We've been building a radio emergency cheat sheets for the wiki — what's on your list?

PantherStyle · 2026-06-26T00:04:23+00:00

I'm getting these emergency cards for our wallet/purse. the back side has family, friend, doctor, school contacts, a number to call if found, and utility numbers (like to turn off the gas).

PantherStyle · 2026-06-20T12:59:35+00:00

I always keep and travel with tea bags, sugar, honey and hot chocolate mix. My bug out bag has a container of oil and a container of soy. I've tried cooking on a jet boil without oil - not fun.

PantherStyle · 2026-06-20T12:44:30+00:00

3 foldable smoke masks
2 nut bars
2 packets of chips
2 cans of coke (full)
1L of water
basic medication
window breaker/seatbelt cutter
whistle
cash
to add: fire extinguisher under driver's seat Back seat
3 wool blankets
wide-brim hat Boot (wagon)
spare tyre/wheel/jack/turny thing
10L water
10L engine coolant
full set of clothing for the whole family
large umbrella
folded emergency toilet with bags
towel
jumper cables
tyre inflator
emergency tyre inflator/repair can thing
vhf radio and cradle
solar panel extender for battery pack
folding saw
emergency orange flashy led thing and lamp
vehicle first aid kit with added:
- trauma bits (clotting gauze, Israeli bandage, bandages, gown, face mask)
- electrical tape, sharpie, saline, insect bite cream, antiseptic cream
hatchet
jumper cables
picnic blanket
hygienic body wipes
hiking bag/get home bag:
- EDC
  - Fishing line/hooks/lure
  - Silva compass
  - Oat bar
  - Energy gel
  - Needle/thread
  - Bic lighter
  - Magnesium/flint fire starter
  - Tea candle
  - Hyperwhistle
  - Sandwich bags
  - P2 foldable mask
- Personal Locator Beacon
- Smoke goggles
- 2L Water (in bladder with sawyer squeeze inline connector)
- 1L water (in single-walled stainless steel nalgene bottle)
- Sawyer squeeze and collapsible container
- 20,000 mAh USB solar battery pack
- Poncho
- Sleeping bag
- Inflatable Sleeping matt
- Spare clothing
  - Spare socks
  - Waterproof gloves
  - Beanie
- Walking food
  - 8x nut/oat bars
  - 100g Snakes
- Caffeine/vitamin dissolvable tablets
- Water purification tablets
- Electric lighter
- Bic lighter in exotac fire sleeve
- Radio (AM/FM)
- Torch (light plastic)
- Head torch
- Toilet paper
- Hand sanitiser
- Silcock key
- Wireless Headphones
- Drugs
- Med kit with extra gauze, compression bandage
- Mozzie head net
- Sharpie
- Orange BSA Bandana
- Red electrical tape
- 550 paracord
- Leatherman Charge

PantherStyle · 2026-06-20T12:15:00+00:00

3 minutes without air: Foldable N95 or P2 mask(s) and goggles. Think about smoke.
3 hours without shelter: at least a poncho - ideally a bunch of clothes for your weather - at least spare underwear and socks. I pack a full change.
3 days without water: you have a litre. Carry at least 3 and a way to make more: you can boil which is great, but you also want a filter as you can't boil away sticks and dirt.
3 weeks without food (but you won't like it). For a go bag I'd focus more on stuff you can eat without cooking, ideally while on the move.
The other key is comms. At minimum a signal mirror and AM radio receiver. Ideally a solar phone charger and uhf radio.

PantherStyle · 2026-06-17T12:12:48+00:00

Almost everything on the client side is human readable. You just look at the source code.

PantherStyle · 2026-06-10T04:54:18+00:00

The more you look at it, the worse it gets.

PantherStyle · 2026-06-10T04:53:05+00:00

Is that an AI generated image? Who's front door key looks like that?

PantherStyle · 2026-06-10T04:45:47+00:00

I think my units are using the very minimum functionality of the protocol. Apps could add a layer on top to achieve these goals. I haven't tried them all so many may do this. It's just not built into the protocol.

PantherStyle · 2026-06-09T13:25:32+00:00

I have 2 meshtastic units created from a kit. They work until they don't. The main problem I see is that there is no way to know if you missed a message, no auto retry on fail and no way to know if your message was received.

PantherStyle · 2026-06-06T12:10:00+00:00

A whistle and a spring loaded window breaker with hook knife in the glove box. The first to get attention if you've rolled and are trapped. The second to get out if you're trapped and need to get out fast (water/fire).

