What Role Militias?

Sam Culper at Forward Observer wrote a piece a month ago titled What Role Will Militias Play in the “Coming Unpleasantness”? in which he discusses a Navy Post-Graduate paper Rethinking Militias: Recognizing the Potential Role of Militia Groups in Nation-Building. Sam discusses a definition of militia and how they may be of importance in coming civil unrest in the USA.

A community based militia is one which has influence only over a very limited area, such as a village, or a neighborhood within a larger community. The militia is seen as a legitimate protective entity only by that community, and generally does not seek objectives beyond that community.

Being that local militias may become a central part of the security of a free state, we should be asking ourselves how we build legitimacy in the area. How do we become recognized as a necessary and desired part of the neighborhood? For me, this goes back to Intelligence Preparation of the Community. Tomorrow I’ll post a guide to determining support and opposition in your neighborhood (h/t Aesop), and that begins with intelligence collection and analysis. Almost everything in these scenarios goes back to intelligence.

NC Scout at the Brushbeater blog has written a response or follow up, So, What Role Will Militias Play In The ‘Upcoming Unpleasantness’, Anyway?  NC Scout comments on the Navy paper from his own personal experience and opines that in some areas the militia may end up the only lasting power structure in a prolonged civil unrest, but perhaps controlled by outside forces.

That look to the recent past is a very good look into the future. There should be no doubt about it, some very hard times are in our path. We had the largest mass political assassination attempt in history not that long ago and most have already forgot about it. We have leaders who instead of debating ideas have decided there is no further debate- contrary opinions must be wiped out and they routinely call for this on their propaganda platforms. The political corruption of our justice system is now completely exposed- these were always political organs– and the air of legitimacy is fading. Its a difficult situation but from a social science perspective, and a person with experience both as boots on the ground and as an academic studying this very topic, my opinion is that militias will not only play a very large role in the upcoming hard times, even ending as the very power structure for a time in some places. For all these reasons there’s some critical takeaways that need to be pointed out.

Both articles are worth your time.

Digital Firearm Files Allowed Online in Gov’t Settlement

The good legal news keeps coming in. Cody Wilson, founder of Defense Distributed, reached a settlement with the US Government recently with the government agreeing that Wilson’s online publishing of design files which enable home 3-D printers to print firearms is protected by the First and Second Amendments. The linked article from Wired is a bit biased against firearms, but informative.

Five years ago, 25-year-old radical libertarian Cody Wilson stood on a remote central Texas gun range and pulled the trigger on the world’s first fully 3-D-printed gun. When, to his relief, his plastic invention fired a .380-caliber bullet into a berm of dirt without jamming or exploding in his hands, he drove back to Austin and uploaded the blueprints for the pistol to his website, Defcad.com.

He’d launched the site months earlier along with an anarchist video manifesto, declaring that gun control would never be the same in an era when anyone can download and print their own firearm with a few clicks. In the days after that first test-firing, his gun was downloaded more than 100,000 times. Wilson made the decision to go all in on the project, dropping out of law school at the University of Texas, as if to confirm his belief that technology supersedes law.

The law caught up. Less than a week later, Wilson received a letter from the US State Department demanding that he take down his printable-gun blueprints or face prosecution for violating federal export controls. Under an obscure set of US regulations known as the International Trade in Arms Regulations (ITAR), Wilson was accused of exporting weapons without a license, just as if he’d shipped his plastic gun to Mexico rather than put a digital version of it on the internet. He took Defcad.com offline, but his lawyer warned him that he still potentially faced millions of dollars in fines and years in prison simply for having made the file available to overseas downloaders for a few days. “I thought my life was over,” Wilson says.

Instead, Wilson has spent the last years on an unlikely project for an anarchist: Not simply defying or skirting the law but taking it to court and changing it. In doing so, he has now not only defeated a legal threat to his own highly controversial gunsmithing project. He may have also unlocked a new era of digital DIY gunmaking that further undermines gun control across the United States and the world—another step toward Wilson’s imagined future where anyone can make a deadly weapon at home with no government oversight.

