The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Preppers LIVE: The True Power of a Prepper w/ Rick Austin

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

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Uh-oh. You're listening to P.B.N. Your path back to stability. Good evening, PBN family. This is Rick Austin, also known as the survivalist gardener, Prepper Camp founder and Prepper Camp senior camp counselor, and also, according to the folks at PBN, the godfather of prepping. I retired from podcasting myself a few years back because I didn't have a lot of time with my farm, my YouTube channel, our publishing and book writing business, and our Prepper Camp annual event.

In fact, I actually knew PBN for a long time and I knew the previous owners before James. As many listeners know, James Walton has been running PBN for years and I was actually one of James' first interviews when he was starting out in podcasting. Over the last couple of months, James has made the decision to pursue his publishing venture, The World of Ready, full-time. So I know this comes as a shock to many of you, but he is stepping away from the Prepper Broadcasting Network. As a serial entrepreneur, I could not let this valuable service go to waste, so I agreed to purchase PBN from James over the last couple of months. I know this may come as a shock to most of you, but I promise you that I will continue to create the best programming in the preparedness homesteading space out there.

James has carried the ball for a long time now. It's time for him to hand it off to somebody else and let them carry it forward. I've asked James to join us this evening to talk about his future plans and how they fit in with prepping for the future for all of us. So hang on. We'll be right back after this short commercial break with James Welton, the Intrepid Commander and former owner of PBN. Quick question. When's the last time you practiced with your firearm? My last trip to the local gun range cost me over $200. It's time to add the iTarget Pro to your firearms training routine.

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in texas new mexico colorado oklahoma arizona utah go to yourcheapland.com check out the properties use the promo code pbn and get a hundred dollars off your purchase welcome back um we are have have with us right now James Walton, the Intrepid Commander and former owner of PBN. How are you doing, James? What would you like to say to your loyal PBN family audience this evening? I would like my loyal PBN audience to be 100% honest tomorrow and let me know how many of you fell for this April Fool's Day trick that Rick and I just played on you. That's what I would really like to hear from you guys about.

I don't know if any of you bought it. I think Rick sold it like a champ. I mean, sales, marketing or sales? What were you, Rick? You were marketing, right? Yeah. Well, there you go. There you go. So we, yeah.

Ha ha. I hope you guys enjoyed it. We have a super surreal and serious show tonight. And Rick came to me with a list of awesome topics to talk about which i we were talking about the juxtaposition between that and our first interview that and at this stage in my podcasting career i get pretty excited about a list of things to talk about maybe that's a good thing maybe the nihilistic, self-serving James Walton has finally got his fill of hearing himself talk. We could be headed in a good direction with that, so that's a good thing.

Thanks for doing that, Rick. I appreciate it, man. I hope we got somebody. I hope somebody took the bait. With all that happened with Iran and stuff today, maybe they were too off-kilter to think about it. The old April Fools. I didn't get fooled. Did Jane fool you?

Jane had to hit you. No, we didn't do anything. No, we didn't do anything. Nope. Nope. This is the only April Fool thing that I was involved in today. I'm glad I could do it for you. I didn't do anything for anybody either.

Nothing in the family. Traditions die and go extinct. do anything for anybody either nothing family traditions dying like uh going extinct but well it's it's not like one of the greatest traditions i mean and we did have we did have easter yesterday so it's kind of burnout yeah at least it's not you know it's at least it's not lbgtq day can you imagine what on earth yeah i mean does it ever seem like it's just like they're doing this stuff on purpose now not on purpose like not not on purpose like an agenda but i mean on purpose this is this is this is throwing it in your face this is this is this is satan saying to christ um here i am come I like that. Watch me take your people away.

I definitely like that take. That's a good take. Yeah. Same thing at the border. Yep. I know that's one of the things you wanted to get into here is illegal aliens and Chinese men with bags. Chinese men with black bags and bolt cutters.

And what's the popular one now? Not train derailments. What are they doing now? Driving into bridges. Yeah, yeah. God almighty. Well, yeah, you know, and that is one of the things that I am, I see things happening. And I'm not sure everybody sees it, but everybody sees that things are kind of going to hell.

And not really sure what's what's what's really happening i think it's all connected i think it's all nefarious i think there's there is the you know world agenda to destroy the united states of america brought to you by barack hussein obama and friends and um you know we're we're in we're in the middle of it here and they are trying to do everything they possibly can as fast as they can before Trump can get back if they can even let him back. So, you know, we're seeing it happen. We're seeing this illegal alien invasion of, you know, more people since Biden has been in than is in many of the states in the United States. I mean, more of a larger population. So part of that, I think, is, you know, them being able to steal elections in the future and also to destroy the country as we know it. And my biggest concern is the 30,000 plus

Chinese military age males who have come across the border all carrying the same backpack, the same kit. They're not tired from the journey. It's like they just got off a plane in Mexico or something. You know, it was really easy. Nobody's breaking a sweat. And these guys are all carrying the same stuff in their bags. And people don't really think about it, but nobody, no one leaves the communist country of China without China's permission. So if we get 30,000 military age males out coming in this country, they're here for a reason. And I think we've all seen, you know, as you alluded to, a lot of sabotage going on, infrastructure sabotage, AT&T was hacked. They finally admitted today that 70-some-odd thousand users have been affected by that attack.

Their information was lost somehow. So it wasn't an update in the middle of the night? No, no. Didn't they try to say it was like a middle-of-the-night update or something? They did. They did. And they're putting together some package of software. And if you sign up for this protection thing, you'll be all set. And the fine print reads that you can't sue them if you sign up for it.