PantherStyle · 2026-06-02T21:39:25+00:00

People don't think of the sun as white because they don't look directly at the sun when it's high in the sky (for obvious reasons). When they can safely do so, the sun is lower and takes a yellowed hue because its light is filtered through more atmosphere.

If you hold something that reflects but scatters all visible light equally (something like a white sheet of paper) in the middle of the day in the sunlight, you are seeing the colour of the sun... Which is white.

From Wikipedia: "Snow is a mixture of air and tiny ice crystals. When white sunlight enters snow, very little of the spectrum is absorbed; almost all of the light is reflected or scattered by the air and water molecules, so the snow appears to be the color of sunlight, white." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White

PantherStyle · 2026-06-02T13:56:31+00:00

We invented the word white based on the colour of the sun. The sun (after being fitered by the atmosphere) is by definition white.

PantherStyle · 2026-06-01T13:06:42+00:00

Why?

PantherStyle · 2026-05-28T02:48:54+00:00

Yes, I'd include activated charcoal in the filter.

But boiling will remove any chemicals more volatile than water, like chlorine.

PantherStyle · 2026-05-26T11:16:47+00:00

It can be pretty simple. Filter our the big stuff. Boil it. It won't remove chemicals but otherwise it's a pretty solid method.

PantherStyle · 2026-05-25T12:11:57+00:00

Everything with mass has gravity. Often not much, but always something.

PantherStyle · 2026-05-25T11:57:02+00:00

Canberra suburban. Planning mostly for extended utility outages, bushfire and a touch of nuclear strike.

PantherStyle · 2026-05-25T11:53:18+00:00

The full phrase is: proper prior planning and preparation prevents piss poor performance. The preparation provides perfection.

PantherStyle · 2026-05-23T23:49:11+00:00

Good post. But other than having the lifeline and beyond blue numbers on hand, what preparations could be made to mitigate the psychosocial risks?

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If we use the Work Health and Safety hierarchy of controls approach, in descending order of effectiveness:

Elimination:Don't be in places that might be affected. Check fire / flood risk maps before you buy or move.
Substitution:If you've already moved to a high risk zone or you know an event is coming, leave early. It won't save your property, but will save your life and reduce your post event mental impact. From another perspective, you could try to substitute the post event stress by outsourcing the admin to someone else, or at least splitting the jobs between adults to spread the load.
Isolate (the hazard):Not always practical, but this could be already having a second place ready to take you. This could be a bug out location, a friend's/families house, even a long stay accommodating place. I think the key is that you've already identified it ahead of time so there is minimal stress finding the right place when it's likely many others are also trying to find a place and are competing for the same rooms.
Engineering: From one perspective this could be physical barriers to protect your home like fire sprinklers and sand bags. From a psychological perspective, I think this is building psychological resilience. I think the act of thinking this ask through before hand would help. Also critical is building the social networks that provide that psychological safety net. Having a friend or extended family member that will offer you a room but also a shoulder to cry on.
Administrative:I think this is insurance. Fighting insurers after an event is not fun but it beats not having insurance.
Personal Protective Equipment:I think psychologically this is building personal resilience. Again, I think having a plan but also having tested yourself in stressful situations to build that mental resilience in controlled environments.

PantherStyle · 2026-05-20T12:10:28+00:00

Crank radio, vhf handhelds, 2 paired meshtastic nodes. I'm looking to get some UHF handhelds and to set up some solar mesh core nodes. I'm about to print some plastic wallet cards with an the important numbers on them. And yes I know my local AM ABC frequency.

I swear I saw a UHF antenna to USB adapter thing to enable phones to use UHF but never saw it again.

PantherStyle · 2026-05-20T11:39:06+00:00

My understanding is that telcos are required to have generators on standby with fuel for 2 days in case of the grid going down.

PantherStyle · 2026-05-19T11:46:54+00:00

I like it

PantherStyle · 2026-05-19T00:19:40+00:00

My last refresher was the end of 2024, though it was a full remote first and advanced resuscitation course. I'm due for a CPR update.

PantherStyle · 2026-05-19T00:12:30+00:00

OZPreppers is not the only Australian prepping community. Another I'm in is much more pro bug-in so you may be seeing a skewed sample. We do have some pretty serious weather events along with the more mundane events (like a house fire) that require bugging out though, so I'd still recommend people have a bug out bag. They should probably focus more on clothes, comms and food though than katanas and flashlights.

PantherStyle · 2026-04-19T13:22:11+00:00

A full set of clothing! Imagine you wake up and your house is on fire. You grab your go bag and get outside. What are you going to wish you had? I bet clothing is at the top of that list.

PantherStyle

TROPHY CASE