The American Preparedness Radio Net

Hi to the APRN,

Sorry this post is late.  The net for Thurs nite was a good one.  The topics for discussion were Bio-fuels and CB radio thrown in for good measure.  The Bio-fuel topic has been a very popular one the last several nets.  I believe this is because the folks on the net in particular ( because that is what our net is about, preparedness)  and in a general way, the listeners and readers are beginning to realize we are at  the start of the end of cheap oil.  This is good because once folks know there is a crisis we can start dealing with it more effectively.

The ideas presented on Thurs net were good.  Dave W4DMH pointed out that cars were originally designed to run on ethanol and used such fuels as peanut oil diesel.  patents have been boughten up by the major players in the auto industry which would improve gas mileage a bunch if they were released.

Switzerland has a plan in place to have a much smaller oil use economy by 2020.

Methane is still a viable fuel choice but does take some work to get it going.  However, as N8VFJ Ed pointed out, it doesn’t take as much raw material to get it going as you would think.  There are many sources for methane production such as pig farm refuse, chicken farm excrement and others.

One of the most promising weeds for use in producing ethanol is called switchgrass.  It has a high ratio of fuel produced per ton of switchgrass used in production.  Also switchgrass has the added plus of putting nutrients back into the soil.

KD8KWD John said switchgrass is the same material that was used to make brooms years ago.

Switchgrass will produce ethanol at a higher rate than corn.

We also discussed CB Radio and sad to say while it is still useful it doesn’t appear to be very organized and while it can be used at a local level it is probably not to be a favored form of emergency communications.

Checkins:

N3YH was on freq but was just wanting to listen in.  Thanks, glad to have you.

W4DMH Dave

AC0BG Dean Thanks for checking in Dean, sorry the conditions were so bad.

KD8KWD  John

KJ4PZZ Bill

N8VFJ Ed

NW8I Del NCS

Dave W4DMH I can’t make the 40 meter net tonight as my wife to do a birthday thing today.