Beautiful. Yeah, they know what's going on. My biggest concern is always and has always been, you know, since the beginning of my my prepping journey, the number one most horrific thing that could happen would be somehow the electric grid going down. And, you know, we've talked in the past about EMPs and we've talked about solar flares and Carrington events and all of that could happen. But I think it's a lot easier for them to destroy our electric grid and, you know, sabotage that because that critical infrastructure is totally unprotected. And we have talked about doing it for years and they haven't done it. And now we're in a situation where, you know, it's I think if I was Chairman Xi from China and I wanted to get the resources of the United States and I wanted some territory to move into and I and I had the stated goal of being the number one superpower in the United States and I wanted some territory to move into. And I had the stated goal of being the number one superpower in the world and taking down the United States without firing a shot,

which they have in writing. I might think about taking down the electric grid and having some people installed in cells all over the country. I like the death by a thousand cuts operation they're working in our country right now. Right. Right. They are doing a pretty damn good job already. You know, railroad somehow just being destroyed, food processing plants being destroyed.

I don't know if that's the Chinese or if that's the globalists that are doing it because Bill Gates wants us all to eat bugs and it's fake meat. But I don't know. But it's all happening. It's definitely all happening. If you can control food, you can control people. Oh, it's definitely all happening. If you can control food, you can control people. The whole electric grid thing was something the population of the United States would be, we'd lose 80%. So we'd be down to 20% of our population in the first two months. And that's

because water wouldn't move, sewage wouldn't move, vehicles wouldn't move, there wouldn't be any food, people would be killing each other over resources. And what would be left would be the preparedness people that really prepared and are in an insulated position. And the really, really bad psychopaths who have no compunction about killing somebody for what they want. And they have a bunch of people that they're working with. about killing somebody for what they want. And they have a bunch of people that they're working with. So I think, you know, if I was Xi Jinping, I might think that I'll just let the United States kill itself and then we'll just walk in there with our army and mop up

and then we own everything. Oof. Man. So that's a wild one. Well, I don't think it's out of the question oh no no i don't mean that way yeah i mean wild it couldn't happen i mean wild like you know putting it in your head and shaking it around and going you know thinking it thinking all that through you know it's part of one one of those questions comes up you know the prepping world has these questions that will never be answered until they're answered

and then we won't like the answer that's one of them right well it'll be too late exactly but another question go ahead i did this i did this thing um you know i talked about this very subject with um james arthur and the technicolor podcast he's got a worldwide uh thing that he does on tnt radio and i talked to him about this radio yeah and he stopped me he said okay okay the interview's over he says i gotta go out and buy a gun is he in south africa no he's in arizona oh i do a show over there called germ warfare like once every few months with jeremy nell on tnt and he's in Arizona. I do a show over there called Germ Warfare, like once every few months with Jeremy Nell on TNT, and he's in South Africa. And that's becoming a whole different world, man. Yeah, the producer for this show is in Australia.

So, you know, he's in Arizona. I'm in the Appalachian Mountains, and the producer during the show was in Australia. So it's a pretty neat setup. But anyway, I digress. Everybody on the same page. All over the world, that's the weird part. But the question I have is, in a grid down, how many of those 80% are suicide? I don't know.

I know. I don't know. That's one of those questions we'll never know until we know. But I have to imagine it's going to be a pretty shiny option for a lot of people, particularly those who are already on the edge, medicated, you know. You know, yeah. Well, those are going to be problem people for sure. And we don't, Those are going to be problem people for sure. And we don't, you know, nobody really understands how big it, how big that number of people is that are on, you know, psychotropic drugs.

That are on it because they're prescribed it, not because they're, you know, whacked out. But when those prescriptions run out, they are going to be whacked out. Oh, yeah. And we are going to have,acked out oh yeah and we are going to have you know walking dead out there i but i also think they're going to be people that we know that you know that are just regular people that are going to be like you know what uh i think i'll take suicide over no water no food cannism. You know what I mean? Like they'll start to calculate that up in their head, and I bet there'll be a lot of gunshots at night that are not people shooting at one another.

There could be, but I think we're going to lose a lot of people right away to dehydration. And that doesn't take long. Three days without water, you're dead. Then a bunch more from parasites in bad water, right? Well, yeah, parasites in bad water. Diarrhea is going to kill a lot of people. It sounds like a joke, but it's not. And then when you do have diarrhea, you become dehydrated even more, and so it's just a downward spiral. It's the number one killer of children in the world.

Really? Death by diarrhea. I didn't know that. Yeah. I've written it into at least five books over the years when we're doing water preparedness. Yeah, it kills more kids than bullets. That's a shitty way to go. Oh, it's terrible.

And a kid, you know? Can you imagine? Yeah. But there's just, you know, there's populations. That's a shitty way to go. Oh, it's terrible. And a kid, you know? Can you imagine? Yeah. But there's just, you know, there's a population. That was a joke. That was a joke. Oh, that went right over my head. I'm such an idiot.

That went right over my head. Oh, man. But yeah, honestly. Yeah, so, you know, I think there will be people that do the suicide thing, so, you know, I think there will be people that, that do the suicide thing, but, you know, they're, they're obviously going to have enough water to even think about that kind of stuff. Because I think if I remember right, it's, it's like for a day and a half of not, not having any water, you start to sort of lose it. Um, you know, things start to go in and out for you and two days you're really starting to lose it so i mean your your motor functions start to start to uh go to put go kaput so how

how often do you mingle with the 20 to 30 year olds and below um outside of prep or camp rick um not much just uh in passing in a store and um well we'll get into this a little bit later i think but uh you know i've been very involved in politics of late for a reason. And there's some young people there that really have their heads together. But for the most part, no. For the most part, no. I see some of the weakest minded and bodied people that I've ever seen in my whole life. Not all of them.