Two months ago, the Department of Justice quietly offered Wilson a settlement to end a lawsuit he and a group of co-plaintiffs have pursued since 2015 against the United States government. Wilson and his team of lawyers focused their legal argument on a free speech claim: They pointed out that by forbidding Wilson from posting his 3-D-printable data, the State Department was not only violating his right to bear arms but his right to freely share information. By blurring the line between a gun and a digital file, Wilson had also successfully blurred the lines between the Second Amendment and the First.

“If code is speech, the constitutional contradictions are evident,” Wilson explained to WIRED when he first launched the lawsuit in 2015. “So what if this code is a gun?”

The Department of Justice’s surprising settlement, confirmed in court documents earlier this month, essentially surrenders to that argument. It promises to change the export control rules surrounding any firearm below .50 caliber—with a few exceptions like fully automatic weapons and rare gun designs that use caseless ammunition—and move their regulation to the Commerce Department, which won’t try to police technical data about the guns posted on the public internet. In the meantime, it gives Wilson a unique license to publish data about those weapons anywhere he chooses.

“I consider it a truly grand thing,” Wilson says. “It will be an irrevocable part of political life that guns are downloadable, and we helped to do that.”

Barter Is the New Currency in Collapsing Venezuela

From Reuters, Fish for flour? Barter is the new currency in collapsing Venezuela describing how hyperinflation and failing banking infrastructure is being replaced by barter even in the capital.

Under the midday sun, dozens of fishermen wait to sell their day’s catch by a lagoon in the town of Rio Chico on the Caribbean coast of Venezuela. But they aren’t expecting cash in return.

Instead, they’re swapping mullets and snappers for packages of flour, rice and cooking oil.

“There is no cash here, only barter,” said Mileidy Lovera, 30, walking along the shore with a cooler of fish that her husband had caught. She hoped to exchange it for food to feed her four children, or medicine to treat her son’s epilepsy.

In the hyperinflationary South American country, where bank notes are as difficult to find as chronically scarce food and medicine, Venezuelans are increasingly relying on to barter for basic transactions.

Payment for even the cheapest of goods and services would require unwieldy piles of banknotes, and there simply are not enough of those in circulation…

Even in the capital Caracas, some 130 km (81 miles) to the west, many informal merchants lack access to bank services or point of sale terminals and prefer to be paid in kind.

The rise of barter exchange, amid hyperinflation and a dearth of cash, is a reflection of how the once-prosperous country is reverting to the most rudimentary of mechanisms of commercial exchange.

“It’s a very primitive payment system but it’s also very primitive for a country not to have enough cash available,” said economist Luis Vicente Leon of consultancy Datanalisis…

President Trump Pardons Hammonds

From Redoubt News, PARDON for Dwight and Steven Hammond.

Shocking The Conscience: The Hammond Story

Today, President Donald J. Trump signed Executive Grants of Clemency (Full Pardons) for Dwight Lincoln Hammond, Jr., and his son, Steven Hammond.  The Hammonds are multi-generation cattle ranchers in Oregon imprisoned in connection with a fire that leaked onto a small portion of neighboring public grazing land.  The evidence at trial regarding the Hammonds’ responsibility for the fire was conflicting, and the jury acquitted them on most of the charges.

At the Hammonds’ original sentencing, the judge noted that they are respected in the community and that imposing the mandatory minimum, 5-year prison sentence would “shock the conscience” and be “grossly disproportionate to the severity” of their conduct.  As a result, the judge imposed significantly lesser sentences.  The previous administration, however, filed an overzealous appeal that resulted in the Hammonds being sentenced to five years in prison.  This was unjust.

Dwight Hammond is now 76 years old and has served approximately three years in prison.  Steven Hammond is 49 and has served approximately four years in prison.  They have also paid $400,000 to the United States to settle a related civil suit.  The Hammonds are devoted family men, respected contributors to their local community, and have widespread support from their neighbors, local law enforcement, and farmers and ranchers across the West.  Justice is overdue for Dwight and Steven Hammond, both of whom are entirely deserving of these Grants of Executive Clemency.

