VIP membership is radio with benefits. Oh yeah! Your favorite music from around the world right at your fingertips. Exclusive content, unlimited commercial free access. Try it risk free. That's free for five days at Live365.com slash VIP. Live 365. needs. Are your local store sold out of ammunition? Call or visit them today for prices on hard to find ammo and bulk ammo orders. You don't need to worry about having a military surplus store in your area because mainmilitary.com is the only store you'll ever need, all from the comfort of your computer. Visit them online today at mainmilitary.com. That's main, like the state, military.com. I had a dream the other night that, well, I didn't understand. A figure walked in through the mist with a flintlock in his hand. His clothes were torn and dirty as he stood there by my bed. He took off his three cornered hat and speaking low to me he said, we've fought a revolution to secure our liberty. We wrote the Constitution as a shield from tyranny. For future generations this legacy we gave. In this the land of the free and home of the brave. The freedoms we secured for you we hoped you'd always keep. But tyrants labored endlessly while your parents were asleep. Your freedom's gone, your courage lost, you're no more than a slave. In this the land of the free and home of the brave. You buy permits to travel and permits to own a gun. Permits to start a business or to build a place for one. On land that you believe you own, you pay a yearly rent. Although you have no voice in saying how the money is spent, your children must attend a school that doesn't educate, and your Christian values can't be taught according to the state. You read about the current news in a regulated press, and you pay a tax you do not owe to please the IRS. Your money is no longer made of silver nor of gold. You trade your wealth for paper so your life can be controlled. You pay for crimes that make our nation turn from God and shame. You've taken Satan's number. You've traded in your name. You've given government control to those who do you harm so they could burn down churches and seize the family farm. And keep our country deep in debt. Put men of God in jail. Harash your fellow countrymen while corrupted courts prevail. Your public servants don't uphold the solemn oaths they've sworn. And your daughters visit doctors so their children will be born. Your leaders send artillery and guns to foreign shores and send your sons to slaughter fighting other people's wars. Can you regain the freedoms for which we fought and died? Or don't you have the courage or the faith to stand with pride? And are there no more values for which you'll fight to save? Or do you wish your children? to live in fear and be a slave. O sons of the Republic, arise, take a stand, defend the Constitution, the Supreme Law of the land, preserve our great Republic and each God given right, and pray to God to keep the torch of freedom burning bright. As I awoke, he'd vanished in the mist for whence he came. His words were true, we are not free, but we have ourselves to blame. For even now as tyrants trample each God given right we only watch and tremble too afraid to stand and fight If he stood by your bedside in a dream while you were asleep and wondered what remains of the freedoms he fought to keep What would be your answer if he called out from the grave? Is this still the land of the free and home? And good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, this is the Second hour of the afternoon, Intelligence Report time are quirky. One day closer to victory for all of our brothers and sisters, both on and behind the lines in occupied territories west, southwest, east, and north. Well, ladies and gentlemen, you are listening to us on... hold on here that's right liberty tree radio dot four m g dot com indiana freedom talk radio dot com running with them micro stations cb base stations and ultra net technologies east and west of the mississippi along with alaska or the hallmark network from the top of maine to the bottom of florida from the bottom of florida across the arc of the gulf of mexico Headed to Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Oklahoma, big chunk of Nebraska, whole bunch of Wyoming to include both the third, the fifth, the pit, and our friends in the recall state of Colorado. Waving to the left coast where we have the great state of Jefferson, we turn back to the east, sweep across the plains, leap over the burgeoning banks of the Mississippi, And land in the smokies slash the Blue Ridge where the restaurant crews, grandma teams, okay teams, and the Ma Bell Grandma Consortium of retired telecommunications workers bring us the Golden Spike. Many hands make for light work. A million petticoat junction operators, the ability to continue to function when everything else is offline. Well, I'll tell you what, ladies and gentlemen, it has been a very busy, busy, busy work week here. It's already Tuesday. Communications Tuesday, by the way. It is the 19th of August. It is the sixth year of open Fabian Socialist and Soviet Socialist occupation of America with the K-2014 Old Earth Calendar, or Mayan Crazy Town, Crazy Town calendar. And for all of you out there listening, of course, it's been a beautiful work week. It's raining now out here, though. We got that gray wave, that dark wave, light wave, dark wave, light wave, dark wave, light wave. Actually, it's going back and forth. Now it's pretty well stabilizing again. So for everybody out there, again, I would remind you to be careful. Pay attention. You haven't been out and about this afternoon still with all the fun stuff that is going on. Remember that we're looking at some major storms over the next couple of days. Probably. I don't know how reliable that's going to be. We'll see it happens after all is the storm front situation that we've come to know and love about glorious situations here in Michigan. So for our friends listening, again, expect things to get pretty interesting as far as the weather goes. And let's not forget that with all the fun stuff that is going on, it's not a matter if, it's just a matter of when, we're going to be seeing a change in the weather anyway. We're looking at fall here, guys, and it's coming up just around the corner on us like there's no tomorrow now. So we need to be looking at prepping for the worst and perhaps maybe even thinking about buying your snow gear and stuff now to make things work for you. It's one of those things. It's a cold weather thing and we're going to have to be thinking about and really with wet weather the way it is I would also point out that in light of and with all of the cold wet we've been already experiencing, Gore-Tex, watch for used