I mean, there's a lot. I mean, I go to the gym, so i see the strong guys too but like yeah the the will of the average american who's about 30 and below maybe even 35 and below like i don't even like i feel like they would quit 12 hours into not drinking water you know they probably would i mean it's it's a whole different kind of human being i mean it's it's got to be so far removed because i'm i'm a wimp compared to like growing up in the era previous do you know what i mean right yeah no war no none of that kind of experience or anything. No, like parents who beat me half to death growing up for everything I did wrong, you know.

But in this next generation is just like, whoa. Yeah. You know, it's so much time sitting and so much time doing nothing physical. Well, that's what you get for getting you know participation awards out yeah that's true and digitizing the uh and i'm guilty of it too but digitizing sort of the friend groups and all you know what also really did it rick and i didn't know it and i don't think anybody knew it or did it on purpose is moving away. Moving away from your parents, moving away from where you grew up, all that kind of stuff, it really punishes the children.

Because everybody moves away from everywhere because it's cool to move away. It's like, I'm doing better than Dad. I'm moving up. But then you realize nobody's got got there's no kids around because we live in bigger neighborhoods and i don't know it's all wacky there's no help because you're moved away from all your help dummy you know it's all it's a crazy thing you know people are moving away for jobs and then you're you've got the and and this was all planned out too the the the two um the two income family the destruction and breakdown of

of the family unit so a lot of that's happening and people and people don't don't I mean when I lived in Florida I had next door neighbors I didn't know who they were they didn't know who I was you know you just it wasn't until it wasn't until a hurricane and a crisis where the power is out that you actually talked to your neighbors because they'd say, well, is the power out for you too? And then you could actually have a conversation that you never had before until there was this crisis. Yeah. Because then you're all in it together. It's not like you're the enemy. I love that.

I love that. I mean, our neighborhood's really well-connected. People are friends. My street in particular, man, everybody knows everybody. And we talk regularly. But I do love the other, it was, I don't know, three weeks ago or something, a tree came down and blocked the road that we, the road we live on is a dead end to both ends.

And you've got to get up out of the neighborhood through another road, and that road was blocked off by a tree. And it wasn't a big deal. But at like 8 in the morning, the streets were just swarming with people. And it's a tiny little neighborhood. There's not a lot of people that live there. But, you know, it's just great. That sense of community is so great.

Yeah. That's killing people, you know. Yeah, yeah. Well, even, you know, so we would do that, you know. When there was hurricanes in Florida, you lose power for three days. And people would be out with their chainsaws or, you know, in Florida, their electric chainsaw. It didn't work. Oh, man.

But people would be out there trying to help each other and, you know, get rid of trees and that sort of stuff. And then the crisis would go away and everybody would be going back to not knowing their neighbors. Seal themselves back up in the house. Yep. Yeah, it's weird. It's weird how that happened because when I was growing up, which was the 90s, people came to your house. They would just come over. They would come over to the house.

They would come in. You would eat something or drink beers. If it was a man, the dad would drink beers with him and talk. They'd bring kids, and the kids would all play in the back. Now it's like an alarm goes off if people come to your house nowadays. Yeah. Well, I grew up in the 60s in the days of Leave it to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet. So it's a totally different world from back then, totally different.

It's weird. We were supposed to be the most inclusive ever, but we don't even want people over. No, we don't. That's funny. We don't. Especially our relatives. Yeah, exactly. Anything but that. Yeah. Well, you're doing a little bit on the side of community to some degree.

Yeah. Yeah, you and me. Well, you know. Just so you know, we had, oh, you heard the Chin podcast. You know the deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You and well, you know, we had just so you know, we oh, you heard the chin podcast. You know the deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that kind of goes along with it. You know, you and I talked a little bit about about that afterwards, too.

And I just said, well, you know, there's a lot more to fill in on that sort of stuff. So, yeah. And that's one of the things I wanted to do tonight. You know what? So the question comes, what happens if, what happens if all this stuff happens? What happens if, if, you know, we have this kind of thing? What if we have a mass, mass casualty event in your community? Um, so knowing what I know, and, you know, having a, a sheriff in my County, who is the main the main, who is the number one officer of the law when it comes to the Constitution, that's a guy that's going to be in charge.

So, you know, we have gone to visit our sheriff and talk about, hey, what if this happens? You know, here's what's happening with the Chinese coming into the country. What happens if our grid goes down in our county? What are we going to do? Because you don't have enough people to cover the territory you have now, never mind a mob of people, or even if something goes down in a big city that is a ways away from us everybody's gonna quote unquote move to the hills you know go to the hills for safety sure well what do we do how do we stop

this you know this locust um you know coming coming to us you know what do we doing to protect our citizens? And so we're working on a kind of civil defense force with my sheriff and he is all for it because he's a good guy and he listens to a lot of prepper stuff. So it kind of, kind of felt him out on that. So he's, he's definitely in, you know, he's definitely in and he's, he's an America first guy and a Trump guy. So, you know, he's, he's on, on our side when it comes to that. Um, in fact, uh, I went to a, um, I went to a GOP county meeting and he was there and he was talking to the group, just talking about what was going on in the county and that sort of stuff. And somebody asked him a question

because we're pretty rural here. What happens if somebody tried to you know coming on my property and doing this and uh you know can i shoot him and he said with a smirk on his face he said well did you fear for your life and the da the district attorney who's sitting behind me says the answer is yes. Wow. I said, damn, you know what? I moved to the right place. I'll tell you what. Wow.

So that's – Surprising. It's – that's really important that you're in the right place. But that's why I kind of picked where we are. It's the kind of people that are here. But – I hear the word DA anymore. That was just reinforcement.