For a history of the harassment endured by the Hammonds, see this article at The Conservative Treehouse.

Motion to Reconsider US Gov’t v Bundys Denied

On July 3rd, 2018, Judge Navarro denied the prosecution’s request to reconsider January’s dismissal with prejudice.

Judge Gloria Navarro ruled today that the prosecutors will not get another chance to retry Cliven Bundy, his sons, Ammon and Ryan, and Ryan Payne.

The case against these four defendants was dismissed with prejudice on January 8, 2018 by Navarro, citing prosecutorial misconduct and several Brady violations of withholding evidence.

In her 11-page ruling, Navarro addressed the multiple reasons the prosecution cited for her to reconsider her ruling. She repeats much of the language from her original dismissal in which she harshly admonished the prosecution, headed by Steven Myhre, for their “flagrant misconduct”.

Additionally, the judge referenced the previous trials, in which Todd Engel and Greg Burleson were convicted.

The claim that the Government did not need to provide evidence of provocation, intimidation, and self-defense is outrageous given that this defense was at issue in the previous trials,

Some of the wording in the ruling is quite interesting, as it refers to the specific charges of which Engel and Burleson were convicted:

Because some evidence pertaining to perceived government misconduct is relevant to defending against Counts Five, Twelve, and Sixteen, and because the possibility of a self-defense theory exists, the Court finds that it did not err in finding that evidence of this nature amounted to a Brady violation and should have been disclosed.

Burleson was sentenced to 68 years for his role in the standoff. Engel is scheduled to be sentenced on July 19th and is facing a possible 20 years in prison. Multiple motions have been filed on their behalf requesting relief from the convictions based on the Brady violations by the government.

The government is desperately trying to keep the convictions from being overturned, yet cannot wipe the taint of their actions from the Judge’s eyes…

You can read the decision by clicking here.

FO: What Could “Collapse” Look Like?

The fine intelligence folks over at Forward Observer have posted What Could “Collapse” Look Like? Let’s Look at a Country Currently in Free Fall. No, it’s not Venezuela, but Mexico.

There’s no shortage of “collapsitarian” thought and literature out there. Make no mistake, I do believe that the United States will undergo a period of collapse, but as I’ve written previously, I don’t actually like that word: it’s so vague. (What is “collapse”? 25%? 50%? 100%? Read this for my thoughts on that.)

I certainly do expect a more difficult future for the next 10-20 or more years, but I would much rather identify specific challenges and components of “collapse” other than to just call it a collapse. America has different geographies, demographics, and cultures, and so not every area will look exactly the same. I just finished reading another blog post from a guy who peddles in collapsitarian fantasy, where he argues that America is in a “supercollapse” unlike anything in the history of the world. He doesn’t really describe what the “supercollapse” looks like and he doesn’t explain what we can expect as a result.

That, by the way, is the job of intelligence. Intelligence reduces uncertainty about the future. That’s the absolute value of having good information to produce good intelligence. Through clear thinking, structured analysis, and gaining an expertise on societies in collapse (historical and contemporary), we can absolutely gain some insight into our future challenges. There’s nothing wrong with collapsitarian literature, by the way; one very positive benefit is that each book is like a very entertaining brainstorming session that informs us of the full range of possibilities. That’s extremely beneficial, yet it’s not intelligence. The next step is to examine your local area, complete an Area Study, and begin thinking through the consequences and form some logical conclusions about how specific events or conditions would affect your area. You’re reducing uncertainty about the future by identifying what’s more likely and what’s less likely to happen. But I digress…

So what could our collapse look like at a local level? Let’s look no further than Mexico, our southern neighbor in absolute free fall, for some ideas. Here are a few things we’ve observed over the past year:

  • Mexico just elected a Leftist populist leader who railed against the incumbent president over 1) widespread corruption, 2) rising crime, 3) the inability to deal with the cartels, and 4) a lack of economic growth.
  • Drug cartels run Mexico. Underneath the positions of de jure power (the president, the congress, state governors, mayors, etc.) are echelons of de facto power. When we talk about collapse, this is the collapse of the Mexican government which lost political control over large swathes of their country. Do you remember the scene in Captain Philips, where the Somali pirate is holding the AK-47 and says, “Look at me. I am de captain now”? That’s the relationship between irregular forces in de facto authority/control over an area, and the government with de jure authority. And for much of Mexico, that’s the relationship between cartels, militias, and their federal government. That’s a great example of collapse.
  • The Associated Press last week reported about a rise in “mass crime” in Mexico…

Click here to read the entire article at Forward Observer.

Regular Assembly of the Whole, July 12, 2018

The next regular Assembly of the Whole will be held on Thursday, July 12th, at 6:30 pm in the Patriot Barn, 22202 N Hinzerling. During his talk, Dennis Walters will be demonstrating how to protect small electronics. If you would like to follow along, please bring a small, metal container like a cookie tin or ammo box and a small, electronic device such as a cell phone or hand-held radio that fits in your metal container. We’ll have some of the additional materials needed on hand at the meeting for your use. Once you have mastered the technique on a small device, you can expand to protect more/larger items.

 

Click here to download a printable pdf agenda.

Beyond Antibiotics: 20 Medical Supplies to Store

Who doesn’t like talking about first aid? Everyone wants help for the hurts. The Prepper Journal has an article up, Beyond Antibiotics: 20 Medical Supplies To Store for TEOTWAWKI (h/t to John Mosby for the link). We’ve talked about first aid kits in the past. Check your supplies.

When it comes to medical supplies, some preppers store antibiotics, Band-Aids, Tylenol, maybe a bit of gauze and call it good. Perhaps a few more things, but not much because they’ve got a doctor in the group, or barring that, silver or barter goods and skills to be able to make arrangements with a doctor.

Unfortunately, that approach may not work out so well.

Realistically, how many supplies can a physician be expected to stockpile for a community? How many physicians are actually preppers who foresee a need? Post-disaster, it will be far easier to locate a physician who knows how to use supplies than it will be to locate the supplies themselves. While obtaining prescription medications in quantity is a challenge, fortunately many life-saving supplies and medications can be purchased right now, by anybody.

 

So let’s discuss some of these medications and medical supplies that we should acquire before TEOTWAWKI. It’s not an exhaustive list, but it is a good start…

Click here to read the entire article.

Sparks31 SIGINT Class, Denver, Oct. 20-21, 2018

Blogger and author Sparks31 will be holding a course titled Electronic Interception, Communications Monitoring, and Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) For the 3%er, Prepper, or Survivalist in Denver, CO on October 20th and 21st, 2018.  Sparks31 has written several useful and concise books on communications including Communications for 3%ers and Survivalists, Commo, and Down-Grid Communications. Sparks31 tends to have very practical information which clarifies and simplifies the process of finding, analyzing, and prioritizing the radio signals in your area. His writings tend to emphasize how much you can accomplish with inexpensive equipment and a little know-how and elbow grease as opposed to spending a lot of money on expensive communications equipment that you don’t know how to use.

Class description and registration information:

This is a two day class focused on the needs of the 3%er, survivalist, or prepper. It teaches the basics of intelligence versus information, electronic communications monitoring, signals intelligence (SIGINT), and open source intelligence (OSINT) in support of SIGINT. It has been my observation that these skills are important and needed. Until now instruction was unavailable in the 3%, survivalist, and prepper communities. This class has been developed to provide access to this valuable information, and help those who would like to learn. It is based upon my 30 years of experience in communications monitoring, and work in the electronics , radio communications, and security industries. It has been distilled into the essentials from the best military, private sector, and hobbyist sources. Much of the material is new and has never before been presented in one course, including my previous grid-down/down-grid communications classes.

