Tag Archives: Beta Site

Live from the Beta Site

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One of the things that has been an inconvenience at the Beta Site is the lack of cell signal for my gamecams. I have several cams out there but only one can actually check in with any regularity and even then its spotty. The ideal solution would be cameras that sent signal over the internet, thus negating the need for cell towers and signal. However, that opens up its own can of logistical worms. This weekend is an experiment in wrangling those worms.

First thing we do is pick up a “Ring”-style camera. In this case a Eufy E30, which I temporarily mounted to the corner of the conex.

This camera comes with a small solar panel to keep it charged. Like most gear like this these days, the panel and charging port are USB. I had a larger Goal Zero Nomad 20-watt panel laying around and since it was significantly larger than the small panel the camera came with, I decided to use that to keep the camera topped off. I affixed some weight to the panel so it wouldnt get blown off the top of the container and set it up.

So, the camera part of the equation is done. Now for the internet part. A few trips back I experimented with the Jackery powering my StarLink setup. Under full sun the numbers were promising. It appeared that one hour of recharging under full sun gave about ten hours of internet time. I set up the panels flat on the deck, secured them so they wouldn’t blow away, and plugged them into the Jackery. This required the Jackery to sit outside which is not a great idea for electronics given that things like rain exist. After some thought, I decided that I would put the Jackery on the deck, run the wires from/to the Jackery down and through the spaces between the deck slats, and flip a plastic tub over the whole mess to keep it dry. Ventilation would come from below but rain would not.

The Starlink is, by its design, waterproof and not needing of any particular protection. However, I will wind up putting a semi-permanent pole mounting for it. So…camera has power, Jackery is getting power from panels, Starlink is up and running. Lets check the phone app:

And the real kicker…the camera has a pan-tilt-zoom feature so I can move the camera around remotely to look from different angles.

Now this isn’t 100% as cool as it seems. The camera is running full-time, meaning it is constantly sending live signal upstream to the internet, even if no one is watching it. That uses power. However, I can remotely turn the camera on and off so the camera only streams images when Im actually looking at it. Thats great. But it means the camera and its motion detecting is off if something walks by it. The obvious solution to this is to provide more power and a more capacious battery for the camera itself. This isnt necessarily a problem. It would be a simple matter of creating a battery/panel charging combo similar to whats running Starlink at the moment.

The weather this weekend is rainy and overcast, so I’m curious to see how battery recharging is going to go. In theory, Starlink can run off the Jackery for about four or five days before it runs out of juice. Even with overcast weather there is still a measure of recharging that occurs, so it might be feasible to say that as long as there isnt a continuous five days of no sun, the battery will power things ‘indefinitely’. Gonna find out.

For now, I think its cool as heck to be sitting at work, pick up my phone, activate the camera, rotate it 360-degrees and see whats going on up there. We’ll see if this works out long term or not, but for right now its very cool.

So much fail II

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Okay, not my best moment.

Went up to the Beta Site and did some camera work, which I’ll talk about later, and got ready to leave. Locked up the conex, locking all five padlocks on it. Climberd into the truck and…hey, wheres the car keys? And with that sense of dread that lets you know you really messed up, I realized I had locked the car keys in the conex. Where were the keys for the padlocks that were securing the conex? On the key ring with my car keys.

So here’s the situation – it is 5pm, daylight is starting to head for the hills, it is pouring rain. And Im sitting in a truck that cannot move because the keys are locked up. Now, I do have a spare key hidden on the truck but that is just a key to open the doors…which made sense at the time because usually the keys are locked in the truck, not in a cargo container. And, like most modern vehicles, the truck requires the chipped key that is wildly expensive to duplicate. But, I do have a duplicate…at the house in Missoula.

So, there’s no real option here. I’m going to have to break the padlock that I purchased specifically for its breakproofness. How to do so? Well I have access to a small bag of tools in the back of my truck…theres a heavy steel mallet in there. I use that and a combination of wrenches, heavy screwdrivers, and the like to achieve the spectacular result of…nothing.