Get your shutter. Like a chill goes up my spine when I hear the word DA anymore and get your shudder. Like a chill goes up my spine when I hear the word DA. That's what you get when you live in a podunk county in the Appalachian Mountains. But that's good. That's good. So we're working on that and the bigger picture for the county. But we've also kind of pushed down to the lower level, you know. So now we're doing a neighborhood watch thing, and we're kind of doing it selfishly for our

own protection, but we're reaching out to people around us to create this neighborhood watch. And even though we're in a rural area and we're kind of spread out, you know, people, And even though we're in a rural area and we're kind of spread out, you know, people, there's a lot of home invasions going on now because there's, that's a much easier target than the typical convenience store, which has cameras and, you know, people have guns behind the counter and that sort of stuff. So breaking into somebody's home in a rural area, the response time for the sheriff's department is, can be 20 minutes. So you've got to be your own first responder. And so we're, we're working on neighborhood watch and literally from the mountain I'm on, I'm kind of spreading out, uh, north, south, east, and west and finding like-minded people who, you know, want to get together for our mutual defense and mutual protection, whether that's just, you know, somebody cuts themselves and the ambulance takes 20 minutes to get here too and we've got a medic in our team. So, you know, we can take care of stuff like that or there's a home invasion going on or, you know, we – the worst case scenario, the Chinese are coming.

Yeah, I find the best thing is when building out the neighborhood watch is having people that you can call directly in the middle of the night when things are off. You know what I mean? the night when things are off you know what i mean like knowing obviously it gets way bigger than that and can get way more tactical that and way more responsee right security driven but in all my years here where i live some things have gone down from time to time and what was most nothing violent or nothing bad but what was most what what made things better immediately was being able to say all right let me call so and so because he's up here he's gonna know what's going on up there is this something we need to worry about let me call this other person who's over on this street because they're by what's going on. And just that is way better than waking up in the middle of the night

and going, what's going on? Yeah, exactly. You know what I mean? And I'm on my own. So I love that. For us, it could be some woman who's living by herself whose dog is getting attacked by a bear. Sure, yeah.

That happens here. You guys got all kinds of problems. Yeah. attacked by a bear sure yeah that happens here all kinds of problems yeah so we you know we've got a team of people that we can all roll and get there quickly and do something about it whether that's a home invader or you know it's it's uh a bear attacking some dog at night so i mean so so that's that's um that's one of the things we're doing. And in doing that, we've had to grapple with communications. Um, you know, we're using, uh, GMRS radios and of course we got the hams and the, you know, the other, the other radios

are out there, but the GMRS ones are are ones that we're pushing on everybody in this community watch and we're also pushing the signal app out there because it's end-to-end encryption um the other one from australia i can't remember the name of that one but unfortunately australia has a new law in the books that you can't have encryption so i'm not really interested in in the in the five eyes seeing everything that i'm doing or talking about so you know we're getting all these people on signal that's pretty easy because it's a messaging app and you can send pictures and you can send video if you want to do on it um but we're also getting everybody hooked up on mesh tastic and um that is that's kind of like the last resort. It's a mesh network. So even if the cell towers go down, so if we lose electric grid, the cell towers are going to go down

after their generators run out of fuel. That's it. There's no other way. And not everybody's a ham radio operator, and that only works in certain ways. And if we're concerned about really a foreign force coming in here to mop up, then we don't want to have communications that aren't also encrypted and impossible for somebody to see. The beauty of Meshtastic, the app itself, is you can see it's like the USGS map and the terrain, and you can see the neighbors' houses, and you can also see little dots for you and your group. So you can see where everybody is, you can respond, you can see as they move, and it's a great way to be able to do some sort of defensive strategy when you've got somebody who says hey this is what's going on over here and if one of the nodes gets taken out for whatever reason whether it's as simple as the the battery not

being charged or somebody being taken out you still don't lose that communication so and you can charge these things with cheap solar panels. So you can just get something from Harbor Freight, and they can always be charged even when there's a total grid-down situation for a long term. There's a build online. I'll have to send you the video. I sent Chin the video because he got me on Meshtastic. Oh, good. You may know him. You may not know him. And it's... Oh, good. You may know them.

You may not know them. You've probably seen something like them. I actually have one back by my chicken coop. These solar floodlights that stake into the ground at Home Depot and Lowe's. They're $20 or something like that. This guy took the light out, up because they're waterproof obviously hooked up not the not the t echo itself but the board i don't know exactly which board yeah they yeah for the for the the guys that like playing around with that kind of electronic stuff you know it's

great for them but most people that's that's just not going to work. They've got to have an already enclosed in-the-box thing that works and just plugs in and Bluetooth to their phone and they're happy. Well, he took that board and put it in there to be powered by the solar panel and to use it as a repeater. And I thought that was a great idea. I was like, man, that's really cool. And just so the PBN family understands, I know I've talked about these already. I haven't gone in detail and showed them even to the members.

But the way this system works between my wife and I's phone, I'll just use that because it's easy. The Meshtastic, the T-Echo Meshtastic, I don't know, transceiver, receiver, whatever it is. I'm not good with radio communication. It's just a radio. It's a radio. That radio talks to the phone. No, I'm sorry.

It's Bluetooth. Yeah, the phone talks to the radio through an app that you can put on your phone. Anybody can put the Meshtastic app on their phone. Yeah. So the phone talks to the radio, then the radio talks to whoever else has a radio, and then that radio talks to their phone. And none of it requires Wi-Fi, none of it requires cell data. Now, there are serious space limitations, distance limitations, rather, and serious

limitations with things in the way, just like any radio. But, you know, the beauty is the beauty is every everybody's radio is also, you know, a node Um, and I can't reach you if, um, if, if Sarah was somewhere between us, for example, it would bounce, that message would bounce off of Sarah's radio and to your radio without Sarah ever knowing that that message went through if it wasn't meant for her. So it's a great way to have those kind of encrypted communications one-on-one or by group if you want to. Yeah, it's cool tech, man. It's really, yeah.