Gore-Tex or stuff through the surplus industry some of the stuff is starting to become Just a bit of a glut. Not much. There's enough out there that definitely it's useful. It's definitely worth picking up. In OD green, even in what's interesting, field gray colors. I thought that was most fascinating. There's some stuff right now I haven't even mentioned on the area. I'm going to be buying it myself. I'm not even going to talk about it until I make sure I get some. I don't have much money in it, but the stuff is the cheapest Gore-Tex on the market. We've had some but I usually don't buy it because it is so pricey. Well, that's all changed. There's some material that's actually pretty reasonably priced that's out there available and definitely is worth the investment. So again, more on that once I get mine. In fact, big sizes readily available and reasonably priced. So I can handle that. I can handle that, as they say. A couple of things here to remind everybody about too because it is Communications Tuesday. I've mentioned batteries. Cold and wet. And you know, again, colder and getting wet is going to be sapping energy, guys. You're going to be seeing progressively a debilitation process here. So let's be prepped for that. Let's make sure we don't get caught flat-footed on this one. When I say that, what I mean is have all of your technology armored and insulated. Now one of the ways to do this, especially with battery storage and equipment storage, serves two purposes. When I say armored, no we're not talking about bulletproof and being able to deflect 50 caliber rounds. No, no, no, no, no. What we're talking about is protected from bouts. Radio equipment taking sharp turns left and right, sometimes it can be pretty embarrassing when your equipment gets beat on a little too much. And unfortunately it goes, I can't handle this anymore. Now, one of the reasons for that is because of impact, but also repetitious bend. Now, or repetitious injury basically because of natural motion. You walk, you're carrying equipment, the equipment is only designed to take so much flex, so much bounce, and eventually you reach a limit with regard to what your equipment can do. And this is very true of a lot of material, even your food rations. We've talked about this. There's a flex test system that was established years ago for rations, transporting, being able to move them, being able to get them from point A to point B. Where do they need to be to accomplish a mission? Where do they need to be to get the job done? Well, one of the rules here is especially with the radio equipment is to bumper it. The more that you can absorb and stretch out that shockwave, especially with impact injuries and such, or abrupt jolts just by moving around, hey, you're trying to dodge that bullet, you're not really worried too much about what's happening around you with regard to your equipment except you don't want to get hung up on anything, right? That's something we expect everybody to avoid. Well, because of that, we have to keep in mind The idea that bumpering or armoring stuff is a good thing. Now that can include dipping material in rubber materials, rubber support or grip materials that maybe were intended for storage but they work really well with regard to when I say storage to keep things clean or to keep things from the air. But also that same armoring, that dip type armoring works exceptionally well when it comes to establishing a way to protect extended switches, connectors, any number of different objects that you might have that are part of your system, part of the mechanism that you're working with there. So if you're going to do something like this or if you're going to participate in particular operations, also bumpering and protecting the system itself with For instance, high-impact foam or high-impact padding, it's not really all that difficult to do. And it's very economical when you take a look at what you can do with it. So that is purely a matter, again, of having your system squared away, plugged in, ready to work, ready to roll with regard to protection and defense. The bumper material, high-impact foam, you can cut to size, you can nest. You can go so far as to in the extreme that you see. It's not extreme, but what you typically will see is where somebody nests the equipment in such a way that they actually cut out a marker. They mount everything together in a pod so that it's prepped and ready for use. And what they'll do is bring that forward As a pelican can or put that into a transport can, a 50 caliber ammo can, take it back, there's a number of different solutions. But basically the same idea, that you've actually nested it to the point where it's in its own jello pack, so to speak. There's another way to think about it. Although in this case, it doesn't melt the way the jello does after you've made it, and doesn't mold later on. The advantage of cookie cutter patterns is that, well, whatever you've built, it will protect it. The disadvantage is its size. Now this is something that you have to take into consideration in that if you're going to be running a certain amount of different pieces of equipment, a general or utility foam package is a good idea. Another thing, you can't necessarily use a cookie cutter system to accomplish the mission because it has to be free and accessible. something else is part of the formula when it comes to what we're dealing with here in terms of the equipment. So you've got to be able to reach it. You may have to carry it. You're looking at the idea that you have to be able to manipulate it effectively. You've got to be able to do what needs to be done there. Well, the advantage of armoring carrying pouches and such is another thing to take into consideration. that we've seen very successful in the past and used and it can be done even today with engineer bags. I mean there's any number of different tools that are out there that can be used to accomplish the task. The important thing is that whatever you use you also have to remember to accommodate size pick the pouches or containers accordingly that allow you to protect but also free access. If it's too tight and you have to fight it to get it out, that defeats the purpose. If it jiggles around or bounces around and ends up with a whole bunch of rub marks which also demonstrate the lack of protection or lack of, shall we say, be ounce when the time comes. Too much bounce even if it's inside a package isn't going to really save it that much. It's those sharp jolts to and from. So you want to nest the piece of equipment. You want to make it so truly it is protected in such a way that that it's firmly seated in the pouch, the package you've chosen. One of the things about MOLLE