The first day of class will be a course of instruction where the following topics will be taught and discussed:

  • What is intelligence?
  • Intelligence versus information.
  • What is SIGINT, COMINT, ELINT,and OSINT, and how do they all work together.
  • Legalities of civilian SIGINT.
  • Area studies.
  • What do you need? Equipment types and figuring out its selection for your area.
  • Electronic interception, communications monitoring (low level voice intercept) and COMINT techniques.
  • Setting up a listening post in different situations.
  • Police scanners, communications receivers, SDRs, antennas, and other gear.
  • Constructing an electronic order of battle for your area.

The second day of class will be a field exercise in which the techniques taught the previous day will be demonstrated, and students who have brought equipment will have the opportunity to engage in a monitoring exercise. A listening post will be set up, communications monitoring activity will be conducted, and further practical instruction provided.

Due to the intense, technical nature of this class, (I have a well-deserved reputation for giving a lot of material to students over the course of the class. Be prepared to take extensive notes.) enrollment size will be limited.

The cost for this two-day class will be at a discounted rate of $200 until August 31st, 2018. After August 31st, the cost will increase to $250 provided slots remain available. Advance registration ends October 1st. After October 1st, the “at the door” price for any remaining slots will be $400.

UPDATE: Payment is accepted in the form of credit card, cash, or money order. To enroll and pay via credit card, please visit our storefront at https://squareup.com/store/sparks31. If paying by cash or money order, please email me via sparks31@protonmail.com or sparks31wyo@gmail.com for payment information.

Flights from the Tri-Cities airport can be had for around $320 at the time of this writing.

Anti-gun WA Initiative 1639 Information

Initiative 1639 will be on the ballot this fall (2018) unless it is stopped by lawsuit. Titled “AN ACT Relating to increasing public safety by implementing firearm safety measures, including requiring enhanced background checks, waiting periods, and increased age requirements for semiautomatic assault rifles and secure gun storage for all firearms,” this billionaire-funded initiative is much more dangerous than that language implies. The initiative is facing lawsuits over reported illegal petitions.

Washington Arms Collectors published the following facts about I-1639.

