Prepping means getting ready for some kind of disaster, whether it be a natural disaster such as a hurricane or earthquake or a man-made one like a market collapse or nuclear war.  Some of these events are more likely to happen than others; however, predicting when and where are next to impossible.

One thing is certain though, if you send the $1000 in legal fees to that nice Nigerian guy that wants to make sure you receive the big inheritance from the uncle you didn’t know you had, you can kiss that hard earned cash goodbye.

Preparing for anything also means making sure you have a spare tire, good insurance, a fire escape plan, and not getting scammed on the internet, but it happens to people out there every single day.  There are the love scams where some poor guy or gal thinks they’ve got the love of their life on the other side of the keyboard and eventually start sending them money to help them out of a tight spot.

Guys, sometimes that’s a man on the other side of the keyboard.  Icky eh?

Or email scams.  My mother sent me an email a few months ago that said something like, “Help!  I went to Europe and I got robbed and now I don’t have any money.  Please please send me $xxxxx so I can get home.”  I picked up the phone and called her at home.  She was shocked when she found out someone had hacked her email address and was soliciting her friends for money, but you know what?  One of her friends actually wrote back and asked how much she needed and to where should she send it?  Big heart, but a dim bulb.  If you know my parents you will understand they are as likely to go to Europe as I am to sprout wings and fly to the moon unassisted.

Not too long ago an acquaintance  decided he wanted to be on the game show Deal or No Deal.  Here’s a deadly combination for you:  serious country bumpkin with almost no computer skills, a deep and very real love for a game show I hope to never ever see in my whole life, and his mother’s credit card (he’s 40 and still lives at home.)  He gets on the ‘net and finds a site dedicated to helping people get on the show. I knew something was up when he asked if I could send a picture of him in his best wife beater standing next to his 4 x 4 to the game show because they needed to see a picture of him.  Bemused, I helped him out and then forgot about it.  Well, a couple of days later his phone started ringing off the hook.  They absolutely had  to have him on the show.  He just needed to send $352.54 (or some such bizarre amount) so that they could take some special photos of him or something to that effect.  At that point I knew something was definitely up (trust me – you’d understand if you could see him), so I got online and started searching.  Within two minutes I called him back and told him not to give anybody a credit card number as it was a scam.  Needless to say he was disappointed, but he didn’t lose any money that time.

And then there was the woman at work who approached me one day and asked if there was any way for her daughter to get her $5000 necklace back.  Apparently she sent it to someone in Yugoslavia or the Ukraine and was quite upset when they never sent the promised money.  Imagine that.  Apparently the FBI said they’d look into it, but they told her not to hold out too much hope on ever seeing it again.  Seems that particular scam is real popular.

Why Do Scams Work?

Scammers play on our desires and needs.  If you’re a love sick guy waiting for Ms. Right to come along you could be an easy target.  The desire for love is so strong that people will ignore warning signs and let their heart make decisions it shouldn’t be making.  And usually the scammers are very good at what they do.

Whatever your weakness, whatever it is you want, there is a potential scammer waiting in the background looking for a way to bilk you out of your money.

Check out this site for ways they look to cheat you.

Tips for Not Getting Scammed

The above examples are the tiniest tip of the scammer’s iceberg out there.  Here are a couple of tips for not getting ripped off by clever scammers.

1.  If it sounds too good to be true, it is.  A gorgeous girl is dying to hook up with you over the internet and you’re just an average looking guy and she suddenly starts asking for money?  Scam.  Get real pal, that supermodel is just after what little cash you have left after inflation and the economy is done with you.  (Although it might be easier and cheaper than a divorce when I think about it.)

2.  Always be on the alert for something that sounds fishy.  If that foreign guy from Craigslist trusts you enough to send a cashiers check in an amount large enough to cover the car you’re selling, plus shipping to Europe (or wherever) and a little left over for you for your troubles…. scam.  People have deposited the check and then sent their sale item overseas only to discover two weeks later that the check bounced.  Imagine that!

3.  Research anything  that sounds fishy or sets off alarm bells.  Google is a fantastic tool for finding these kinds of scams.  Take an extra ten minutes and do a quick search and it could save you thousands of dollars and a ton of heartache.