gear, they're making a whole bunch of different sizes of equipment. I don't think everybody's really noticed that, but really cool in that they are readily available. They're actually pretty well designed to deal with the issues at hand that we're talking about, which is kind of neat. quite economical with regard to price and if you use 1 eighth inch impact foam or if you use for instance quarter inch, eighth inch, there's a number of different dimensions and types that are out there. Some are denser than others. Now I would recommend the density of the foam should be basically like what you see the old life jacket material made out of. In other words it's very high impact, difficult to chip It's difficult to alter in whatever method. The advantage is that again you can pretty well put this stuff into the field in a short period of time. You can cookie cut it out without much complication. Everybody is pretty well satisfied with the end result. You've got enough equipment in play or enough material in play that you're able to surround it secure it and you can even cut the stuff and glue it together so you can create ledges and steps things of that nature. It's hard to explain it when you're doing this on the air like this but it's really not that difficult to understand. I mean in reality if you are looking at most of this equipment, you know from the you know my aspect of just like well It has to be able to take the bounce, take the beating and in the process be accessible. You're looking at being able to cookie cutter the thing out so you have access for fingers and hands. Most common mistake made, like I said about pouches, guys have bought radio pouches. It says it's a radio pouch. Two things happen. It's either too tight, even with its sewn in armor, or it's too loose. Well, one way, if it's too tight, every time I push it in there, the battery goes down. I'll bet you when you push it in there, that on-offs or that connector hit play switch, you know, that push-to-talk switch, I'll bet you it's probably just pushed down a little bit. It's a little tight to get it in there. Yeah, it's really snug. And so you don't notice this, and this sounds weird, but I've seen this happen with a lot of equipment. It's trickle bleed. We even have this problem with With cassette players for years, guys didn't think about this, but it's funny, just a little bit of a tap on the play button. In reality, there's a prep circuit, there's a point where power is pushed through the system. Power is by a croissant familiar with light bulbs, things of that nature. That initiator, it's kind of like priming the pump. There's the best way to describe it. It pulls power. Well, what happens if you have it just left at that point where you have the initiator contact but you don't have the switch completely activated? It leads power from the system. Well, the many different radios, I mean, let's bring up something I've talked about many, many times, deal extreme. They got a lot of radios, don't they? Are they all the same design? Are they all the same shape? Are they all the same size? So I got this radio pouch and it says it's a radio pouch because I bought it from the guys who told me it was a radio pouch and it even says radio pouch on the little blister pack where I open it up. It typically also tells you what it was made for. Now if it's oversized, that's not a problem. I can create spacers but I need to take into consideration control switching and if you pay attention you'll notice that in many cases when stuff is bumper or protected on the inside, With the way that they do this, they actually backstep things so that there's a hollow or an area where there are critical components that poke out, stick out, or that might be activated. And so what happens by creating that depth or that cleft It allows for the other surface areas that are non-critical that don't have control surfaces to help to stand off and prevent controls from being activated. You don't want to activate it. Now loose without any, again, ultra floppy loose can be just as bad. I turn to the right and I drop to the ground and I hit the switch by accident internally because there's more enough slop and more enough energy. I can actually get the thing depending on how it's jammed into that pouch even though it's loose and again I can get a partial activation or even a full activation on the key you know push to talk. Now this sounds weird but it is the most common thing that I've seen because people lament my batteries run down too quick this is a piece of junk. Seriously guys I've heard every story you can imagine it's like well what are you carrying it in or what do you mean you first of all it's you know you don't go throw the radio out there's something wrong with it or trash the batteries. The first thing you do is evaluate the equipment that's supporting it. And that, especially what's being carried in the field, because there can be any number of things, doesn't mean that it isn't a bad battery pack. Or that there isn't a bad battery, you know, like Madcel, in the 12 AA batteries or 6 or 8 AA batteries that are carried in that radio. But, first thing you want to do because of the cost is take a look at how is the equipment being handled. You know, I've talked about many of the older style radios that we're putting into service. Well, remember that a lot of those even came with their own carrying case and their own or their transport pouch. Take a look at how it was built. You'll notice that even when it's in the transport pouch, 99% of the time with anything from the early 90s and before, you actually have a cookie cutter cut out for the pressed talk switch. Oh, so in other words, it's exposed so that even with a carry transport container or a protection shield slash an armored carrier, that push to talk switch is still free floating and nothing makes contact with it. See how that works? So this is another thing that needs to be taken into consideration with regard to operations. when we look at how we purchase, build things or re-engineer things accordingly. We've got a great system that's doing what it's supposed to do, but our problem is that, well, unfortunately, the device we put it in isn't. So this is where a little bit of intelligent process and intelligent engineering needs to take place so that we can get the job done. So we can again continue to perform the mission with that piece of equipment in the field. By the way, night vision, lasers, flashlights, there's a lot of different systems out there aren't there guys? And each one of these systems has its own unique summer twist switches which is intelligent because it takes a lot more to get the power pushed through the system. In other words, there's more that