a high heat for starting tinder, the main disadvantage is the wind again, the shavings are easily blown away!
4/Swedish fire steel, this is a very popular method a piece of high grade flint and striker which again creates very hot sparks, these are pretty much fool proof.
5/Ultimate survival technologies Blastmatch, this again creates very hot sparks
6/Cotton wool ball soaked in vaseline, these are a great tinder and once you fluff the balls up the cotton will burn in most conditons for a good 7-8 minutes, carry a dozen of these and youll have fire at any time.
7/Char cloth, this is just pure cotton that has been burnt inside a sealed metal tin till its charred, again this catches sparks very easily. Again this is cheap just cut up an old pure cotton T-shirt!
8/9V battery an wire wool, now this is a genius idea, just take some wire wool used in the kitchen and brush the surface with the points of the battery and watch the sparks take in the wool, again simple and cheap.

Theres also lots of "primitive"methods of fire starting but these are highly skilled techniques that you need to practice a lot to be able to rely on these methods, personally I make sure I have a combination of the options above to give me peace of mind.

Maxpeditions Vulture II

Designed as a 3 day pack, 2810 cubic inches, 46L capacity.
Uses a 100 OZ reservoir.
Comes in OD green, black, foliage green,Khaki and ACU- digital foliage camo
Weighs 3lbs, 8oz when empty.
Equipped with YKK #10 Zippers and paracord knot pulls.
Covered with Molle attachment points
Non-slip abrasion-resistant bottom


1000 denier water and abrasion resistant light weight ballistic nylon fabric.
Du Pont Teflon fabric protector
UTX-Duraflex nylon buckles
Triple polyurathane coated for water resistance.
High tensile strength Nylon webbing.
High tensile strength composite nylon thread.
Stress points double stitched.
Internal seams taped and finished



Thats the specs out the way now to the meat and potatoes!

My pack is in OD green and Ive owned this for about 4 months now.
The pack doesnt feel like almost 4lbs and to be honest on first inspection it seemed small too small, but wait it opens up away from the body and it actually has lots of room. Now this pack is designed not to protrude above shoulder level to prevent restriction of vision where as a civilian rucksack is usually high above the head.

To wear the pack it has padded shoulders, a waist belt and a sternum stap, the waist belt can be stowed away in a hidden pocket if wanted.
The pack also tends to sit just above the hollow of the back, this is another design feature for military use, this being where you would wear a utility belt around the waist and the bag sits above this area, something to think about before buying.

Although the pack is pretty spacious I am still going to add some pouches to the outside of the pack via the Molle points to allow me to create a layered system of storage which I will discuss in a later blog.

This is a well constructed piece of gear and feels like it will last a lifetime, I am using this for a 3 day pack currently but I think a slightly bigger version to allow 5-7 days would be a good option.

Now the other thing to decide is your setting if you want to blend into an urban enviroment then woodland camo isnt for you, black tends to look to tactical so pick a colour that blends, with the OD green it seems to blend into Urban and wilderness scenarios, Maxpedition are also doing some civilian colours for their packs if you like that kind of thing.

Why try to blend? well you dont want to send out signals too people that youre carrying a big bag of goodies just waiting to be stolen now do you!

Hi,

Thanks for checking my blog out, the purpose of this site is to provide information on survival.
I have recently started my journey into the world of survival be it in an Urban enviroment or in the wilderness. I have always been a fan of "Gear" relating to survival and have never really thought about the possibility that I would ever be in a true survival scenario, I mean I dont travel the Jungle, climb mountains, swim in shark infested oceans,but you know what, never say never!
Im originally from the UK where there are very few dangerous animals apart from the human ones, the weather is pretty mild and predictable but over the last twenty years the country has started to see the firsts, first eartquakes, tornadoes, major floods, hurricanes, now not on a massive scale as in other parts of the world but its heading that way.
We are also all aware of the energy crisis thats been looming over us for over twenty years, how much longer will we have the ability to flick that switch and have electricity flow out to power all of our gadgets and toys? How long will we have heat at a flick of a switch? most living dwellings no longer have fireplaces so the option to provide a heat source for your self in the home is gone. How much longer will we have petrol(gas) to run our cars and SUVs?
Food...food is no longer the cheap item it has been for so long, rising fuel costs and the turning over of food crops to fuel crops is rising, which in turn raises the price of the raw ingredients.
So basically our easy western lives are gonna change dramatically at some point because we can no longer meet demand with the limited resources the planet has to offer us.
Survival, my thoughts have returned to the basics, water, Fire, shelter, first aid,food, navigation.
Now all of these skills mankind used to possess, and in lots of areas of the world the skills required for day to day survival are used.
Western living has destroyed the need for these skills to be taught/learnt although there is a growing number of people who are waking up to the idea that re-learning these skills could be beneficial.
Hence the demands for information regarding survival all over the net and places like you tube.
With the advances in technology the "Gear" you can purchase for survival is amazing,but remember all the gear in the world will not replace the knowledge you need to use it or if you are in a situation with limited or no gear knowledge is all you will have!
I have no military background or survival training so Im going to show my journey into the world of survival and share my thoughts and ideas with anyone who wants to listen.