4.  Poor written skills.  If the guy or gal writing you seems like they have terrible writing skills, like maybe English is a second language, it probably is.  Don’t fall for it!

Remember that there are literally thousands of scammers out there wanting to get their greedy paws on your hard earned money.  Don’t let them have it!

Here are a couple of sites to browse through:

Stop Scammers

419 Eater

Hoax Slayer

Have you or someone you know been scammed?  Tell me about it in the comments below.

-Jarhead Survivor

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Thanks to the mild weather, I had the opportunity to break in the newest addition to my preps this past weekend.

The Ammo Can Stove.  I got the Mid-range model, the Blue Ridge.  It came fully assembled, and looking good in sexy matte black.  Instructions were included, mostly giving me directions on how to season the paint and care for the stove. Seasoning was nothing more than firing this bad boy up for a couple of hours.  I didn’t notice much in the way of paint smell, but hubby says he could smell it.  I had it going full out for a couple of hours, and had no problems with it. Everything is sturdy and held up to me opening and closing and poking about more than is strictly necessary.

Stove Front

I’ve got to say, I was pretty impressed. Here are some front and back views.

Stove Back, with clay pipe for reference

With only a small pile of sticks, I was able to get a nice bit of heat. I should emphasize that sticks are the key word there. There is no way you could fit traditional lengths of firewood in this stove. But, for people like me, with a wood pile that’s mostly fallen dead wood, this is perfect. The box dimensions are 8.5″ High, 7″ Wide, 12″ Long.

Stove Fire

The one thing I wanted immediately was the stove piping shown in some of the pictures on the Ammo Can site.  The exhaust pipe was head height as I was sitting near the stove. Which was a smoky place to be at times.  Stove pipe should be easy enough to find though, and hubby has worked with it  before, so this shouldn’t be hard, and we can customize the height for our easy-up shelter that we usually take camping.  I’m not sure I would use this stove in a tent, while about 95% of the smoke went out the pipe, there was some smoke leakage from the sides, on the bottom where the stove sat inside the ammo-can lid. That certainly wouldn’t be a big deal in a SHTF event, but for casual camping it would be a bit too much smoke in the tent for me.   This little stove would keep our easy-up toasty warm though, and I imagine that’s what we’ll use it for.

These great stoves are made from American Ammo cans!  They have been reinforced with steel and customized with heavy-duty hardware, transforming them into really great stoves with lots of practical uses!  Built for use in a shelter at a base camp, ice fishing shack, emergency heat or where ever you may need it!

The top easily got hot enough to make some hot chocolate or coffee.  I think my small 6″ cast iron pan would fit nicely and cook up little bits of food as well.  That puts this little stove high on my list of useful thing to have for grid down.  If things were dire enough, I would bring this stove inside my house to heat a room while I’m cooking.  That was a huge hole in my preps, and worrisome, as grid down could just as easily happen during our long cold winters, and all my current burning options are open-grill style, which isn’t so safe for inside. I should probably mention, that like any other metal stove, the whole thing gets hot, and will burn children or pets if they aren’t taught to avoid it. Be a responsible adult, and it shouldn’t be a problem.

With it’s small size, it will need to be cleaned out every day during use, but that’s a snap, as it hinges open on the original lid for easy cleaning.

Two thumbs up from me, hubby and the 2 year old.  A perfect addition to our preps.

- Calamity Jane

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This post is part guest post, part me rambling. Which would you like first? Too bad. You don’t get to choose.

You see, I’ve been thinking solar charger action ever since I read Holding Their Own. The main character had little solar panels to recharge batteries for his night vision equipment, GPS, etc. I figured I could use something that could charge my cellphone while I’m sipping Mai Tais on the beach or juicing up my GPS after the cold sucks the life out of the battery in the Maine North Woods. I thought “bonus cool” would it be to attach the solar charger to my tactical laptop bag. Oooooh – see? It’s tactical laptop porn!

Pictured above, attached to my laptop bag, is Voltaic’s Lightweight Solar Charger. Freshly delivered to my doorstep, it comes with a variety of adapters to charge most any small electronic device. I typically like to give something like this a good field test before mentioning it here, but I haven’t had a chance yet. I’ve only admired it thus far. It’s rugged, waterproof and (this model) can attach to most anything, your tent, bicycle, backpack, etc.