needs to be accomplished in order for anything to go wrong. This is not necessarily true with some of the other equipment we mentioned, especially radios which have to be convenient to operate. And again, minimal process of thinking to activate to talk and deactivate to listen. So that push to talk switch is usually your enemy with regard to bleed. By the way, don't ask me why. I mean, I do know why, but some designs are just notorious to have some kind of onboard clock. or onboard timing system or onboard monitoring system to include probably first-generation spyware if the radio is new enough. To the point where you have to also take into consideration that if your batteries are again low-grade, in other words you have to switch to something cheap, or batteries are tired, you've used them a lot in the field, batteries don't hold as much of a charge even though they're rechargeables, Remember that if there's any kind of power draw at all, that's enough to kill the machine, so to speak. That's enough to put you offline all in and of itself, by itself. So the other consideration here, too, is that your power available, power supply, may not be able to necessarily meet the need of that on-demand constant feed circuit. Example is, it's why your cell phone batteries have such a problem. I just charged it up. Well, it's not trying to make a call that kills at your call. It's all the other ping calls that it takes and makes and all the other stuff that it does with spyware while it's being carried by you that draws the power guys. Now, certainly when you key it up, you're pulling a certain amount of wattage right there, a micromilliwatt, whatever. But the idea is that, remember, it's that constant bloop going out. with that special spy circuitry that's put on board that allows them to track where you go from point to point. Well that means you're making a whole lot of calls that you're not supposed to be charged for obviously, but it's taxing your battery system. Now some of your radios have on board programming. Because they have onboard programming, they also have an onboard need to consume energy to maintain under a certain security protocol what it is you put into the system. This draws power. And that's another reason you need to pay attention to your environment here when it comes to what you're doing with the technology that you've embraced. Know what its consumption rate is, understand that there are issues that can develop because of age, and act accordingly. Most common problem, again, is the wrong container for the package that's being carried. You may have to do a little sculpting, you may have to do a little sewing machine work, but you can find or make, because of the variety of bags and pouches that are out there between French junk, Belgian junk, German junk, British junk, American Molly junk. There are so many devices out there available or instruments to use for the project that it should not be that difficult for you to come up with a solution that will fit your needs. The big thing is again to be patient and again when you do look for material or technology to build up and support your project, ask questions. One of the most common things is just assuming. Ask questions. You can even get the people you've got a pouch you want to experiment with which by the way, I don't really worry too much if I buy onesies of something because I can throw it on a 5.10 rig or whatever. But let's say I'm looking for something for that 1978 Reelton handheld three-channel 12 watt FM or AM radio that's a handheld walkie-talkie. It's not that I can't find it. In fact, first of all, I'd obviously looked at trying to find the industry that actually was built for the radio. It's not likely because every decade more and more of the stuff is destroyed or thrown out. So only if you find an orphan laying around somewhere, you're going to probably find what you need. But there are a wide variety of technologies as we know. There is a tremendous amount of material out there laying around that definitely is useful that you can adapt and improvise to overcome the problem. And we highly recommend that everybody act accordingly with regard to that issue. The biggest thing is protect it from being beat down and from stuff being busted. But in the process, remember, the limitations or the dimensions of the equipment you're working with and what special needs it may have. Night vision isn't too difficult. Most of those are turn on and turn off switches. They're not simply a press to talk system, if you've noticed. Just kind of cool. They can handle without too much complication being stored in a sidewalled standard container that fits the basic external dimensions of the system. The basic concept, how do they work, what works best. The important thing with a machine of the type that we're talking about like night vision is caps and needles of say making sure you don't leave tired batteries in play with a piece of equipment that's going into service. Most common mistake made is going with cheaper batteries and letting them eat up your piece of equipment where on the other hand it would be a Pretty you know again a pretty straightforward issue of you know maintenance, you know Replace battery you rechargeable battery go to the next one. We take replace chargeable battery battery Rechargeable battery and go to the next one when you start picking out and again I buy cheap batteries the one thing that has to be remembered is what it costs and to get some of the stuff put in and online. As far as replacement components or when it comes to battery charging systems If you're going to use the cheap batteries, remember that your life cycle is going to be shorter when I say cheap, even the rechargeable batteries. The dollar stores have some have rechargeables. Are they going to power up to as deep or as well as typically the stuff that you're buying that's upper end? You know, like the ion batteries, et cetera? No, because typically the dollar store or the discount are going to be NiCad or nickel hydride, which is not by any stretch of the imagine outdated or obsolete. But it's just the technology that's readily available now. And dollar stores are taking advantage of the slave labor market. They're operating with a particular kind of, there's a parameter with regard to minimal cost, maximum turnaround. And the slaves, of course, provide that with their labor pool accordingly too, as you know. The advantage and the disadvantage of the low end batteries is obvious. You get more radios switched over to rechargeable as quickly as you possibly can. Are all of them going to be low grade and have a low shelf life or storage life? No. However, it's more likely that out of 100 you're going to find 4 