Equipment / Supplies Archives | reThinkSurvival.com

GoSun Sport Portable Solar Cooker

I used to love to cook meals with my All American Sun Oven (like this one) and would post about it almost weekly for quite a while. Sadly, we moved to the Pacific Northwest and, well… those tall trees don’t make for advantageous solar cooking conditions, lol. Maybe one of these days I’ll dust it off again.

Anyway, that’s where a truly portable solar cooker, such as this GoSun Sport, would be a perfect fit. (I can attest that lugging my bulky sun oven around wasn’t fun by any means.)

And, while the price tag seemed a bit high at first, when I realized all that you could do with the GoSun Sport via the video below and recognizing how portable this particular sun oven truly is, then the GoSun Sport ProPack is actually quite reasonably priced.

Plus, the ProPack contains everything you need to cook and boil water while on the go, for in your car, at home, and so much more. If you don’t yet have a solar cooker then this one would be a good choice…

Save 31% on Collapsible Camping Lanterns (2-pk)

I got an email today from Amazon pointing out that, for a limited time, you can save 31% off a 2-pack of collapsible camping lanterns with promo code 312EA2RH.

Personally, I’ve got a few collapsible lanterns like these and have used them for at least two or three years now and I think they’re great! I wrote about one of them a few years back here, though these are a different brand.

Granted, such lanterns are not nearly as bright as a gas lantern, but they’re really good for being battery-powered since they’re LEDs which make them very efficient. In fact, I think they’re among the brightest battery-powered lanterns I own.

Besides that, they’re also super-lightweight, obviously compact (about the size of a can of vegetables when collapsed), safe for kids and adults because you won’t get burned (ask me how I know that’s a problem with gas lanterns), run on only a few AA batteries, and are nearly waterproof (let’s say quite water resistant).

Anyway, I couldn’t recommend them enough for the price at retail and with an additional 31% off right now… they’re a steal.

Grab a pack of two for your next camping trip or do what I do and keep a few placed around the house for when the power goes out.

Rocket Stove Fuel Alternatives

If you’re “into” survival at all then you’re likely very familiar with rocket stoves… they’re awesome! And they can be fashioned out of all sorts of items, from sheet metal and tin cans to masonry bricks and even earthen materials.

The thing is that I’ve ALWAYS used sticks and twigs to fuel them; however, as the following post explains: “…when a hurricane brushes by my coast and dumps 4-10 inches of rain, there are no dry branches or twigs to gather, light and cook dinner with!”

Clearly, you’ll need an alternative rocket fuel in that case. Here’s a few ideas…

“A rocket stove can burn just about anything, including your furniture if need be!

Like any cooking appliance, it needs fuel of some sort. The Rocket Stove is no exception. For me, when a hurricane brushes by my coast and dumps 4-10 inches of rain, there are no dry branches or twigs to gather, light and cook dinner with! I found it difficult to long-term store dry twigs and small branches for its’ fuel, until this week. I found that the Preppers favorite long-term storage container, the 5-gallon bucket, works perfectly!

Wood Fuel for the Rocket Stove:

Here are two buckets, one has split wood in it (about ½ to ¾ inch square by 12-13 inches long) ready to use. The other bucket has scrap 2×4’s and 2×6’s in it, I had this wood on my fireplace wood pile and because of rains, it is too wet to easily split with a hand ax so I’ll get to it in a couple weeks. The nice thing about using 5-gallon bucket for the wood storage is just snap a lid on it and it is neat, dry, bug-free, and clean in your closet or pantry storage…”

Read the full article here

How to Use a Smartphone Without a Signal

Smartphones… everyone seems to have one, yet few people choose to make use of them properly to better prepare for disasters. That’s way I wrote this book on smartphone apps for survival because your phone is a crucial, yet underutilized, survival tool that you should ensure is ready when needed the most.

What I now realize is that I didn’t fully cover how to better utilize your smartphone if/when you can’t get a cell signal at all.

Fortunately, there’s more than one way to make use of a smartphone as an actual communication device when cell towers are down. The following article discusses four ways, in particular, to make that happen…

“Communication, wherever you are, is a vital resource.

Whether you are a survivalist, prepper, hiker, hunter, or homesteader, having a method of off-grid communication is vital. Why is it important? Because when disaster strikes, an emergency happens, or when you are outdoors, too often we are left without cell phone service, and it is generally in those times that we need communication the most.

In regional areas, there is still scant phone coverage. In those circumstances, sure, we could use satellite phones, but if you have ever looked at their pricing you will know that satphones and satellite minutes can be ridiculously expensive.

With changes to technology, there are a few, much more affordable, alternative options that allow us to communicate with others. These options do not require us to use a cell phone signal, making them a way to communicate off-the-grid, so to say.

Why off-grid communication is important…”

Read the full article here

Apartment and Condo Prepping Book Now Only $0.99 on Amazon Kindle

My latest book, Prepping Strategies For Condos, Apartments, and Duplex Living: How to Prepare for Emergencies with Limited Space, is currently only $0.99 on Amazon Kindle for this week only!