And it's basically military tech that's been commercialized. It's big in Europe. The Europeans, Germans use it. Like the young Germans use it to communicate so i don't know that's kind of cool and i wouldn't have imagined that yeah well you know the city of austin is highly connected and it's it's all due to one guy who had some money and you know that's about a libtard of places you can get and they're all doing it for you know for natural disaster sort of stuff so you know the more of those the more of those mess test antennas you can get out there, the more of those little devices you can get out there, the better off we're all going to be because then everybody can kind of talk to everybody.

And that's one of the things that I talked to the sheriff's department about. I said, well, what happens if we know the grid go down and then the cell towers go down because these guys are all using their phones sure um and he said you know and they've got radios and so i should we showed him this the the mesh tastic thing and how it all worked and he said i said well that's cool so the radio is a little i don't know it's less than four inches right the little go yeah and two and a half so yeah it's tiny so so i you know i took it out of my pocket and showed it to him and he says wow that's cool he said how much are they and i said 65 bucks he said 65 bucks he said a radio for one

of my officers is 2 000 2 000 yeah he said wow this this is great yeah so you can and you and you can put those things up on towers with a solar panel so now you've got you know broadcasting everywhere and and ways that you can reach lots of people so that was one of the things we're pushing too is for more people to be hooked up on meshhtastic for this civil defense thing countywide. And he's thinking now the sheriff is thinking, oh, yeah, well, we can do that for all of our emergency management stuff. So not just the sheriff, but the, you know, the EMTs, the hospital, the the fire departments. The hospital, the fire departments, and so that – this little idea is spreading throughout the community, which even if nothing happens, even if the Chinese don't come, even if there's no down electric grid, it's a great way for people to be communicating who may not have been communicating before. Yeah. That's government services or that's just neighbors.

We're selling it. Um, easy. Like, uh, friends and coworkers and, uh, yeah,

that's pretty much it. Family, friends, family, and coworkers bringing it, bringing it to their attention because before long, if you've got a close enough friend group or a large enough friend group or coworkers you get along with and family in your area, that mesh sets up quick. You know what I mean? You'll have a lot of people with nodes.

that you're like, oh, I can't get to her or I can't get to him because there's too much space between, that starts to fill out with more and more nodes and then you can do some really cool stuff with no grid. As long as you can charge your phone and keep the nodes charged. So that's probably the other conversation you want to have with people who are neophytes. Yeah, and you can do that with solar panels now, small solar panels. And that's cheap stuff you could buy at Harbor Freight if you want to.

So that's easy. That's easy. As long as you've got some sun. It's a good one, man. I mean, to be honest with you, the Meshtastic thing, I don't want to kill the whole show on it, but I do want to pat it on the back. on the back um it's by far the most effective for some kind of a long-term solution that i've worked with and i've played with ham radio i've played with grms gmrs radio i've heard tons of people tell me that you can talk to people across the nation on ham radio i don't even know where to begin still to make that happen right but. But the technology and the idea behind the technology is easy to understand.

You know what I mean? I think that's the best part about it. It's like the more nodes, the further you can talk, and that's it. There's no license. There's no figuring out frequencies. Well, there is a frequency part in the setup, but the setup's easy. So, yeah, I'm glad you brought that up that's a cool thing and they're just one more little thing too they're very hard to triangulate so if someone's trying to

find you it's difficult to do because they're all in the same frequency of every smart device that's in your home or everybody else's home so they're kind of hard to figure out where anything is because if they're looking for something they they're seeing somebody's smart TV, somebody's smart refrigerator, somebody's smart whatever. Yeah, I like them. I like them. I'd highly recommend checking them out. Once I get around to it for the members, I'll show you guys it works how i send a text to the box the box gets the text goes to the wife's box and goes to her phone you know and and whoever else is out

there on the network of nodes yeah yeah but cool man yeah i like your short and uh sweet next topic better get prepared yeah yeah better get prepared man so yeah given all of this stuff if you're not nervous now if you're not going out and buying a gun like the guy from arizona was right you need to be um how are they still this is getting serious huh how are they still pushing gun control rick i can't wrap my head around this. Because the Nazis determined the first, well, the first thing they did is the, the communists and the Nazis.

First thing they did is take away guns. So you can't defend yourself. That's, you know, it's amazing to me, these suicidal people. Yep. That's why Australians had,

had worse lockdowns than we did. Oh yeah. You know, good luck fighting that. Yep. Exactly. It is amazing. But I do see prepping in places I've never seen it before.

In fact, I saw a Four Patriots survival food commercial on TV a few nights ago. My wife was watching TV up in bed. I was like, is that Four Patriots? Oh, my God. It's definitely changing. Yeah, there's a lot more people aware of – and they're selling the natural disaster and that sort of stuff. But you look at Bannon's War Room, that podcast. It's all their advertisers prepared in this, guys, now.

I mean all their sponsors prepared, all of them, from the phones, the satellite phones to selling gold to, you know, the the all the all the prepper foods and that sort of stuff. So it's a beautiful thing, man. It is a beautiful thing to me. Yeah. You and I were you and I were nuts 17 years ago, right? Oh, my God. Yeah. But now it's it's become a realization, at least to me. And I know to you for a long time that like this is the path even even when the world is not on fire this is the path you know what i mean like this is just the way that humans are supposed to go there's no the other way it doesn't make any sense like the i want everything delivered to to me and fed to me

and then i want to be read a bedtime story and fall asleep. Exactly. It's no kind of life. That's why people are on medicines for everything. Yeah, right. Yeah, so speaking of prepared, we got Prepper Camp coming up September 27th, 28th and 29th and

it's going to be bigger than ever. Who would have thunk our 11th year? We've got a lot of new classes, and there's a lot of classes. I mean, aside from the regular prepper-type ones, homesteading ones from making cheese to freeze-drying and basic stuff that you would want to know, canning and that kind of stuff. We're also doing a lot more technology-oriented classes and how to protect yourself and also kind of what to think about and what to do to protect yourself and your family should things really go bad. So we've got a martial law class we're doing this year.