Initiative 1639 – An Attack on Every Firearm Owner

Initiative 1639 has been filed with the Washington Secretary of State:
“AN ACT Relating to increasing public safety by implementing firearm safety measures, including requiring enhanced background checks, waiting periods, and increased age requirements for semiautomatic assault rifles and secure gun storage for all firearms.” We should all be informed of the contents so please go to the official copy online and read it, download it and print it out to share with others. Here is the web address:
https://www.sos.wa.gov/_assets/elections/initiatives/finaltext_1531.pdf
This initiative is now in the signature gathering phase and if enough signatures are collected it will go directly to the voters, not to the legislature. If passed I-1639 will become law on July 1, 2019.
Every Semiautomatic Rifle is an Assault Rifle
Let me start with the initiative language that will do the most harm, the definition of an assault rifle.
I-1639 creates the following definition:
“Semiautomatic assault rifle” means any rifle which utilizes a portion of the energy of a firing cartridge to extract the fired cartridge case and chamber the next round, and which requires a separate pull of the trigger to fire each cartridge.”
The age of your rifle, collectability, ATF definition of the firearm as a Curio or Relic, caliber, rimfire or centerfire, tube or box magazine—none of this makes any difference, ALL semiautos are defined as assault rifles. Your kid’s .22 LR plinker is an assault rifle. Your Garand collection is a collection of assault rifles. Turn of the 19th to 20th century semiautos are assault rifles.
You say that you hate those black plastic stocked AR-style rifles and wouldn’t have an “assault rifle” in the house? Too bad, the anti-gun community has outflanked you this time by including all of your wood stocked semiauto hunting rifles, all 22 semiautos and just about every rifle created from 1900 to now. Oh, antiques and inoperable firearms are generously exempted. So it’s not just Modern Sporting Rifles that have been included but all semiautomatic rifles.
Registration of Rifles
How will this affect collector transfers, private transfers and all FFL dealer sales? Semiauto rifle transfers will be handled like pistols are now with additional forms, State registration and waiting periods.
The Department of Licensing is authorized to keep, “copies or records of applications to purchase pistols or semiautomatic assault rifles.”
Firearm Storage is Criminalized
We all secure our firearms the best we can. Some can afford safes and others lock them up or use locking devices. I-1639 defines safe storage as follows: “Secure gun storage” means: (a) A locked box, gun safe, or other secure locked storage space that is designed to prevent unauthorized use or discharge of a firearm.” Oddly this definition excludes gun locks! Yet the initiative itself requires gun locks be provided with every sale. It appears that if one secures a firearm using a locking device it is by definition not in “secure gun storage.” Read the definition again—a secure storage SPACE seems to be required. And if you fail to have such a space and someone uses your firearm to do harm, you are the criminal.
A new crime of “community endangerment” is created that will allow you to be charged and jailed if your firearm is taken and misused. Yes, if you have secured your firearms you may not be charged and in this section gun locks are mentioned along with secure storage. We all strongly support safe firearm storage but changing the law to shift the blame for a crime onto the victim of a crime is wrong. The message to the public and the legal system is that your formerly law-abiding gun ownership is a threat to the community.
Annual Verification of Eligibility
I-1639 will institute a system that annually reviews your record to determine your eligibility to own firearms. You should expect that medical records, mental health issues, and social security disability will all be reviewed to determine whether you can possess that old semiauto hunting rifle. And you thought we were trying to scare you with visions of the police at your door to confiscate your firearms.
Out of State Purchasers
Residents of other states have been able to purchase rifles and shotguns here in Washington. 1639 will end this reasonable practice for semiauto rifles. Our WAC members in Idaho and Oregon will be unable to come to our shows and collect these firearms.
No Longer an Adult at Age 18
At age 18, you can vote, you can be charged with a crime as an adult, be imprisoned or drafted and do other adult things but you can’t take your 22 rifle into the woods to plink and you can’t go hunting with a license and a semiauto. I-1639 judges you to be too immature to do these adult activities. Thinking about taking your semi to the range for practice or a DCM shoot Forget it—that would be illegal.
What can a 18 year old do with a semiautomatic rifle? Stay at home on your own property. That’s it. The initiative states that a person, “ eighteen years of age, but less than twenty-one years of age, may possess a semiautomatic assault rifle only: (a) In the person’s place of abode; (b) At the person’s fixed place of business; (c) On real property under his or her control.”
Seriously…if this becomes law you can’t take your children to the range to have some shooting fun with the 10-22.
Government Safety Training Required
This initiative has costs that will be borne by firearm purchasers and owners. A new regimen of “safety” training to be delivered by government agencies is defined. Will it be free? Of course not and the price is not stated or limited. Firearm accidents are near zero in Washington. Death by firearm is either a criminal act or a suicide—neither is preventable through any kind of safety training. Hunter Safety classes teach safety and public and private firing ranges all provide safety training. This requirement is a bogus attempt to incorporate public safety into 1639 and increase the costs and create obstacles to firearm ownership.
Trigger Locks required
And you thought that trigger locks were already required? Well yes they are—by Federal law every firearm sold must have with a locking device. This section appears to exist only so that the initiative can masquerade as a safety measure. Nothing changes.
Rifles are Taxed
Sure they call it a fee but this is a tax on semiauto rifles. A fee of $25 is to be assessed by dealers for the Department of Licensing to use in their registration of firearms.
Multiple Initiative Subjects
Washington law requires that an initiative deal only with a single subject. In I-1639 we have changes to the age of firearm ownership, fees which are really taxes, storage requirements, changes to the definition of rifles and more. Most of the law changes would be in RCW 9.41. Still, there are obviously multiple separate and significant issues,not a single subject. This initiative is also falsely titled as dealing with “assault rifles.” These are flaws that may allow challenges but will not necessarily prevent a ballot vote. Don’t count on our courts to protect your rights–begin the fight now.
This article from the GunNews magazine, Washington Arms Collectors, may be reprinted and distributed by all those acting in opposition to I1639.
See also https://saveoursecurity.net/ for more information about I-1639.
UPDATE: As of November 6th, 2018 it appears that Initiative 1639 has been voted into law. The age restrictions go into effect January 1, 2019 and the rest on July 1, 2019.
UPDATE 2: The SAF and NRA File Lawsuit Challenging I-1639. Click here for article.

