Bit of a direction shift...

Currently this blog deals with a wide variety of subjects, and well frankly jumps all over the place.

So I decided that I'm gonna be moving the Amateur Radio topics over to it's own blog... It will be a joint interest blog, dealing with Amateur Radio, and High Altitude Balloon projects

This blog will deal with mainly outdoorsy stuff.

That said those of you who are subscribers here that want to follow the radio and HAB geekery. feel free to subscribe to my other blog here. A link to it will also be included over there in the side bar.

Modding the BK-2 and Sheath

For giftmas I bought myself a Becker BK-2, and the optional Micarta handles.

But I wasn't satisfied with just modding the handles so I made a lanyard for it, ok you say that's pretty basic most folks do that. well while browsing the BCUSA forums I cam across this thread: BK2 Sheath Mod by The Warrior and I liked the mods he had done. But I wasn't sure I wanted to go that far.

More after the jump.

Happy New Year.

To all my readers and subscribers. Happy new year! Get out there and make the best of it.

I hope to get out more and make posts in here this year.

Can we guess what's in this pouch?

Made a couple quick mods to my FAK pouch to make it more readily identifiable. Added red paracord zipper pulls, as well as a bit of red paracord in the shape of a red cross. I don't think that will be easily mistaken for anything else LOL.

Modding the Yaesu FT817ND.

Recently I purchased a Yaesu FT817ND (specs here). The biggest complaint most people tend to have about it is the fact that it sits flat on the table and that makes the screen hard to see. I had the same complaint so I went about researching various ways to fix that issue.

Some folks homebrewed a stand out of an old CD case, others went a more durable route, like myself and bought a product from Palm Products called  Peg Legs. If you follow that link you can see a copy of the instructions, and can see it's a simple mod. They give you all the needed new screws, and washers to make it all work nicely.

After the jump are a few pictures before and after showing the Peg Legs installed on my 817.

Poncho Liner Mods.

Following instructions that can be found all over the web namely here, with the exception of adding on the snaps I modified my poncho liner to enable easier use as an underquilt for hammocking once the weather cools down some.

First as they show I made a slit in the edge piping on the short edge of the poncho liner, and ran some paracord through it, once through I added a cord lock, and a knot so it doesn't fall off. I then made a knot in the tie offs on each corner. Finished corner looked like this.



Then in order to hang it from the ridge line above the hammock, I made shock cord  bungees with carabiners to attach into the loop made by adding the knot to the tie offs in the corners. Each bungee is approximately 4ft long.

Finished ends look like this,

Cooking Experiments: Long Term Food Stores...

Got the idea for this post last night while rummaging through a sample pack of long term storage foods from Pleasant Hill Grain. The idea it's self actually struck me half way through making an experimental stew from some of the contents in the can... That experiment was a roaring success, so I was experimenting a bit more this morning... I actually remembered to grab the camera this time.

I decided to try out making the eggs, some cheese sauce, and the potato dices (as hash browns/home fries)