Preppers and Survivalists

By: Zbigniew Wybraniec 

 Prepping at Universal Life League

Just for starters, typical Preppers’ topic – Making the fire in the wild. Have a look at the movie how to do itD by a one by the man with no nonsense approach to the Survivalism and Prepping: Here it is:




I noticed lately, many of all these wonderful sites, blogs with genuine mutual help suddenly gone missing, and instead, too much of commercialism shows up. Some of these great sites, become not so great, and have missing most important parts that we were looking for. So I think, there is time for me to seriously start doing what our Universal Life League was created for as it ought to serve the Mutual Help to Each Other.


Here is first of small series of articles on the Survival I started lately to work on. I hope it will be of help to at least some of our readers and members. What are Peppers and Survivalists? ‘Peppers’ The name itself says a lot, so there is easy answer to that, as ‘peppers’ are people prepared to extreme, difficult life situations, and their training prepares them to know how to live for even very long, extended time periods under such conditions being able to get maximum of goodness and the best of their and their families and friends’ life under such conditions, even evolve, and make their life better and make their environment safer, more friendly and acceptable.

‘Survivalists’ as the name says, means mostly, short term survival in the difficult, extreme life and environmental conditions, till help would eventually come from some, or any, source or place or other people. It teaches basic self-reliance for survival in the hardest, most primitive conditions. Survivalists are often persons (men and women) trained as survivalists by some army, or ex-army people.

Peppers are often organised and trained by people dedicated to people’s welfare, and derive from some religious or lay organisations, sometime even some state authority, also using sometime retired ex-army people to help in the survival part of the peppers’ survival training within other parts of their programs of activities. And these activities are often of very, very wide range of complex cultural, religious and social aspects. Survival, is the most basic, immediate solution to problems in catastrophic situations Preppism or prepperism, is a longer term although also starting from immediate survival abilities, all through, to intermediary and/or eventual permanent solution in case of grand scale calamity or catastrophe.

Writing this, I put here just some most basic information, as both these names relate to a lot of different organisations, and unfortunately, also ever smarter commercial operators trying to make quick money on people they believe to be naive, somewhat out of their head, if not clearly outright fools, ready to be skinned. As the matter of fact, some rich people are such, though not as many.

 Prepers are usually not ready at all to pay for things that are unnecessary to be bought, as they can make themselves, will do them themselves when needed, and most of the time also will very much enjoy making their own staff by themselves – just tell them, and or show them how, and they definitely shall do it, as the DIY (Do It Yourself) is a great part of all preppers’, often frugal life-style often out of necessity, as more and more people these days are plainly FORCED by their life situation to save every cent they can and save on anything they can.

This slowly becames a real SURVIVAL situation for ever-increasing numbers of people in the World. This is exactly what our internet based group is meant to serve for and help. This is what the Universal Life League is for, to help people to PREPARE to improve their lives by preparing to cope with unexpected situations and be prepared to deal with them appropriately, as the situation requires it. I write here about Australia as I live in Australia and it is the environment I know the best so far, as far living, working and otherwise functioning in this country is concerned for more than half of my life.

Australia is also the country that what is called a prepping or survivalism is very much called for, useful, and even necessary to adhere to, in remote areas plainly in everyday life, as the environment and Mother Nature herself requires it of the local inhabitants. Fact is, there is a lot of people who don’t even realise they’re a lot more survivalist than they think. What people don’t realise is, that practically almost everyone living in the remote area of Australia is a prepper, or otherwise a survivalist.

If you’ve got jumper leads and a bottle of water in your car, and spare fuel can in case something goes wrong, you’re a prepper, and that is one of the most basic things EVERY AUSSIE KNOWS about life in Australia when going for drive outside of the city or town limits. Here, it is literally a necessary part of life. Going cross Australia one has to realise that a 55 degrees Celsius (131 Fahrenheit) in many central Australian roads is not a rare occasion in Australia. Getting stacked in the middle of nowhere with no water, can mean your death, if you will find yourself in the rarely frequented dirt road, as communications are practically non-existent except by the Satellite Phone (very expensive proposition)…

Such a tragic thing happened to couple of German tourists on their way from Lake Eyre to Coober Pedy opal mining town in the very remote desert centre of South Australia some years ago. They didn’t notify anyone they’re going out (as it is recommended there to let know the Police or someone of the locals, of your trip exactly for your own safety reason) They missed the way with their car, and completely not prepared to Australian conditions they died of the lack of water before anyone realised they are missing. Temperatures over that area reach 60 degrees Celsius in shade (140 Fahrenheit), a lot more in the full sun, and sometime even go over that, and there are no trees, and no shade to be found.