The lawsuit challenges the measure on the grounds that it violates the commerce clause by banning sales of rifles to non-residents, and that it unconstitutionally impairs the rights guaranteed by the First, Second and Fourteenth Amendments, and Article I Section 24 of the Washington State constitution by preventing the sale to otherwise qualified adults under age 21 of certain rifles.

“We are also considering additional legal challenges,” SAF Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb confirmed. “We are disappointed that too many Evergreen State voters were fooled into supporting this 30-page gun control scheme, despite overwhelming law enforcement opposition. This initiative is an affront to the constitutional rights enshrined in the Second Amendment and the Washington state constitution, especially for young adults.

“We’re determined to fight this egregious measure because constitutionally-protected rights should never be subject to a popularity vote,” he stated. “The wealthy elitists behind I-1639 want to turn a right into a regulated privilege. This measure was only designed to have a chilling effect on the exercise of a constitutional right by honest citizens while having no impact at all on criminals, and we cannot let it go unchallenged.”

Brushbeater RTO (Radio Operator) Courses Near Missoula, Sept. 2018

NC Scout of the Brushbeater blog will be holding his RTO course in Hamilton, MT (south of Missoula), on Sept. 8-9, 2018 and again Sept. 15-16. There will also be an advanced class held on Sept. 13-14.

EDIT: The 15-16th class has been cancelled because of a lack of sign-ups.

Click here for registration information.

The Radio Telephone Operator (RTO) Course is designed to take the individual of any and every experience level and teach them the basics of effective small unit communications in a field environment. Students will learn what it takes to set up a plan and implement communications in an improvised setting be it anything from a retreat to a security patrol to regional communications networking groups. A heavy emphasis of the course is on improvisation and antenna building- each student will construct antennas from improvised materials which they keep. This is NOT a “ham radio” class. No equipment or previous experience is required; only a notebook and a good pair of shoes. It is the only course of its kind offered anywhere, in a friendly, laid back and respectful environment.

This class will teach students the basics of communications at the Team or Squad Level in the field. Topics of instruction include:

  • Identifying Equipment Requirements
  • Writing a Signals Operating Index
  • PACE Planning for Communications
  • Basic equipment capabilities
  • Traffic handling
  • Improvised antenna types, uses and construction
  • Setting up and running an NVIS HF station
  • Message Formats
  • Setting up and communicating from a Hide site

Two day course will culminate in an field training event running a TOC station and Hide site in the field. Students will each build an antenna and demonstrate competency in team communications basics during the field exercise. Amateur Radio license qualification is helpful, but not required. This is NOT a ‘ham radio’ class but each student will come away with a basic understanding of a team’s communications needs in a tactical environment and how to best meet them under less-than-ideal circumstances. No equipment is required for this course; however, if students want to get field practice with their own gear, it is highly encouraged but done so at their own risk. Instruction is completely off-grid.

RTO Course: $300 per Student in advance or $350 at the door

The Advanced Course picks up where the RTO Basic Course leaves off, with training focused on:

  • Advanced SOI/CEOI Planning
  • Planning & Coordinating Transmitting Sites/Directional Transmitting
  • Uses of Resistors and Constructing Directional Wire Antennas
  • Data Bursts
  • Advanced HF techniques
  • Basic Signals Mapping and Communications Intelligence

Advanced RTO Course: $300 per Student in advance or $350 at the door

$50 deposit required for the in advance class prices by August 15th.