Now, having to spend the night out there wouldnt have been a big deal. In addition to just sleeping in the truck, there was a cache a hundred yards away that had sleeping bag, tarp, freezedrieds, sleeping pad, cookstove, etc. Staying out overnight wouldn’t have been an issue, but so what? The next morning Id still be locked out of my car keys.

:::sigh::: Okay, I’m not happy about this, but theres only one real course of action left – shoot the damn lock off. Weapon of choice? My bear AK w/ steel core ammo. As you know, the sights on the AK, like the AR, are offset a bit above the bore. I didn’t want to get too close because I really didnt want shrapnel or bullet fragments flying back into my face. First couple shots missed because of the sight offset. Next couple hit the lock but not enough to bust the shackle…my shots were hitting closer to the bottom of the lock, not near the hasp. Looks like the only way to do this is to risk a little shrapnel and stand right next to the stupid thing, put the muzzle an inch from the lock and pull the trigger.

Which I did.

And the lock came apart like a Mexican space shuttle. I didnt catch any fragments but I sure as heck don’t ever want to be in that situation again. Which is why, on the way back from the Beta Site I swung by Home Depot and picked up a half dozen heavy duty combination locks. I’m replacing the keyed locks with combination locks so I never have this problem again.

And, really, this shouldn’t have been a problem the first time. Wargame the scenario – you show up at your hidden supply cache with whatever you could grab as you fled for your life. Where’s the keys? One less thing to have to worry about if you just carry the combo in your head rather than having to frantically make sure you grabbed the keys, or dig through six inches of snow and ice to find the key you cleverly (you thought) hid up near your stuff. No, for me it makes more sense, especially after this incident, to use a combination lock instead.

So, a hundred dollars worth of keyed-alike locks wasted. I’ll find other uses for them, but this was a lesson I’d have been happy to not have to learn the hard way. And you, my friend, can take what you will from my experience. Maybe I can save you the cost of a set of new padlocks and a dozen rounds of 7.62×39.

Looking in the rear view mirror

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Summer is slowly dying. But dying is a long way from being dead. There’s still probably another month, maybe two, before I need to start thinking the Beta Site is ‘closed for the season’. I suspect right around the middle of October it should start dropping concerning amounts of snow. That means that the ‘construction season’ will also be winding down.

How has 2026 gone for the Beta Site? Well, I didn’t get as much done as I want, but I got a bunch of things done, including some of the more expensive things.

  • Got the game cameras deployed
  • Had a professional and legally valid survey done
  • Got the conex put in
  • Established StarLink for connectivity
  • Found an alternate route into the property to facilitate better access in bad weather
  • Met a couple neighbors
  • Got the storage tanks buried
  • Got the secondary entry into the property cleaned up a bit

Expensive? Some of it…between the conex, survey, mini excavator and trailer rentals, and a few other things I’d say I dropped about $20k altogether. And that, my friends, is going to be the cheap part. Plans for 2027 are grand. Tentatively the biggest expenses will be:

  • A well
  • A septic system

These two things will give me the major accoutrements of civilization. I don’t mind living on 12v power, and keeping an eye open for bears…thats the price for living in the middle of nowhere and I accept it. What I will not tolerate (if I don’t have to) is a lack of flush toilets. Now look, I know that in the apocalypse the ability to drop your pants and sit on a nice porcelain throne is, at best, sketchy. And I’ve gone the caveman route when I’ve been out hunting or otherwise far from civilization. And, yeah, its no that big a deal. BUT…if I can have a nice, honest to Crom flush toilet why wouldn’t I? So those two items will be the most expensive things in 2027, I suspect.

And, of course, theres still the matter of the ‘real’ structure. I’m not living in a cargo container. I want a small-but-cozy four-season cabin/structure that has running water, heat, light, a flush toilet, internet, and all the creature comforts. Sure, I can ride out the apocalypse in a tent but if I don’t have to……. Really, something similar to this would be supermegawesome.

Other upcoming big expenses will be locking gates, water infrastructure (mostly piping water to various points on the property), fencing, gabions, sangars, decking, solar/power infrastructure, communications infrastructure, etc.

See the keyword there? Infrastructure. Its not going to be quick, and its not going to be cheap, but it does need to be done. By this time next year I want at least half of these things done. Since winter will be a time of inactivity, that will translate into a time of reduced spending..that’ll give me time to put together a war chest for jump starting things when ‘building season’ resumes, which I am scheduling as June 1 but will in all likelihood be about a month earlier.