We've got prepping for an EMP. We've got old tools that you could use every day. We've got night vision and thermal class. We've got an urban break contact class. Oh, that's a big one. I just get somebody to teach guerrilla warfare who teaches that to people in different countries all over the world. Wow. You know, preparing for a civil war. So firearms for women, situational awareness. So there's a bunch of stuff. And did i mention we got a guy teaching about ghost phones and ghost computers too yeah they know he's been on pb yeah yeah we have the mark 37 guys on

yeah yep so they're great they're great this is the super bowl for us like the listeners it's this prepper camp is the super bowl it's like can i get there this year if i can't get there this year i'm getting there next year you know what i mean it is the yeah it is the thing because everybody talks about every host talks about it here and said well most of the hosts are teaching every year there so that's i mean it's it's the best man you've done something amazing and i haven't been around the block as much as I probably should. And this is probably also your fault because Prepper Camp is so damn good. But I haven't visited a lot of these other shows.

I know Tim Cook does a lot of them. Yeah. But I've interviewed people who do different shows and stuff like that, and they tell me sort of the layout and how they're all set up and everything. do different shows and stuff like that. And they tell me sort of the layout and how they're all set up and everything. But I haven't yet defined anything that holds a candle to what, what goes down at Prepper Camp and not just classes and not just people and not just, you know, but the vibe of Prepper Camp is totally unique, man.

It's totally unique. Well, for me as a lifetime marketing guy, it wasn't, it wasn't as important to be the biggest even though we are as it was to be the best. And quality was key. And it's key in everything that we do. It's about having a good experience for the people who come to Prepper Camp, whether that's the attendees or the vendors or the speakers. Everybody needs to enjoy the thing because everybody that comes there from the speaking standpoint, they're experts in their field. And they come from as far away as Washington State and Florida and New York and Maine to teach. And they do it for free.

They're coming on their own time. So these guys are just – are totally invested in Prepper Camp and totally believe in what we're trying to do. So that's one of the great things about it too, which is something I never expected to happen. But it's it's taken on a life of its own and it's it's um i just kind of sit back in amazement and and go wow we did this and then i know what you and then i'm reminded no we we didn't do this god did this well yeah definitely but you know what what you guys do that most other people wouldn't do? You allow other people to hold the baby and to swaddle the baby.

You allow people to come in to Prepper Camp, and if they have a good idea, you say, well, go ahead. What comes to mind is the guy with the trumpet last year. Yeah. That was powerful, man. like what comes to mind is the guy with the uh trumpet last year yeah you know like that was that was powerful man like the tinfoil hat contest right you didn't that year you weren't like you know what i really need a prepper camp it's a bunch of idiots making hats out of tinfoil we were like can we do it you know and you could have just as easily been like man i got so much shit going on james just relax Do it on your own time.

But you allow people to come in and do those things, and that adds these layers to the whole event that just wouldn't exist otherwise. And then the event just becomes this thing. It just keeps growing. But yeah, the guy with the trumpet for the... I can't listen to the National Anthem anymore without crying. And that was just crazy to me. That thing was like, wow.

Yeah, well, that was just, I mean, the guy, you know, the story is that he just came up to me. No, he didn't come up to me. He sent me an email earlier in the year and just said, you know, I used to be in the Army and I played, um, you know, for the, um, national, uh, the Arlington national cemetery. And, um, you know, I, I, I just feel called to, you know, play in the morning, maybe, you know, taps at night and revelry in the morning or, you know, the national anthem or whatever, whatever it was. And so we just kind of talked about it and talked about the logistics of it and let's just do it before classes start like at 9 o'clock in the morning, like five minutes to nine.

And so we talked about it. He stood up really at the highest point in prepper camp and right in front of the flag. And what was amazing to me is that people were talking, they're all in class, ready to have the class start, they're all talking about this and that, and all excited about the day, and as soon as he started playing, everyone stopped.

And from where my perspective was, you could see the entire prepper camp from one end to the other. I mean, acres and acres and acres of people and vendors and classes. And everyone stopped and everyone turned toward the flag and everyone put their hand on their heart. It was that was amazing. And we did it all three days. And Saturday night, we recognized him. And the guy was literally in tears.

He never expected to get, you know, a standing ovation. But it's, you know, he brought something special, you know, something special that made it special. And he's not going to get away with not doing it every year now. I'm telling you. That's what my experience with Prepper Camp has been, man. Every year there's these little things that, whether or not they're part of what you've added or what people I go to visit every year have added,

and it just, you know. Well, it's become a thing. Dave Jones the other day, this is what Prepper Camp is in our group. I don't know if you know it, Rick, but it becomes this thing where it's like, if I have to kill a man, I will make it to Prepper. Like, that was Dave Jones, the NBC guy, the other day. He was like, because he missed last year, he's like, I don't care what happens, man.

I'm going this year. I'm not missing. It becomes this thing where it's like, you know, the biggest event of the year, basically, for a reason, you know? Yeah, yeah. And we never thought it would do that. It just didn't, you know, it took on a life of its own, and it's not me. It's just kind of God being there.

You can feel the presence. You can feel it. it's just kind of God being there. You can feel the presence. You can feel it. Oh, that 10 on Saturday nights, that's as spiritual a thing as I've ever been a part of. You bring Brad in, too, from Five Times August.