or 5 or 6 that do not hold as deep a charge nor do they have a lifespan. It's a quality control issue. The other thing is who knows who had a bad day in the factory. Most common mistake. Even with the best of equipment guys and the most expensive of batteries, we've seen the same problem over and over again. So again, I'm not shocked at a maze when somebody goes, I paid $5, $6 for these batteries and they just don't seem to hold a charge. Yeah, I know because even though it says, you know, Schmidlap, the best in battery production, it's still made in slave coal land. They may have slid it through another country and even make a comment, parts assembled in the United States. How much is there to assembling a battery? Most of the battery work was done in China, but the assembly is where they took the battery and they slide it into a plastic wrapper, made the US, and they claim that assembled in the united states yeah they took the chinese made battery and they put into that assembled bubble wrap part that is molded to the whatever it is and stuck it in a package uh... the big thing is again there is american made it is out there as we've we've pointed out many times you are going to spend more quality control is a tad higher new fortunately to a degree but uh... i would recall again that uh... if you're looking to try to get a lot of equipment in place you play the numbers game you end up getting more pieces of equipment in the field that are serviceable for a longer period of time than if you were to use the alkali, throw away batteries, and whatever type, even the better end batteries. Because it is a dead end toss. Once they've run through their usefulness, obviously, we still bleed them out with LEDs and things like that. But once they've run their distance, they've run their distance. So you have a set dead end expenditure. With rechargeables you have a cyclic lifespan, you have a certain amount of rechargeable potential for a year, two years, three years, sometimes more, depending upon what you've spent. And they can be stored neutral. Remember, if you don't charge them up, they can be stored neutral indefinitely until such time as you need them. There are a couple of different tricks with regard to discharging the batteries, kind of like discharging capacitors. so that the systems can be kept on standby. Anyway, we talked about arm ring. Arm ring is basically impact foam padding, but it can be as crude and rude as rag wrapping stuff too. Recharging or selecting the battery packs accordingly. Sometimes you aren't going to have much of a choice and you are still going to have to spend a chunk of change. Best example, some of the, and I shouldn't say some, many if not most of the upper end Chinese battery packs that we've seen guys as you know are actually running the upper $5, $10, $20 per battery pack. In many cases they will acknowledge that they're the new ion rechargeables or whatever the latest in Vogue is. I would point out if you do plan on investing in a more sophisticated battery system, buy at least one spare immediately. I don't care if you've got to go without food for a day or part of a meal, whatever it is, drop a meal, buy a battery. Why? Well, because again, we don't know from day to day, week to week what's happening in this country and how quickly they're going to cut off the China sport industry. How many of you knew Ferguson was going to be on the horizon a month ago? Anybody? Now we knew the government was goofy about something. Let's go back a little farther. While we were talking about the Bundy Ranch, did anybody expect the southern border to become a significant issue that the Patriot Movement has talked about for years? But everybody else says, discovered now! Well, guess what? In both cases, these are monumental issues that are going to be not just affecting us, but affecting all of the future generations here in this country. If this escalates as quickly as we anticipate, and most likely will, then we're looking at a battlefield situation on the North American continent here that's going to be quite nasty to say the least, and we'd better be prepared to deal with the problem. If we're cut off, that sophisticated radio you have still is going to require buck trees. How many buck trees do you have for it? Oh, I only bought, I didn't buy any money. Then the system is offline. When you power down or juice down the system when you expend it, that particular radio is now of no use to us. Now, there are some tricks there. You can take that adapter system you've got for charging it up. and hook it up to an alternate battery system. There's no reason for you not to be able to do that. Or another power pack system of some kind. But remember that that battery has a limited lifespan, no matter how you look at it. So if you've got a weird back fixture mounted battery, buy at least one right away. Ideally, three per system. Two things during the summer months your radio will last indefinitely through the evening unless you're like trying to use it like a cell phone Which is really kind of stupid because you should know better than that But as we switch into especially if you're in the northern states the winter season Oh The cold is gonna take a big toll On whatever's happening. Go ahead color jump in there, please No, I'll just say in front of me here. Just pull that right in front of me. Sorry about that. I forgot If you have an accident, we'll know when you hit, right? It's not a problem. At least somebody will be able to call for help. That's okay. Anyway, again, arm ring, that's for the sake of, again, cushioning safety, etc., protecting your equipment to, again, extend longevity and service. Battery packs for obvious utility purposes, in general, for service activity and service use, while in the field, it's especially critical that we look at putting as much into the investment there as possible, along with solar powered chargers, the whole nine yards. They're kind of a separate system because they're universal. Right now you can go to a couple of different companies that are survival companies and you'll see five, six, ten different hand cranks, solar combined, AM, FM, flashlight included, all of the USB port plugs for charging your very important cell phone when the time comes which is like probably the least of your worries if we get into a disaster situation because the cell phone is going to be one step away from useless. If not useless, well, it's not completely useless because just as we did the other night, it still makes a convenient flashlight, right? Oh, yeah, it does. But in reality, the charging system is still useful. I'm not going to poo-poo any of these ideas like the USB because we actually do have a lot of systems now