I am pulling my hair out in frustration over the market right now. We're looking in south Florida, and we are pretty firm on no pool, no HOA. The no HOA limits the the search quite a bit, but every flippin' house has a pool. I don't want to have a pool, I don't want to maintain a pool, I don't want to worry about my kids/nephews/neighbors falling in the pool and drowning when i'm not looking. On top of that, I really don't want to maintain a 30+year old pool. I do not want to pay for the dumb financial decisions of previous homeowners.

In one neighborhood we really like, on google earth I counted 20 houses with no pool in a neighborhood of about 300 houses. Even if we opened the search to HOAs, it's pretty limited. I guess moral of the story, being a pool guy is good job security.

At this point I'm weighing the options - what if we bought a nice house with a typical pool, and just had it filled in. I know a filled in pool is on the property disclosure down here, but it's my understanding as long as it's done right there is nothing preventing someone from putting one in in the future. I know I'll "take a hit" on home value vs a house with a pool, but over 10 years I'm sure I'll make up for it by not needing maintenance, even including cost of filling it in. I guess the crux of the question is having a filled in pool on the property the black mark I fear it is? Should we just hold out and wait for a no pool house to show up, or - fill in a pool at an otherwise nice house?

We've been looking for the past two months. We are looking for at least 3/2, no pool, no HOA, within 30 minutes of work, in a decent neighborhood, that needs minimal work, under $700k. We have a box drawn on the map, basically.

We've made 5 offers at this point - rejected three times, backed out of 1, and about to back out of another. We must have seen 50 houses at this point. It was the one home that didn't need $100k in renovations in our box that matched our criteria, but the floorplan is the sticking point. One bedroom doesn't have a window. We really don't have a need or use for both a formal living room and a family room - I think it's a waste of the 2,200 sqft. And the garage can only be accessed by going outside.

I'm willing to live with these things, but since voicing my concerns, my wife thinks I'm going to resent the house because of what I brought up. This is the only house we've seen that actually matches our criteria since we got beat on the last house.

I'm beginning to believe the house we want doesn't exist in Broward County.

Source: Polish Rządowe Centrum Bezpieczeństwa (Government Security Center) via War Translated.

https://x.com/wartranslated/status/2083180457009570137

Follow up to the posts Yesterday's missiles that landed in Poland.

I know there are quite a few questions asked on here about grounding and ground rods, however electricity is an area I don't want to mess around, and I'd also rather not burn my house down.

New to me house, built in the early 70s, early planning phase for the shack/antenna farm. Electrical service where I expect to find a ground rod is on the opposite end of the house where I would like the coax to enter the house. If I get lucky and find another ground rod near where I want to bond my shack to, cool, we'll go with that.

If I need to drive a 2nd ground rod, it would be about 100' run to the service entrance/where I would expect the ground rod to be to bond them together. This seems like it would be a Pain to do (but I will do it). Also, from my searching since this is a change to the electrical grounding of the house, a permit would be required. There does not appear to be any local ordinance beyond NEC/FBC - does adding a ground rod typically require a permit be pulled?

If I were in a part of the country that rarely gets thunder storms, I would risk it and not bother with lightning protection, but given it's Florida, I don't want to risk it.

The plan is for a like a DX commander, a 2m/70cm whip, and whatever else may pop up down the line, probably not a tower.

For the folks who have done this, how major of a job is this? How much of a pain is the ground rod stuff? How much did the folks from Code bother you?

I've been following the war fairly closely since the invasion. At the time I thought it was crazy to see tank movements on snapchat map, now I still think it's insane how OSINT and everyone in the general public having cameras connected to the internet makes it easy to see though propaganda and narratives pushed by traditional media.

Anywhoo, watching this 3 day Special Military Operation for the last 4 years has been interesting, because It's pretty much SHTF for millions of people, it's got everything a prepper wants - Economic collapse, that red dawn fantasy, an underdog story, the threat of nuclear weapons. I think these are core ideas that go beyond your country getting invaded, I'm a generalist, I think if you're pretty well covered for a couple months "suspension of service" you're good to go most of the time. Here's what I've noticed and I'm wondering if anyone else sees lessons learned

This is a long one so here is the TL;DR up front.

• Flexibility in long term planning and openness to emigrating is a much better investment than stocking and planning for long term self sustainment.
• Starlink is probably the best and most robust coms backup plan in 99% of situations.
• The most dangerous threat is the one you've normalized. Map your local infrastructure, audit your information diet across all sides, and practice the uncomfortable skill of being wrong about your team.

1- Bug out Vs Bug in.

the main lesson here is SHTF can happen and the rest of the world will move on. Say for example, you live in the 72nd largest city in Ukraine, Pokrovsk. Pokrovsk was under attack by the russians for about two years before being captured recently.