Inside this book I’ll show you how you can prepare yourself and your family with very little effort, minimal time, and sometimes for free… even in a small apartment or condominium.

So, if you’re at all interested in grabbing a copy, right now is a great time to do it.

Here’s What’s Covered Inside:

The 3 Biggest Problems With Apartments and Condos (why they’re so much trouble and what you can do about each of them)
7 Sneaky Storage Solutions (so you can stockpile more supplies quickly and easily)
11 Small Space Prepping Solutions (each one is designed to maximize space usage without taking over your home)
7 Concerns Not to be Overlooked (condos and apartments have very specific problems that most single family homes do not)
9 Additional Supplies to Include (to ensure you have everything else that needs to be covered)

… and more.

Click here to discover more and get your Kindle copy on Amazon through the 27th only.

Two Best Lockpicks

Video on lockpick choices. He recommends two:

The Titanium Bogota lockpicks for better feel than stainless, plus they fit easily in your wallet or pocket.
The folding pocket pick set because it’s all conveniently contained in a single unit, sort of like a Swiss Army knife.

Remember, of course, that picking locks other than your own is illegal.

After watching the video I do wonder how many locks this guy picks because it sounds like he has a lot of experience with it, lol…

Top 8 Portable Stoves for Survival

The following is quite an in-depth article detailing the eight best portable stoves on the market in 2018 and includes specifics on the different types of stoves available, why you should have one or two (or maybe all eight, lol), as well as key features you should look for in a portable stove.

The list includes classics like the Coleman white gas stove, Jetboil flash, and Solo Stove, to name a few. Check out the article to see the rest…

Of course, they offer some solid recommendations, including

“A portable stove is a lightweight, compact stove. One light enough to transport from place to place with ease.

The critical word being – ease.

Sure, “technically” you can move your kitchen stove, but not with ease.

Portable stoves are the kind you can pick up, pack, and store in a vehicle or backpack without hassle.

For it to be genuinely”portable,” it must be small and lightweight. At least small enough for a petite human to carry it by themselves without throwing out their back.

Yet, just because they are small and light doesn’t mean they are not great at cooking food.

The best ones function as well as your standard kitchen stove.

You should be able to use a portable stove for cooking food or purifying water – in camp and on the go…”

Read the full article here

25 Uses for The WaterBrick, Besides Storing Water

The WaterBrick is a very good way to store water for emergency preparedness, especially for those with limited storage space. And, while I don’t use them personally (I prefer to use 55-gallon drums and other transportable containers) small water storage solutions like the WaterBrick do have their place.

The only major problem is that they’re a relatively expensive solution if it’s your primary option. But, if you can afford them, they’re very durable and quite useful as you’ll see. The thing is that it never really occurred to me to use them for anything but storing water. Read on to find out how useful the WaterBrick can truly be besides for storing water:

“Never has emergency water storage been so important to me as when Hurricane Harvey left my town flooded with 8 feet of dirty river water. In the hours and days that followed, families were scrambling for drinking water of any kind. Thankfully, our home had been spared, so we spent the following days delivering cases of water to families busily mucking out their homes…”

Read the full article here (including the 25 uses)

Rechargeable Batteries Dirty Little Secret

Skip to about the 3:10 mark to get to the heart of the video about rechargeable batteries. In the video he talks about simplifying the devices he has in order to get rid of odd batteries sizes (always a good idea), why you should have Eneloop battery adapters (which are great to have), battery storage ideas, why the Amazon Basics AA Rechargeble Batteries are even better than Eneloops (my longtime favorites), chargers, and more. It’s a good video to watch if you’re wanting to get your batteries in order and save money doing so…

How to Make a Faraday Cage in 4 Easy Steps

“If you’ve been in the prepper world for long, you’ve probably read some horrifying books about what can happen after a disaster called an EMP. And if you’ve done that, you know you need to protect vulnerable electronics. Today, we’ll talk about how to make a Faraday cage to do just that. Don’t worry – you won’t need a degree in physics to do this successfully.

First, let’s start off with a few important things to know.

What is an EMP?

EMP is short for electromagnetic pulse. It is a short burst of electromagnetic radiation that could come if a nuclear detonation occurred at very high altitude above us.

When a nuclear explosion occurs in space above a target, three types of electromagnetic pulses follow: E1, E2, and E3. An E1 pulse involves high-energy gamma rays colliding with air molecules nearly 20 miles above, then raining down electrons that get pulled in by Earth’s natural magnetic field. An E2 pulse comes from high-energy neutrons that get fired in every direction, and an E3 pulse occurs due to the size of the nuclear fireball itself affecting the Earth’s magnetic field. As nuclear physicist Dr. Yousaf Butt explains, these pulses affect everything in line of sight of the nuclear blast. For example, a blast at 60 miles up can affect a 700-mile radius on Earth…”