That area is a true cruel desert. Mother Nature is wonderful, but she is also vengeful and cruel to people who don’t respect or ignore her… You’re much better off being ready just “just for the case” than be sorry when the SHTF (Sh!t Hits The Fan) situation happens:
Car brake-down in the middle of nowhere, as kangaroo decided to jump onto the car mask wrecking cooling system? Unexpected road works make you make a long, long way more than expected (meaning fuel) etc etc? This is just couple of things to mention. The most basic but common in Australia…

I think, Australia is by plain necessity one of the most prepping orientated countries in the world, if not THE ONE. Great distances between cities and towns with little or no phone communications, and extreme temperatures, especially in the Central Australia, make you here to prepare well, or suffer the consequences. So. You are the prepper if you happen to live in the Australian remote territories by shear necessity, or you get a slim chance to stay alive and well for any long time if you neglect the necessities and decide to ignore the Mother Nature. So. As you see. This is the most natural part of life in Australia, and not only. On the other continents there are also plentiful areas like this, where living with nature requires you to learn prepping and survivalist principles, even in this 21 century with all it technology, etc.

Alternative Energy Technologies and DIY 

In my view this is an integral part of a true blue Australian preppers life. By natural conditions, a lot of remote area inhabitants, in particular precious stone and gold miners, in Australia are natural preppers and for them the integral part of life also in this century plays the alternative energy sorce solutions. This is most, if not quite all, small miners operating settlements and mining areas. Mainly Opal, Emerald, Gold etc. For ex: Coober Pedy, Mintabie, and Lambina in South Australia, Lightning Ridge and Grawin in New South Wales, Saphire in Queensland, Sandstone in Western Australia, just to mention a few.

They all have in common the great majority of their inhabitants living in the temporary camp conditions, with need for power. At present, they solve it mainly by using the solar and wind energy… The best it can be seen now at Lightning Ridge, where the solar is a universal energy source and battery bank is in every house, camp, or caravan or any other liveable option available.

There are Mains Power connection options coming from the State Grid, but who can, prefers their own low voltage installations often with 240V inverters and all house electric equipment just like in any home in the city or towns. With dropping prices of solar, and batteries, these days this happens to be a lot cheaper option than installing the mains power, that is very expensive to install, and constantly rising in price for the electricity use costs from the State Grid. And, at present, the last call in battery technology with the Lead Crystal Battery is making it even more affordable and almost permanent, as these batteries are practically un-killable, and perform just as good, if not even better than Lithium Iron batteries. Lead Crystal Battery Lead Crystal Battery is the latest development in the electricity storage technology that gives unbelievable sturdiness and survival power to the battery, larger storage capacity with only slightly bigger weight and performance comparable, if not even better than that of the light, but incredibly expensive Lithium Iron technology.

Lead Crystal at the cost of only close to twice the price of AGM battery, and dropping, is still a lot cheaper than Lithium Iron, which costs up to 6 times the price of average AGM battery for the same nominal capacity.

I present here the present day rough price estimations: 
AGM 100 amph battery is about 280-300 AUD.
Lead Crystal 100 amph battery is about 500-550 AUD.
Litium Iron 100 amph battery is 1800-2000 AUD.
The differences are obvious, aren’t they?
One has to realise that normal AGM battery can be used only to the maximum of the 50% of its capacity at the best battery case, otherwise, it’s
useful life gets very short. It is the best if less, and even better if a lot less, maximum 30% would be the ideal to be able to use it for good few years... In the meantime, the Lead Crystal battery can be discharged regularly to mere 5-7% of its capacity, and even completely several times, won’t kill it and it will still keep 95% of its capacity to 2800 discharge cycles. In addition, if not overly discharged any more, it comes back to its full capacity after several normal work cycles.

Slight disadvantage is its weight. AGM weights about 28 kg at 100amh, while at that same amperage Lead Crystal shall weigh 31-32kg. But in the case of such huge capacity for usable power, it is of no consequence – especially at the stationary battery bank installations. Comparison is such: Best AGM battery 105 amph shall give you about 50% capacity useful power = 50 amph. Average Led Crystal 105 amph will give you almost 100% usable capacity = 100amh. Average Lithium Iron 100 amph will give you 95% useful capacity = 95amh Both, the Lead Crystal and the Lithium Iron batteries recharge equally fast, but there are serious practical differences. Mainly they are, their weight, and more complicated charging system in the case of Lithium Iron. Lithium Iron requires special chargers, limits the number of battery units in the battery banks, etc.