The right to bear arms…against bears

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So, went up to the Beta Site after work to check out the new cargo container. They did a good job and even levelled it as best they could. However, I still need to jack it up and get some concrete blocks under it because I want it higher off the ground. That’ll be something to do tomorrow. While I was up there, I also wanted to put in some more game cameras for security for the new container and to record the increased traffic of predators up there.

This morning, I was awoken to my phone alerting me that there was activity and pictures were available. Allow me to sum it up with this:

Yeah, it was a bear-centric 24 hours. First of all, this morning gave me this bruin:

That light in the background is the flash going off from the other game cam I set up there yesterday. The bear in the picture? Did not come alone:

That’s right, guys. Its a family affair up there. Whats that you say? You wish there were better pictures? No problem, man…here you go:

Mom and cub? That moves the needle a little bit on the threat-o-meter. It’s a veritable Wild Kingdom up there.

Its looking like my larger security threat is the bears rather than humans (for now). Wasn’t expecting that. I have a couple game cam pics here that show me in the truck putting up the game cams….and the previous pic shows the bears walking through seven minutes earlier.

I’m not going to call it a bear problem, but its certainly a ‘bear diverse’ area.

An interesting side note…on the way back from dinner last night I managed to get pulled over by some young buck on the police department. (Failure to signal for the right turn at the light, I am told.) Mind you, at the moment I had a Winchester 1200 and an AK sitting behind my seat, and the big Glock 10mm sitting on the dashboard. He asks for my license and proof of insurance. No problem, I say, and hand over the license. Insurance, he asks? Thats gonna take a sec, I gotta dig around for it, I reply. He says “Yeah, theres a lot of guns here I don’t think I want you digging around in there.”. My response? “Dude, there is a shitload of guns in this truck.” Got off with a warning. I wonder if he’ll mention the interaction to some of the older officers there who will say “Oh him? He’s always like that.” Good times.

Epic loot drop

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A few posts back I mentioned that I was going to be looking at picking up an estate from a deceased survivalist. How’d that go, you ask? Well, you tell me……..the haul includes, but is not limited to, things like gas masks, filters, water purification, water filters, water barrels, water tanks, propane tanks, kerosene, propane heater, kerosene heater, knives, holsters, bear spray, speedloaders, gun rugs, tools, and a bunch of other stuff. Lets go to the pics…

Also picked up a Makita power drill as well…

There were several Buck and KaBar knives. The SOG Seal knife is a bit of a collectible.

Mostly Glock and K-frame holsters. The brand new DeSantis gun belts are only an inch lager than my normal belt size, so those should work nicely. The brown holster is for an L-frame Smith which is the same size as my GP-100 pistols. Same for the speedloaders.

Several of these with filters. All appear new and unopened.

These are one-gallon containers but there were some 5-gallon drums of kero as well.

A little bit of everything. The two tanks are 100-gallon.

I really only took pictures of the interesting stuff. There were also a dozen full barbecue bombs, which, of course, I snapped up.

A  bunch of this stuff will wind up going to the Beta Site at some point soon. A lot of this stuff is actually redundant to things I have here in town…as it should be. Never know if youre gonna be stuck at home for the apocalypse or if youre gonna have time to beat feet to your alternate location.

Its always interesting to go through someone elses preps and see how they decided they wanted to prepare for the uncertain future. Im sure that a lot of cool stuff was picked over by relatives and friends before I got to it, but I am nonetheless pleased with what I got. There were a few good values in there and I have nothing to complain about.

90% of this stuff will wind up going into containers and set aside for when I get the conex up and secured. But, it crosses a lot of things off of my list of Things To Get For The Beta Site.

Weekend AAR

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Well, first of all, it was bloody hot up there. Even at high elevation (6000’~) it was still too dang hot. The sun was just relentless. Good news was that there were no mosquitoes to worry about, bad news was the flies were terrible annoying. This was as good an opportunity as any to tryout the Summer Combat Hoodie that I picked up a few months back. The idea behind it is that, being made of mesh, it can be worn it hot conditions without making you feel warmer. It offers camouflage as well as keeping bugs off you. I’d been meaning to try it out and…worked pretty well. There was a very slight perception of a bit of heat retention but it was way, way offset by keeping the bugs and sun off my skin, Recommend.