 

RELATED:

Brushbeater: Montana RTO Course and Other Admin Notes

Wilderness First Aid, Kennewick, Sept. 8-9, 2018

Wilderness First Aid Course

Prepare for the unexpected with this fun, hands-on introduction to wilderness medicine, taught over two or two and a half days. If you like to take short trips relatively close to medical resources, work at wilderness camps, enjoy weekend family outdoor activities, or recreate outdoors, this course is for you. This course is great for people of all experience levels, and is best suited for those who recreate outdoors where EMS response can be expected in a timely manner (fewer than eight hours). You’ll learn the Patient Assessment System, how to provide effective first aid treatments for injuries and illnesses common in the outdoors, and how to make appropriate evacuation decisions. You’ll learn both in the classroom and in outdoor settings regardless of weather, so come prepared for wet, muddy, cold or hot environments!
  • Sponsor: REI Outdoor School
  • Location: Kennewick, WA
  • Dates: Sat, 08 Sep 2018 thru Sun, 09 Sep 2018

More info and registration links.

 

Family and Friends Who Don’t Prepare

Kit Perez has been written a short article titled The Dilemma of Family and Friends Who Don’t Prep over at American Partisan about how you might need to react to people asking for food in the event of a severe crisis. In an event like a civil war (which 31% of US voters believe is likely in the next five years), those people in need may be more desperate than you have imagined.

In the time that I’ve been prepping, I’ve talked to a lot of friends and family about the need for them to prep too. I’ve gotten varying answers in this conversation, but the one answer I hear more than anything is, “I’ll just come to your house if something happens.” It’s always said with a laugh, as though it’s such a hilarious, original joke, and I’ve read many folks who advocate answering that with a resounding “No, you won’t.”

On one hand, this sounds greedy and rude–or at least, you’re told that it does. How can the person who claims to want to build local communities and work together with neighbors not be willing to share in hard times, when your little nephews are starving or the family next door doesn’t have any more water and no hope of getting any? Some may say that there’s a moral and ethical obligation to help others regardless of situation. Others I’ve talked to say that they’ll give the people at the door two days’ rations and tell them that’s it. Still others say they’ll help children but no one else.

The problem is that they’re still thinking in terms of normal, civilized society, and the social mores that people generally abide by–and trying to apply them in a brutal, life-or-death situation where there are no rules and no limits.

In order to understand the real situation you’d be faced with, you need to read Selco’s work, in which he describes in great detail the mindset changes that occur in a societal breakdown. Think about what happens when an area is faced with a major storm, or prolonged power outages. People swarm the stores, scrambling for supplies before they’re gone. Looting and theft, even assaults and worse occur as a matter of course.

Let’s take a look at some of the potential situations. Let’s assume you have a family of four people plus one dog. You’ve saved a few hundred dollars in silver, and you’ve got three months of food and water saved up…

Click here to read the entire story at American Partisan.

Prosser Montecito Fire, June 27, 2018

A fire that started near Montecito Estates in SW Prosser, WA has burned up the Horse Heaven Hills and into the wheat fields to the south. Early on authorities evacuated housing on the hillsides to the west of Montecito Estates. After a wind change, the fire headed back east and the Painted Hills area was evacuated. There is a Red Cross Shelter open at Housel Middle School for evacuees. More than 1,500 acres have burned as of 11:30 pm on the 27th. Fire fighting assets continue to arrive.

Update 1: As of approximately 12:15 am, June 28th, the fire is 40% contained. Officials believe between 1,500 and 2,000 acres have burned. Crews hope to achieve  100% containment by Thursday evening, the 28th.

Update 2: As of 6:00 am, June 28th, the fire is 80-90% contained and evacuation orders have been lifted.

Looking down at burn on top of Horse Heaven Hills. The fire burned into wheat fields. Date: 6/28/18 Photo Courtesy of Jim Willard