The VFD is now connected to the protoshield and a test program shows all of the number segments operational. Here's some pictures of the finished shield mounted to an Arduino.







Next is writing the driver and encapsulating it into an Arduino library. :)

I did some tests and discovered that the plates (segments in each display) will need to be driven by the full 12 volts while the grids can be supplied by the Arduino's typical 5 volt digital output. This requires me to use a transistor to drive each plate along with a resistor driving the base of each transistor. The circuit (minus the resistors driving the transistors) should look something like this.


It appears I will be using 11 (7 plates + 4 grids) to drive the VFD. This just squeezes into the IO ports available on my Arduino.

Next step will be to get the VFD attached to my protoshield, along with the transistors and resistors so that I can begin writing code... :) Can't wait...

I've continued to work with the display I referred to in my last entry. It may seem like a small step, but I carefully calculated what resistor I would need to properly power the VFD filament from a 12 volt power supply. I did indeed power the filament and saw in a dark room the soft glow of the orange heaters.



Next, I decided to power the actual grids and plates to see the display light it's blue display elements. Here is a picture of the display I am using. It's a Futaba 6-BT-65ZK (Part Number 4230782). I know very little about Futaba part numbers, but I did find that most followed this format. I was unable to find a reference sheet on this actual display.



I attached 12 volts to each grid and tested each plat to see which elements lit up. After documenting the display connections, I arrived at this pin out for my display. As you can see, there are not many elements and it's geared towards a clock radio in a car.

Letters A - G apply to the segments in the 7-segment display characters. For more information on which element corresponds with which letter, see this Wikipedia image.

Next, I will be trying to figure out how to drive the display using a multiplexer circuit in conjunction with an Arduino. I'll keep you posted on what I discover along the way. :)

Years ago, I saved a car radio from a Chrysler that had a digital display. I estimate 20 years later, I've finally taken time to tear it apart and scrounge parts from it. Inside I found a Vacuum Fluorescent Display (VFD). I didn't realize it was in there and found its glass package an immediate draw.

This is an example picture - my display has less elements. :)

I wanted to do a little investigating about VFDs and found this website. Much to my surprise, there were a number of online examples of people using them to amplify audio signals since they have the basic structure of a Triode vacuum tube. Apart from the unique implementation of the device, I did find the theory information helpful at this site.

My plan is to use this display in conjunction with an Arduino. My first challenge was to figure out how to run the filament. I chose 12 volts as my available input voltage and have estimated that the required voltage is 2.5 volts. With that in mind, I needed to figure out exactly what resistor would be needed to provide that voltage.

Here are the only input parameters to my problem:
Input voltage: 12 VDC
Filament voltage: 2.5 VDC (this was determined through tests)
Filament current: 75 mA (this was determined through tests)

Here is what I want to figure out: Ohms of the resistor I need in series with the filament to achieve the 2.5 VDC across the filament. Here is a good source I used to figure out my series resistor values.

E = I * R

E = voltage (volts)
I = current (amps)
R = resistance (ohms)

We know that current is constant across the series circuit, so using this equation, we find that the resistance of the filament is .

3 = .075 * R
R = 40 ohms

Expanding our equation, we can say that:

E = I * (R1 + R2) where R2 is our filament resistance. Substituting what we know, our equation looks like this:

12 = .075 * (R1 + 40)

solving to: R1 = 120 ohms