SURVIVAL EQUIPMENTS

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