that can use the USB port and have adapter plugs to charge up pretty much any other piece of equipment, including our rechargeable lighting systems, et cetera. if we've committed to utilizing rechargeable batteries in those. So the recharging systems, the hand crank, combined hand crank, solar panel, etc. are a recommended item. They even make right now, in fact Freeplay, I've been doing this now for about 15-17 years, they make a separate hand crank it, it runs for half an hour, basically if you crank it up, It will produce a certain amount of energy non-stop, step by step, hour after hour, well every half hour on the hour I should say. And it works either to direct power something or to store slash build up a charge. It's actually one of the best investments you could possibly make right now. In terms of small package, small unit deployment, Typically, unless you're absolutely dead and rigamortis is set in, cranking one of those little units is not a big deal. Half an hour's worth of active talk time or charge time is way beyond what you really need as far as talk time goes with regard to your field operations. Your conversation should only be no more than 10, 12 seconds long. That's really a long burst when you look at coding or using microclick, micropip, slash, again, a phonetic code of whatever kind. It can be noise or it can be words, either way. So that's one of the reasons that we need to remind everybody again that there are certain investments that should be made. The solar panels, hey, sunlight's free. I don't think we're going to burn. I don't think any of your backpack portable or man portable solar panels are going to fry birds in the air. OK, that's not going to happen. I know I've seen the article on that. The fried bird where they've, by the way, this used to happen with microwave sending units all the time. It's where they got the idea for microwave ovens. A little bird would fly in front of the radar dish and you'd have these birds. Eventually the birds would figure out there's something bad over there. For the most part, they'd stay out of the line of the dish. They'd figure it out. There's a certain amount of memory going on there. In reality, I don't see the solar as a big threat except the only other issue tactically. If you are looking at preventing detection, reflective surfaces need to be dulled. So again, you can't really do that easily with solar panels and begin to work. So that is one of the disadvantages of many of the standard solar panel arrays that are out there that are small man portable. They still reflect. It's reflective surface by the nature of usually what covers and coats it to protect the blueberry juice that makes up the collection material for the solar panel conversion system. Now, another thing about those little hand cranksets, just like my radio, just like my night vision device, if you're going to put one of those free plays in service, remember, they're the low end cost item. They're very simple the way they're built. I actually believe they make one now that doesn't just run for half an hour but you crank it up and it runs for a full hour. I don't know how many of those are available but I still would do the same thing. Pick an engineer bag or a combat bag or a gas mask bag, take your pick, armor it up on the inside. Remember you're going to have to experiment with it. You've got to find something to protect it. This piece of equipment in reality is providing all the power that you need for the cost of calories. and human operation. Like I said, unless you're, unless rigamortis is set in and you're completely starved out and dead, a few minutes worth of cranking, or actually a minute or two worth of cranking at the most, you've got 30 minutes worth of broadcast time, or 30 minutes worth of obvious recharge time, which increases your ability to store and to put more time on the radio. It's all a matter of time on the transmitter. It's like time on the range. It's just like stick time on a plane. Only in this case, it's direct application, first time around use. Whatever you're doing, again, you're going to be able to have to power up. You have to maintain the signal, and then shut down. You're not going to be staying online constantly unless there's some kind of direct crisis, short range issue, different story altogether. Then you'll be walking and talking somebody into something or out of something depending on the scenario. As it is, now we've talked about the rechargers, batteries, and armoring the equipment. One of the other things is a carry system. Mark, I use a carry strap. Yep, you're right. You can use a carry strap. But one of the other things to prevent be ounce is, and this is cool with engineer bags or with gas mask bags. Now gas mask bags are not your first choice all the time because typically when you're in the field, if somebody sees a piece of equipment, they expect it to contain something. Example, while we have many different medical bags, this is one of the problems I actually have talked about. A lot of times we have pressed other bags into service to make medical bags, so there's a wide hodgepodge of equipment out there where you can suspect that, well that's a gas mask bag, only to find out, no it's my blowout kit, it's in a gas mask bag, oh quick do something. And of course now you've been informed that the piece of equipment does something else without searching and frisking every pouch and bag and pocket the person has. Well, standardization is something that is pretty decent. You may also, in fact, even marker ID the pouch in a way that allows it to be IDed as red cross. Although you don't use red, use black or brown, something that's subdued so it kind of blends in with the camouflage you took the time to purchase. A standard pouch for all of the equipment so that everybody understands that I see that particular type of pouch, I know that it's used for that particular mission. That's one of the most important aspects of why you want to standardize material. Saving time, turning around to turn around operations. With radio communications, it's less likely that, oh my god, if I don't get to the radio, you don't recharge, or in the next three minutes we're all going to die. It can be possible. But most likely, again, it's the idea that you know that you have a particular package or a palletized system put together. You can idea quickly. You can save time both in the field or if you're in garrison. And we do have our garrison operations. That's not a problem. Go ahead, call her. Jump in there. Yeah, you mentioned charging with USB devices on some devices. Some devices have two or three USB inputs. And if you forget which one charges, can you go to any one? Oh, first of all, yeah. Most