Many folks who come across this sub have this goal/fantasy that they would live in the city where they work, and would be able to go out to the farm/bunker/compound when things get tough and ride out the shit. How this plays out in Pokrovsk - you just spent 2 years in your compound in the woods, but now that the front line has moved on beyond the base - your city is in ruins, also you're in Russian territory now, a big "now what" moment as you realize you have no job, a gap in your resume, also you're still in a war zone. This is a generational financial blunder. It doesn't even have to be a war to find parallels - A lot of people left New Orleans after Katina and never came back. Sometimes you've just got to move and move on.

You know what Ukrainians are doing really well? The ones that fled to South Florida and are opening successful businesses. For the price of your hardened shelter just out side of Provo, you could easily fund a meaningful fresh start in a different country. The world is very big. Just because your economy is collapsing/being bombed/ washed away, it does not mean the whole world is. This does not have to be about war. A disaster could make your current home unlivable or uninsurable for the foreseeable future, it doesn't have to be a war.

I started working on this long post before the situation in Crimea had completely gone to SHTF, but it's the same.

Lesson learned: Flexibility in long term planning and openness to emigrating is a much better investment than stocking and planning for long term self sustainment.

2- Comms Plans

I am a ham radio operator for the love of the game. I was a Ham before I was a prepper, and while I get why people think Ham radio is the only way to go, and the last thing to keep working when SHTF, Watching how coms have been run in Ukrane has shifted my mindset completely.

CivDiv has some great vlogs about his time as a drone operator on the front. A lot of this shit, Airstrikes, reconnaissance, coordination, is being done by kids in a hole in the ground with an Eco Flow and a starlink via discord, WhatsApp, and telegram. Preston Stewart has show this to be true recently as well. The Russians were operating the same way until Elon turned off their starlink, which I think was one of the things that kicked off the recent events that has Russia on the back foot.

This is a bonus lesson learned on this point, on the front, these guys are running a generator for a couple hours a day to charge the eco flow, and running on battery the rest of the time. I have solar panels, but they are incredibly fussy, I think if you can make a hybrid approach with a generator and battery bank, that's probably the best way to keep things running during a prolonged blackout if you don't have a whole home system.

As long as you're on the same team as the US government, starlink is going to keep working for you, and is going to be cheaper and easier than any other radio system. I am never going to get my mom to get on HF and make a contact with me 200 miles away. But she usually can connect to Wi-Fi, and use WhatsApp, so that's become the best C in Pace.

Lesson learned: Star link is probably the best and most robust coms backup plan in 99% of situations.

3 & 4 - Situational awareness and being a boiled frog

This one is kind of a winding narrative, but stick with me.

As part of the Ukraine war being my special interest, I have a unique Instagram account whose algorithm is almost entirely in Russian. Now, I don't speak these languages, but modern technology has made translation incredibly easy.
I would group most of the high level posts I see into three groups:

1. Russian Propaganda
2. Western Propaganda,
3. Russians who still have Instagram

While some are humorous, nothing groundbreaking is in the post/reel itself. Lots of new recruits in the Russian military doing the same dumb shit American recruits would do. I feel bad for the girlfriends/wives posing the goodbye reels as their man gets on a bus somewhere, knowing from my side that 1,000+ Russians are dying every day, and the odds are I've liked at least one dead guy's reel.

The comments section is where it's interesting. There are always a lot of pro Ukrainian comments, but so many people are just clueless as to what is happening. Drones are flying though Moscow and there is a very obvious fire happening in the central refinery, and the the comments are still, "what is happening? why would you post this? How could this happen?" I get that they see a different media representation of the situation, but it's interesting to watch in real time people wake up to reality. Things they couldn't imagine being a problem are now a problem and they're pooping their pants.

I have watched the types of targets that have been chosen across Russia, Ukraine, and the middle east, and I've had a good look around to see what type of critical infrastructure I may have in my back yard. If nothing else it's a really cool exercise in understanding how the world around us works and how much we rely on random people doing a good job and following policy and procedures to prevent Catastrophe on a daily bases. A lot of people doing sketchy shit safely For example, did you know the Florida East Coast Railway runs an LNG powered fleet? If one of these is compromised, the evacuation radius is a mile. The "Life threatening adverse health effects/death" circle is several blocks in every direction. I live in on the border of "serious irreversible health effects" and "Notable but reversable discomfort" in terms of distance from the track.

Likewise, do you know how your gas gets to your tank? Crimea is currently more or less out of gasoline at the moment, because it was mostly coming in via truck, and the trucks and bridges have become regular targets in Ukraine's medium range strike campaign. More recently, the sea of Azov has been cut off for resupply as well. Crime aint got no gas in it, or if you do find gas, it's the equivalent of $20/gallon. It's a fun night on google earth figuring out where your local storage and distribution points are, and how natural or man made disasters could impact the critical supply chain.