Soon after the Voltaic arrived, I get an email from “RamboMoe” at PreparedForThat.com asking if he can write a guest post for the site. While I get more requests like this than I honor (don’t want this site to be all guest posts), I also remember what it was like trying to get this site off the ground, when I was writing guest posts for other sites. So, “sure” I write to RamboMoe, my Voltaic in hand. “Write about solar chargers.”

- Ranger Man

BTW: Thanks to new advertiser, AmmoCanStove.com. Pretty interesting product they’re producing. Check them out, and if you order, tell ‘em SHTFblog sent you.

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Imagine for a moment that you find yourself walking through the wilderness one day, and come to the horrible realization that you’re lost (I know it’s an unlikely scenario for a man or woman of your calibre, but just indulge me here for the sake of the example). You reach for your GPS to find your way back to civilization… but alas, the battery is dead. You reach for your cell phone to call for help… but alas, the battery is dead. You reach for your mp3 player, to spend your last few hours on the earth listening to some tunes… but alas… the battery is dead.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was some way to charge these items even out in the wilderness? If there was some piece of equipment that could do this without needing an electrical outlet, only requiring the power of the sun?

As you’ve probably guessed, the technology I’ve been hyping exists – and it’s called solar charging.

DETAILS
Portable solar chargers are probably exactly as you picture them- solar panels that can charge your electronic devices, and are, well, portable. They offer convenience, as they’re portable and many models can be used to charge different devices. They also offer long-term power availability, as you could spend months in the wilderness away from an electrical outlet and still have a charged cell phone and iPod ready to go.

Solar chargers can be used to charge the batteries used by small electrical devices, or sometimes to power the small devices directly, depending on the make. They can also be used to charge conventional rechargeable batteries (AA, AAA, etc). There are currently models available for cell phones, iPods, car dashboards (to keep the battery topped up), and even flashlights that combine solar and kinetic charging to create a light that never needs to have its batteries replaced.

While they work best in bright conditions, most models are still effective in low-light, cloudy environments. They usually use trickle charging, although some models can fully recharge a battery. One example of a highly-rated model on the market today is the JOOS Orange (created by a company in California called SolarJOOS), which won the Consumer Electronics Association’s Best of Innovations Award for 2010 (I have no affiliation with the company, but it has good reviews across the internet).

Solar chargers work by absorbing solar energy and converting it to direct current (DC). They can be used to charge both lead/acid and nickel/Cadmium batteries, up to 48V and up to 400 Ah capacity. You’ll find various kinds of solar panels on portable solar chargers, from thin film collectors (with 5-8% efficiency), to monocrystalline panels (10-17% efficiency). The thin film collectors, while less efficient, can often be rolled which allows for greater ease of movement and storage.

In the past, the market was flooded with lower-efficiency models that did not live up to expectation. With the cost of solar panels going down, though, high quality models have hit the market in the past few years.

SOLAR CELL PHONE CHARGERS
Solar cell phone chargers use solar panels to charge your cell phone battery. Some phones have built in solar chargers, but in most cases you will need to buy an accessory piece. They can come in various shapes- folding types, rotating types, or straps with a built in battery. The good models can fully charge a phone in under six hours, resulting in 40+ minutes of talk time.

SOLAR BACKPACKS
Solar backpacks are backpacks with solar cells on the outside for energy absorption, and a battery on the inside for storage. They are usually designed to power or charge a wide array of devices, from cell phones to cameras to laptops. They usually contain monocrystalline solar panels (a high quality, highly efficient form), a charge controller, and various plugs and chords. They can provide the user with up to 120 watt-hours per day.

Solar backpacks can often be found in the military, disaster relief, and field research, as their value goes up exponentially the more secluded/less developed an area is. A recent example would be the Rucksack Enhanced Portable Power System (REPPS), a 62-watt solar panel blanket stored in a backpack used the US army in Afghanistan.

Good luck and stay prepared!

You can read more from RamboMoe at his site preparedforthat.com

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