So, I had picked up a 125-gallon water tank last week and hauled it up there to situate it for further use. How to fill it? Well, if I pull the truck up alongside the creek is about 15-20′ below the suface of the road, and the slope from the truck to the creek is about 50′ of linear distance. My plan was to use the Milwaukee transfer pump but I wasn’t sure it would move water that far and that high. One way to find out, right?

Worked fine. I need to make a separate post singing the praises of this thing.
Having secured water for the projects I had in mind for this visit, it was time to move on to other things. I had brought up a small barrel of freeze drieds to stow in one of the underground..hmm..what to call them….caches?Bunkers? Hides?…that I had put in a few weeks back. Although they are not deep, standing in one would only come up to your shoulders, I still needed a small ladder to make things easier to get in and out. Problem is, the opening is a 24″ circle. A normal width ladder would not leave you with enough room to mount it and climb down. I had toyed with the idea of taking some 2×4 and making a very narrow short ladder but my brain worked the problem and gave me a solution before I had a chance to hit Home Depot for some lumber.

I need something short, narrow, lightweight, and ladder-like. Hmmm. Hey, what about one of the ramps I use to load my snowblower into the truck?

Yup, that’ll work.

You know what I discovered? When its 100-freaking-degrees outside, five feet into the earth is blissfully chilly. I mean it was cold in there!

Yeah, I need to clean it up a little. Thats waste paper from the backing for the tar strips used to connect the riser to the tank. Next trip Im bringing the shopvac and some other cleaning gear.

Situated the first of many barrels, and closed things back up.

Also brought along a few cans of spraypaint to change the color of that lid from day-glo green to olive drab green. Next trip will involve some burlap and other camouflage. However, things seem to be working in terms of providing a hidden storage space.

Also marked off an area where Im going to have the conex people drop a 20′ container. I may need to see if I can impose on my buddy to go up there with the miniex and flatten it out a bit. I should have done it a few weeks ago but I wasnt 100% sure on the conex thing. Thats gonna bite me because I’ll need to rent the stupid thing again.

Also got to try out the camp shower under real world conditions. Lemme tell ya, it is a weird thing to be standing in the middle of nowhere, jaybird naked for the whole world to see. Intellectually I know theres no one around but for a few minutes I was a bit self-conscious. After that it was like “Screw ’em, let ’em see who the real heavy hitter is around here” if you know what I mean. Shower worked as advertised. At the end of the day it was great to be clean, climb into fresh briefs and socks, and climb into the sleeping bag.

Slept well enough until 530a when the coyotes/wolves started howling. I have no idea which form of canid it was but I can tell you there were at least six or nine of them and they sound nothing like what the movies make them sound like. How far? Far enough I really wasnt concerned. But, it was an experience Id never had before, so theres that.

After waking up, I put all my gear away, checked the cameras, did another walk through to make sure everything was secure, and left. On the way out, I ran into (almost) some locals:

All of Montana is open range country, which means is you don’t want someones cattle walking through your piece, its up to you to keep them out. My philosophy is that I’m not going to discourage ribeyes from being in my neighborhood. Might come in handy someday.

Every trip to the Beta Site is a lesson for me. Lessons this trip?

  • I need a lanyard for my 10mm to keep it handy in the tent
  • Bring better drink mix. Electrolyte mix, though necessary, gets old. Bring iced tea mix.
  • I need a smaller cooler for these one-man overnight trips
  • Bring shower sandals, a towel, and a travel soap container.
  • Bug spray and suncscreen, dang it.
  • Bring some basic tools (screwdrivers, pliers, vide grips, etc.) to leave up there

All in all, a good trip. No major failures, truck survived the trip, I survived the trip, got some things done. On a sad note, I’ve noticed that my treasured Arsenal AK is starting to show some wear from these repeated trips….finish wearing off the high points, scratches, etc. But, thats the price for keeping my place on the food chain.