Third prong here, are you able to spot propaganda from your government, even if they are on your "team?" ( I am not trying to air grievances, this is for illustration only, these apply to both teams) I think it's important to keep tabs on your "Woke Leftist Mob" friends as it is to keep tabs on your rightwing "literally fascist" friends. Not everyone is good at discerning bullshit but people are generally good at seeing things. People are afraid of the FEMA camps until the FEMA camps were on your team locking up people you don't like. People on your team are protestors, people on their team are rioters. "Everything is going according to plan" or "The plan is rapidly falling apart, or there was clearly no plan" depending on who came up with the plan. Both things can be true in each of these cases, but I think one of the most important skills is understanding nuance and empathy, as well as critical thinking when presented with a wide array of choices.

Lesson learned: The most dangerous threat is the one you've normalized. Map your local infrastructure, audit your information diet across all sides, and practice the uncomfortable skill of being wrong about your team.

Love to hear your thought and feelings in the comments.

The situation in Venezuela following double 7.2/7.5 earthquakes is not good, and that may be an understatement of the year. S has HTF for the Bolivar Republic.

Watching the situation play out and hearing 2nd hand accounts really has given me pause, and I feel like a lot of my preps, are just plain silly. I am a high rise dweller like many of those impacted, and granted I am not in earthquake country, but should any similar scale of devastation find me, I think there is really not much you could do in a situation like this.

Best case scenario you live in a single family home and you have a yard you can camp in until you're back on your feet, your you have family somewhere not as impacted.

Worse cast scenario, you're homeless, just like all of your neighbors.

The main things I want you to consider:

- Life will move on. If your food survived the impact, while you are eating bean arepas 7 different ways, you can not "hide in the woods" until your job calls you back that they've opened the office again. I do not think prepping for indefinite survival or off grid living should be the goal. Flexibility and mobility should be the goal, even if you just need to move a couple counties over.

- Wants vs Needs. No one is asking for knives guns and ammo. Sure, there is looting happening, and they will have to answer to God for that, but it's not worth shooting people over at a time like this. Your wife and child are buried in rubble right now, are you really going to shoot the guy who found her purse? especially if he is one of the authorities? What people do need are clothes, toiletries, and PPE. The posts in WhatsApp are asking for shovels, wheel barrows, gloves, masks and goggles, not trinkets and mall ninja shit. The focus is on finding loved ones in the rubble, or taking a chance to get a few more belongings out of your compromised house. I call it out on every BOB brag post I see and this justifies it even more now, - it's going to be the worst day of you and your neighbors life, someone is going to get their period, and no one is going to care you have 7 knives at that point. 7 knives no tampons is a dumb trend in this sub. BOB should focus on food, water, toiletries and clothes.

The point for discussion - presumably if you're in Venezuela you've got enough going on and probably are not on reddit, but for likeminded folks with family back home, first, I hope everyone is accounted for, but are you seeing anything that is impacting your prepping outlook for the future?

With hurricane season starting, I'm going through my go bag and checking my document copies. I know I'm much more likely to apply for FEMA aid than I am to wander into the woods and live off the land.

If you've been washed away, blown away, burned away, and built back up - what paperwork or admin tasks made life in the first few weeks easier, or what would have made your life easier? How long would you say it took before you were back on your feet?

This is what's currently in my Evacuation Documents folder:

Table of Contents:

1. Homeowners Insurance 
2. Vehicle Insurance 
3. Vehicle Registration and Title 
4. Identification - Person A
   1. Birth Certificate 
   2. Passport
   3. DL, Health Insurance, AAA
5. Identification - Person B  
   1. Birth Certificate 
   2. Certificate of Naturalization 
   3. Passport  
   4. DL, Health Insurance

    

6. Marriage License 
7. Professional License 
8. Immunization Records 
9. Contact Sheet (Friends and family Phone and addresses)
10. Radio Frequencies
11. Spare _____________
12. Spare _____________

Looking for some spots in the neighborhood, Struggling to find any. Does anyone have any groups or leads on unofficial trading spots/times? Looking to make some deals this weekend.

~~

Busco sitios para comerciar en el barrio, pero no encuentro ninguno. ¿Alguien conoce algún grupo o tiene información sobre lugares o horarios para comerciar de forma informal? Quiero hacer algunos tratos este fin de semana.

So I'm working on a slightly silly keyboard to keyboard project.

The program compresses your text message, encodes it to a QR code, and then transmits it via Robot36 SSTV to the receiving station, whose computer reads the QR code and uncompressed the data where the operator reads it and responds. I was inspired by a reel of a man who had two laptops talking to each other via a webcam flashing QR codes. I have always really loved SSTV and QR codes as odd as that sounds, and this seemed like a cool project to combine the two.

Would this project need to live in the voice section of the band, because it's SSTV, or in the data portion of the band because it's technically sending packets?

Also would anyone want to try to make a QSO with me using this?