ryan_e3p

Most of my nodes are in enclosures backed by solar with a large 120Wh LiFePO4 battery, or otherwise hardwired to a power source with a 3Ah battery in the case. Portable ESP32 units are good for a few days of constant use with the 3Ah battery included.

Looking at getting a T-deck though, for when carrying anything with a cellular connection (even cell turned off) is going to be comprisable.

Sealed in mylar with O2 absorbers, steel cut oats easily have a 15 year shelf life. Cook time, maybe 5-10 minutes. Uncut oats can do 25+ years, but they aren't as much "pull out and cook" as steel cut are.

Uncommon because I don't hear it being pushed a lot for food, but oats. They're cheap (about the same price point as many beans, about $0.60-$1/lb), but are such a fantastic, well rounded food. Protein, fiber, carbs, are good for blood sugar and cholesterol, and can be eaten alone or used as a filler for breads, meatloafs, and other baked goods. They also don't take as much water to cook as dried beans do.

If I'm sideloading apps, it is usually because I want nothing to do with their storefront or nonsense.

Not a war crime the first time. Sit down, Donald.

My plans. Plans for everything, and plans for those plans if they fail, and tertiary plans. I love plans. SOPs (standard operating procedures). I'd rather have a solid plan for everything reasonable (and some unreasonable) than all the gear in the world with no plan. Plans documented, memorized, printed and digitized. I had a very logistics-heavy role in the military, and as a civilian with a family in this day and age of so much uncertainty, I'm honestly more focused on them than I was when I was serving.

It's definitely a cool option for complete off-grid comms. There is the option to use MQTT as well for messaging, but that requires internet to work. I'm planning for no internet, so that's what I 'train' with. You can make it so you are on the 'open' channel for anyone to jump into, directly contact individual nodes, and/or make 'channels' that only other people with the same encryption key can access for group chats. No subscriptions or anything else, plus there are a ton of different hardware types available, antennas, and other options. And overall, fairly inexpensive to get started.

The only real 'difficult' part is if you live near a mountain range. Without other nodes from other people around the peaks or setting up repeater nodes yourself, getting past mountain ranges isn't going to happen.

Right now, a Heltec 3. Better antenna though, mounted on a pole. I have an even better antenna coming soon with a cable so I can move the unit inside and have it on one of my solar batteries, since the little 3000mah one is good, but won't last long.

One thing to consider, especially for long-term planning, is those power banks are NOT user maintable. If the screen dies, the ON button fails, or the inverter craps out, that's it. It's a brick. With DIY setups, if a single component fails, you can replace that single component.

And also, you can make a portable DIY battery bank! I made one using a secondhand rolling tool case I bought in Facebook for $15!

Yeah, there may be things in it that are.... Perhaps not meant for distribution. I'm conflicted, because as much as I'm not all "yay, piracy" (at least when said property is readily available for a reasonable cost), if there's a situation where things do collapse, schools and education is still going to be important. Not just K-12, but more advanced higher education. Libraries may end up being raided and having their contents burnt by morons looking to stay warm in the winter, and I don't have nearly enough physical space to hold even a tiny portion of the digitized books.

Have you considered dropping down to a chest freezer and mini fridge when needed? The two combined can pull as little as 50-60W (each about 25-30W on average). A full size fridge draws a lot more since they're a lot less efficient. The chest freezer especially is beneficial since worst case, when properly filled, can go 3 days or so without power and still remaining ice cold.

one of those better be a new Stargate