Yeah, and he's coming back again this year. It's as much a church as anything. Yeah, he's coming. Oh, you know, I'm sitting because I introduced Brad. So Five Times August, this guy who now has been all over the world, literally playing for all of these events. And, you know, he's the only political protest singer we have of our time. And he's amazing. And he was there, you know, the year before and he was there last year. and he was there the year before and he was there last year and last year I'm sitting in the tent just kind of waiting to get back up on stage

to introduce the next person and Brad's playing and I see people all singing along to all of his songs. I'm looking at Sarah and her husband and her kids and they all know all the words yep so that was pretty amazing moving chairs oh we also had that i don't know how much you liked it but we had that wonderful balloon fight before that to get it all kicked off that got a little out of hand especially when i got an old lady out front who's just about running into the speakers and the tv i'm going shit no no no this has got i was waiting for you to pull a bb gun out and start taking them out mid-flight yeah well it wouldn't

be a bb gun but yeah yeah man it's. Prepper camp is magic. I tell people, like people who don't know me super well, I'll be like, yeah, I go to prepper camp every year, man. And I always think they think it's like magic camp, you know. Until you go, you just won't know, so you might as well go. Yeah, yeah yeah for sure so in your free time you've decided to uh you've decided to dive into politics as crazy enough as that is but in a in a smart and measured way maybe fill us in on that i'm gonna go fill my coffee cup up real quick it'll be two seconds

if you want to let everybody know what's what. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Well, you know, the old saying is if you don't do politics, it will do you. And I think we've been watching it do us for a while. So I've I wanted to get into politics a lot sooner. But back in the Obama days, Jane was like, no, you're not going to get involved. And we don't need, We don't need them showing up at the doorstep and end up going into some Gestapo-like camp and FEMA camp, Camp Obama. So we just – she was like adamant that I don't – that I just keep my mouth shut and just do what we do and that sort of stuff. But now I'm convinced that this is the last possible conceivable way that we can get our country back. If we don't do it in this election, we will lose this country and the communists win and then it's going to be blood. It's going to be their blood, our blood, both, whatever. That's what it's going to take to get the country back at that point. So I'm doing stop laying, sitting around talking about it, screaming at the TV, screaming at Biden. There's something you can do where you

are right now. And as they say, all politics is local. So, um, you know, instead of getting into a civil war, maybe we can fix this thing right now. Um, there's this thing called a precinct strategy. I don't know if you've heard of it before. You can go to precinctstrategy.com, but basically it's a way for us to change the nation starting with the local level. And just to explain what precinct strategy is or what a precinct is, it's basically where you go to vote. The precinct is where you go to. So it's kind of like the smallest unit, the smallest group, and there's a precinct committee. So that is kind of based on where you vote and where you vote. Like in my county, things are really spread out. So there's like 17 different precincts. So there's 17 different precinct committees. In the past, what's happened is that not lots of people participate.

And right now, maybe 50 percent of the precinct committee seats are filled. So you go in there, you go in there and, you know, a quarter of the so half of them are empty. So half of them are empty. A quarter of them are filled by ne outnumber the old school Republicans, the rhinos that are there. And now we can start controlling what happens. So the precincts make up the county GOP. So now you're taking over the county and changing the direction of the county. The counties control the congressional districts. So there's different congressional districts. So you're kind of moving up in space.

And so now we're controlling the congressional districts. And then eventually we're controlling the state party. And the state parties control the RNC, so the Republican National Committee. So this is a way that we can take things back. And in fact, in our local area, we've changed our sheriff, our county commissioners and school boards so that we've got people who are fiscally responsible and anti-woke. And all of that means there's less taxes for the taxpayers. So just that alone is worth doing. We're fixing the stuff. Instead of just sitting back and not bothering and not being involved and then complaining about stuff that happens, you have a chance to make a difference.

And it doesn't really take much to be involved. It's crazy. It's crazy. my city or out of my, you know, that you can personally have an effect. Because, I mean, it's such a great strategy because so many people are like, I don't have time to run for this or run for that or, you know what I mean? Exactly. And it gives everybody the ability to, I don't know what the time commitment is on something like that. It's not. It's really not much.

I mean, you go to one county meeting a month, you know, and it's usually something with food and you're meeting people and you're talking to people and you're talking to people you didn't necessarily know before. And suddenly you're doing stuff and, you know, you're helping each other out. But it's it's just kind of getting the numbers there so that you can change the way things are done, the way things should be done so that we can have an America first agenda, not just in your precinct, but also in your county, also in your congressional district and in your state. And North Carolina did North Carolina did such a good job of this that the chairman of the North Carolina GOP is now the RNC chair. I mean, Trump saw what he did and how he turned things around and how he got Supreme Court judges for the state

involved so that their stuff wasn't being overturned by the Democrats all the time. And North Carolina now has a supermajority in their legislature, in their house, equivalent to a house, and in their Senate. So even though we have a demon rat governor in North Carolina, we've been able to override his vetoes and get all kinds of stuff passed that are conservative. So hopefully he can do some things to change what's going on nationwide with the experience he has and kind of the insight he has on how to get that stuff done. Because, again, we've got to fix things. This is going to be the last election if we don't get the right people in. Yeah, that's a fundamental question to ask of all the things we do as preppers and patriots the the real question to ask yourself is is one meeting a month too much for for the greatest nation on the planet to continue existing that's really what it comes

down to right i mean i'm saying that to myself because I'm not in it. I got to get in. I remember you putting the slide up at Prepper Camp, which was almost, what, a year ago, six months ago, whatever. Right. And life has its way with you, but that's not an excuse. You got to come down on me in September if I'm not part of that precinct strategy. Well, I mean, I just look at it as this is our alternative to civil war because that's the result if we lose. That's going to be the result. There's going to be bloodshed.

