Recent content by GeraldTheBonsai

I tend not to hide the fact that I have several preps in place, in particular solar generation. Over the last 6 months or so I've had a fair few conversation with people along the lines of how would they go about setting up a basic system, or what sort of things do they need to have in the ev...

Like all groups, there are always extremes. Whilst a small number of preppers might want everything to come tumbling down, most preppers are much more realistic. Historically, I think preppers have always suffered from being depicted as swivel eyed, gun toting loons, that want to run to the...

I really enjoyed the OU. Was studying Psychology. Got into the 3rd year but then due to events had to stop. When I came back to it, the course had changed substantially, to the extent that it wasn't what I wanted to study any more. Plus the fees had got stupid. Shame really.

I started small - just a single panel, a small PWM inverter and a biggish car battery. Just enough to charge things up in an emergency, like phones and torches. Its grown since then.......

I am running meshcore - one node and one repeater. These are heltec v4 boards. They are pretty easy to set up, just have a look on meshcore.io and you can get boards from multiple places like amazon and pi hut. Be aware that this tech is very immature. There are few agreed standards and the...

Been done and demonstrated. ETH Zurich. Was called SwarmMind. Used NFC to communicate between a group of drones that passed data to each other - when one crashed into the environment, the others knew about it and learnt to avoid the obstacle. The principle is called decentralised learning and...

I have my doubts that a shotgun would take out a fast FPV drone unless you were a very good shot with good reflexes. A small drone can hit around 80mph. If it was coming straight at you, you've got a couple of seconds to notice it, prep, aim and take it out. Obviously, if you knew there were...

Back in 2017, the Future Of Life Institute release a short spoof video called Slaughterbots. It suggested that, in the future, you could have swarms of small drones that used facial recognition to hunt down people. The drones were fitted with small amounts of explosives and blew up when close to...

Our local LRF just takes you to a few council pages, that appear to have not been updated for some time. Totally useless. As for the NHS, well, we have a vet up the road - think I would be better off going there...

Not sure why the National Emergency Briefing would have been pulled - if you read the key points, there is indeed some useful background information in it. Packham, on the other hand... well the less said. My personal issue with it is that, whilst informative, it runs the risk of generating...

No.......................

I have one of the original Freeplay wind up torches, that can also be uses as a small battery charger. Still works (after a bit of a repair). I met him once - Trevor Bayliss. He lived on Eel Pie Island in the Thames, near Twickenham. Its a sad story - he struggled to get backing for his wind up...

No you don't - you just buy the license.

I have a small generator. Even though its supposed to be one of the quiet ones, the minute I start it, you know someone is running a generator (or something). I have thought about building an acoustic box for it that would dampen the noise down a bit. Project for the autumn. The shed has two...

I have been considering some sort of comms, mainly to be used when out and about or in an emergency. CB was one option as I had discounted PMR due to its limited range and power (0.5). Then I found out that there is a business PMR licence that you can get - it costs £75 for 5 years. This lets...