of them are gang switches. They're designed because they actually provide output power to a number of different pieces of equipment simultaneously. Because, you know, it's like, well, even I just picked up a bunch of Apple computers. There are at least, what, four USB ports in the one model. I noticed in the next model, the next year, they put five. So obviously somebody found another widget that they thought was really important to plug into the computer. Now, all of those provide the same power output and all those are the same connector slash jack system. You could even get to the point, here's another thing to consider, maybe you only have one USB connector. Now, I just got these the other day for free. They make a single gang, like a jumper cord that comes out from one USB, and then it splits up into four. And they're a little head like a gang AC plug. But they're tiny and they handle four USB connectors. So you can subdivide, still pulling power off of that one line. You can subdivide it because it is micromillion, I mean it's micromillion amps. Now nothing's really burning on upper end power if you're looking at devices attached to. It's the system itself that requires more energy in order for it to redistribute the power after it's been knocked down with resistors, diodes, capacitors, the circuits that are in place, variable resistors, variable rheostats, etc., etc., transformers. The individual power circuits each one would have a different power demand. Your little units that are plugged into that typically though will be consistent and match up with the power that will be provided out of that USB port. Or if it's older equipment it can be another kind. I mean I've been saving connectors for a reason because we've got older laptop computers that are throwaways. They have both the USB and several of the other hodgepodge plugs that they worked up to USB. That's why you have these octopuses that are designed for these chargers that have about nine different plugs to include a USB plug. Because there's a lot of stuff floating around out there But your USB pretty much if it's a USB and it's in the same gang of switches You know gang of connector points all those provide power so you should be good there. There shouldn't be a power So in other words I can probably go to any one of those and charge my device from that Typically, yes. If you were to open up the box, here's the one thing. I always recommend doing this. Somebody says, well, it's a junk laptop. I'm going to throw it away. Can I have it? Now break out the screwdriver and tear these suckers apart and look under the hood. Seriously, it was fried man! And it's true, I got a couple of laptops here the other day. Man, if those batteries go bad, it's like Krakatoa east of Java. The plastic hull on the laptop will melt. It bubbles up on the screen if it's folded down onto it, and it super charges that area. Well, I'm not going to lose anything. We'll break out the screwdriver and take a look at how the things work on the inside. That's the best way to understand, then you'll see what I'm talking about. For instance, your USB ports are stationed side by side by side. Typically, again, they're all on the same little connector board, so when they were installed at the factory by Chao Chu Bing, all Chao Chu Bing had to know was grab module A, plug in the slot B, and solder, solder, solder, or it was done mechanically with a machine, or all at once, and it's done. It's a modular system and in fact most cases not only have the USB but you'll have all your power supply plug, your USB plugs, your monitor plugs, it might be a different dimension or size or pattern depending on what the machine is. But they're all again on there. It's a matter of ease and manufacture. What they're looking at is how it goes into to get it onto is what they're doing. If you've only got one on a piece of equipment and you're using it for multiple purposes, it can handle more than one device. And so I would look for and watch for it. I don't know if you see them at the truck stops. You'll probably have to go to like a, again, a computer supply store or one of the places on the web. And I've got four of them I picked up, two, what was it, Friday. and each one is different and each one was made by the same company. So it's obvious each one is a different concept or idea of how to get the job done for different people with different computers or different environments where they're using them. Or either that or a year after they just thought they'd changed up and the guy was buying these things one year after another, I don't know. But I do know they're out there in good force and they are something that is a good investment. I would also watch, like what I'm doing is I'm grabbing everything that's a rat nest and then I'm sorting it out. Now the reason I do that is because like I said, for my phone system, I've found a couple more plugs I have not had or have been able to afford to have more than one of because they're a stupid price, but because they're not in vogue now, I just got them for like free. Well, they go into my phone bag in a subdivided little Ziploc sandwich bag, and if I run into any kind of plug, I can hook the equipment up. Now, the same is true for what I'm doing with the computers. I've been taking all these different types of jack and jumpers, and I've been categorizing them and separating them as quickly as I can. Still got a backlog, but not much. and wall warts etc. and all these other items so that when the time comes, for instance the cable connectors for the laptops, I have an example of pretty much any combo you can imagine. And what I also try to do is if I have the same cable And like I say, I have several different cables. If they come in different colors, I'll separate the one that's a yellow so that it's you for this, or a green, or a pink, or some of them have little braided metal. That's the Invoke thing for a lot of the gamer toys. And I'll separate it so that each one is different, so they're easier to follow in the field if you ever use more than one. See, this is what I think. Those folding solar panels here are saying could be a problem, but Henry built a pretty cool vehicle. He's got each cell batteries and a solar panel and all kinds of AC-DC hookups. And I mean, he's... That thing's dialed in. I don't know if he's ever trying to pick up anybody, but as long as the sun comes out, he's got power. Oh yeah, I don't have a problem. My only consideration in the long run would be, see, we don't have air supremacy. Let's think about a few things that are going on. We don't have air supremacy, but we will be on the ground in risk environments that may be an issue down the road for us. We need to be looking at the idea that when we're not using the equipment or if it's not essential, even at night, we need to look at folding equipment and putting it away. And that's one of the reasons I'm bringing this up because remember, reflective surfaces that aren't supposed to be in certain locations attract the eye. Oh, I see what you're saying. In other words, it's a neat folding piece of equipment. I'm done with it. Let's say it's 11 o'clock at night. Well, it's a good time for me to fold up my piece of equipment and put it in my backpack because all it's serving during the evening is something that can be, if it's hit with white light or if it's hit with an infrared LED and I don't notice it right away. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, if they see a reflection in a brush line or something like that. See, that's part of light discipline. Remember why for instance if you parked your truck out in the middle of nowhere, you know you got the trick you can take a poncho and you cover up the windshield or you can even cut cloths you have camouflage cloth and make a cover that we know with it when you shut the doors it holds a thing in place to cover up you can do with a blanket. Wool blankets work just as well they're really great. Well OD Wool because they're in a new in a flat tone they're an organic and they don't reflect. 100% or like a 90% wool, 10% rag wool, it doesn't reflect. So it's really cool in that you can use a wool blanket for the same purpose. But that glass by itself offers a shiny surface. Now here's the thing, even if I pulled that vehicle under cover, I would still cover the windows. Because well if I'm scanning an area and I get some kind of funky reflection through some you know tree cover I'm gonna go hmm. Why would that be there? What could be shiny that you know again is reflecting my infrared or my my illumination device I might want to be I might get curious because I'm already know I'm hunting you because I'm looking for you in an area So that's right light discipline is critical in all areas and we usually forget about that backpack item because where is it? It's behind me Yeah, that's a real good point. I'm always in a truck and I probably will be in a truck when you know what hits you, rotating device on the ceiling. Exactly. So, I mean, I'm, that's, what do you think, I can go into a truck stop and be one of many or I can be stuck out in the, uh, shop block bill and I'm the only guy out there. What should I... cover the whole unit with. That's a real good point. Well, the cheapest and I'll tell you what, if we could still get them back in the day, foreign ponchos in really good camouflage patterns back in the 90s were really available. And if you were to buy wholesale, you could buy one of those six foot by six foot field ponchos, like they were really grossly oversized. But they were really cool because they were snappable. and we made vehicle covers with them. Now your truck is awfully big so you're going to have to look at light weight. Now the couple of solutions there. Tractor supply. Go take a look at what tractor supply has and if they, not all of them have these because everybody's running down their inventory. Over here locally with our tractor supply and Harbor Freight, we had up to 60 foot long by 20 foot wide camouflage tarpaulins and they were actually quite reasonably priced. Now if I'm going to buy a tarpaulin to go on my vehicle and say roll it up behind like a poncho on a butt pack behind your cab, if I'm going to buy a tarpaulin to cover stuff, everything I would buy would be either some like Coyote Brown, OD Green, Earth brown or why not buy it in camouflage because it doesn't cost any more to buy it in camouflage than it does to buy it in green or brown or blue. Yeah, our Harbor Freight has those. So progressively, if you're going to buy any size, I don't care what it is, buy camouflage. Or at least buy something that will complement it, because OD green and camouflage go well, because you get dark lights, you know, you'll get splotchy patches. And the OD green, of course, will still be broken up because of the other tarpaulins you might use. The other thing is natural cover. It's a matter of what you can find in the system because up until last year there was even a bunch of the Coyote Brown and the Brown camouflage tarps in the system. I've noticed how those have dried up. Number one, they sold out what they had but they haven't replaced what they had on the shelf. Yeah, I'm going to have to look into that. It's a cheap solution. Light weight is better because you've got to be able to get it over the vehicle but if you do that, The quickest way to set up it, to keep it from disappearing, rolling off the vehicle, make yourself some pieces of rope with a tent stake on one end and a T-bar of wood that you tie the rope to. Now you can keep those in a utility bag, throw them in the junk box on the truck, okay, on the outside. When you need them, you've got to put yourself a Chinese throwaway, you know, sledgehammer, a little, you know, handheld, like two-pounder. Put that in with your bag and if you were to cover the truck, what you do is you stake it. You run the rope with the stake. Short stake doesn't have to be very big. The piece of board, the piece of stick holds the rope and the grommet. drive the stake into the ground by the front bumper there on the one end, pull your tarp over the other, see where you can angle it a little bit so it doesn't just drape over the truck, give it a little bit of a pitch as far as it'll go, tack that down. Now start working your way around the vehicle and that way you can't appear. See how that works? Yeah, right. And then you can throw some natural cover, chop some stuff off. Now remember about natural cover. If you cut things, I will point out with every passing day, the cut material will be as identifiable as anything else because once you've killed it, the organic is going to change in composition. This is where the Earth's technology comes in. Earth is designed to identify either materials by a particular type, in other words metals, hemp, cotton, whatever, or it can identify by base elements. It can be used of course to check for or spot check for active or active organic or inactive organic. Well, and it's part of the color spectrum. And think about it, as a plant dies, doesn't it pull all those nutrients and progressively it shrivels up and dies, right? So you get a different signature, which is the one thing you've got to be careful of when you're, you have to calculate how long am I going to be there? Will it really enhance my camouflage, my situation if I'm going to be there for a few days? Or do I want to look for a better location nearby where I can drive