There's going to have to be. And I'd like to avoid that. I'd like to avoid it. I'm sure most Americans would like to avoid it. Well, when 67% of the population in the United States think that Joe Biden is an illegitimate president, that's a pretty big number of people who are and they're not happy with what's going on. They steal this election this time. There's going to be some there's going to be a real insurrection or maybe the real insurrection is in Washington, D.C.

But, you know know that's that's the truth when it comes to the constitution but there's going to be there's going to be some bad stuff no it's going to be it's going to be bad i really feel for the uh maybe i shouldn't but i do feel for the people who are crossing that border expecting some checks and some hotel stays because if things go bad in the fall here in america the the attitude and i think it's going to be the attitude from all parties towards those people is going to be brutal yeah could be that's i mean scapegoats scapegoats are a thing you know what i mean somebody's going to be a scapegoat. And if you have these people who are living in tents down the street from your house or in your kid's school or you're suffering and they're getting, you know, checks and money for groceries. Yes.

It's going to be ugly, man. It is going to be ugly. That is for sure. Yeah. But, yeah. So what about poll observers and election volunteers and all that business? If you're a part of the precinct strategy or part of the county GOP, Republican Party, you can ask to be a poll observer and they sort of control that. So the Democrats get a poll observer or a number of poll observers in each precinct. So each voting precinct as the as the elections going on. So the Democrats get one. The Republicans get one. And you kind of need to be there. You kind of need to see what's going on. to be there you kind of need to see what's going on um so we can stop the steal so you know there's there's stuff you can see and you can tell and you you get a little bit of training you know

basically one session where people tell you what to look out for what what you can and can't do so that's important um yeah you know maybe not so much in in my little county where everybody knows each other, but I see stuff that was going on election-wise in this last election that's like, you know, if somebody didn't really follow the rules and they did a little differently, this could turn out differently. I think it's important also for what I taught when we had Chin on talking about this concept. I told the PBN audience, I said, you know, it would be really nice to get a feel for what everyone saw across the nation. If we could get a lot of people to do it, because then even if by some steal or miracle Donald Trump doesn't win, it would be nice to have people around the country saying well i was at my polling place and things looked legit to me you know what i mean i mean i don't we can't be everywhere but i don't know no better to be than you not you know you can you can also be an election volunteer so you can be one of those people at the computer that's

checking somebody in and making sure that their id is what their id is and and that sort of stuff too and that's you know that's a good thing to volunteer for as well just just getting involved i mean again this will be our last election um if we don't do something so this is the one to do it for this is the one to save your country for you know this is this is the way you can be a patriot without having to shed blood because the next stop is that what it's going to be. If we don't win this one, then there's going to be blood. I guarantee it. It's a dark, dark path we may be on, but it is what it is. Rick, I think this is about the best podcast

we've ever done together my man really sure start off with a joke yeah sometimes that's the best way to begin it right yeah no you know what it know what it is rick that you brought to the table tonight that i always try to bring to the table but struggle to do is you explained as succinctly as possible what preppers are capable of you know what i mean from from affecting things first of all from having the vision like like preppers particularly preppers who are teaching and and doing those things at prepper camp or running businesses or whatever it is making content there's a prepper vision that other groups of people don't have right it's it's the connecting of dots thing it's a little bit of conspiracy thing it's a little bit

of foreshadowing thing um that's a prepper thing man and then you know showing people how to act on it you talked about the civil defense you talked about the neighborhood watch the emergency comms all these things all the way down to the political is i just think that preppers are going to be looked back upon as very important a very important group in american history you know i don't think they're going to be people who are on television you know what i think they're going to be people who were on television. You know what I mean? They're going to be like, these people morphed into this group who... Because I already think

we look that way if you look at COVID a certain way. If you look at what happened with people during COVID, they all turned to preppers. Didn't turn into preppers, but they all turned to preppers and said, what the hell's going on? You guys have been talking about pandemics and we made fun of you,

but what's actually happening and what should we do? And it's the same way now. Yeah, even now. Yeah, exactly. You did a great job at sort of, you know, showing people why it is that way, the wealth of information that is hiding in these crazy preppers but uh yes i think that's about it man got anything else the spirit of patriotism too

so yeah they you know and so for those of you that and i can't believe people don't and and don't believe that your vote doesn't count. You've got to get out there and vote. You've got to. You've got to. Don't just sit back and say, well, somebody else is doing it or my vote doesn't count anyway. Then you're just giving up. Then you're just giving up. Nothing's worse than running into the guy who pisses and moans about the country and then tells you his vote doesn't matter so he doesn't vote anyway.

I'd like to throttle you right now. You know what I mean? All right, folks. Rick Austin, always awesome, always a pleasure. It's onward and upward, PBN family, to the rest of the week. L. Douglas Hogan will be back.

Swenson will be back this week. He's got some interesting tales to tell. He's been off doing some things with police that I think you guys are going to be very interested in. So I think that's it, man. I appreciate you, Rick. No, thanks for having me. I appreciate being here. Wait, wait, wait.

Isn't there a—the Easter deal has passed, hasn't it? Oh, yes. I shared it. Yep. The price. Well, maybe real quick, it's probably worth mentioning. You buy your tickets earlier for Prepper Camp. The earlier, the better.

They will go up in price. You'll still get $35 off each ticket. So you buy them now. You'll get $35 off. I'll be there. And they do sell out. So, yep, exactly. All right, PBN family.

Go ahead. PrepperCamp.com. Oh, yeah, PrepperCamp.com. And you'll have a blast. All right, we'll talk to you soon, folks. Bye. Thank you for listening to the Prepper Broadcasting Network, where we promote self-reliance and independence.

Tune in tomorrow for another great show and visit us at prepperbroadcasting.com. you