If the rig is selected wisely, battery life is not really a problem anymore. I operated my handheld for weekends in contests with a single charge. A couple of AA Eneloops might give weeks of operation when you limit your on the air time (e. g. by scheduling contact times).
One thing that helps conserving batteries is a good antenna. It allows to cut down power on the transmission. I have a NR-770R on a Kenwood TH-F7E. That is a 3 feet antenna on a transmitter with the size of a pack of cigarettes.
For the purpose of the gun club CB might have been a better choice.

No. The club hasn't even established a frequency. We simply tested it at 467.5625 MHz.

Jeanette Isabelle

I recently picked up a Garmin Oregon 600 GPS. It's an older model missing some of the newer bells and whistles I didn't need, but it was on sale. I like that it is designed to use AA NiMH rechargeable batteries, I have lots of those and a way to charge them in the field. It also has a touch screen interface, has Garmin's high-sensitivity receiver and can receive signals from both the U.S. GPS and Russian GLONASS satellites (selectable as either GPS or GPS + GLONASS). It came with a preloaded worldwide basemap so good to go out of the box; Topo or maritime maps can be added.

Overall it's a little smaller than my GPSMAP 60CSx, but it has a slightly larger display. Even though it's the base model, it has a barometric altimeter and 3-axis electronic compass. If you choose, the display can turn off after a period of non-use to save on battery power. I have it set to time out at 1 minute, but may shorten that time after I get more familiar with the interface and the newness goes away. So far I like it.

No, I don't work for Garmin or a distributor.

My first Garmin GPS was a GPS V from many years ago. It had a waypoint averaging function that allowed it to take many satellite hits over a long period of time to get a more precise waypoint location. Both my GPSMAP 60CSx and the Oregon 600 also have this feature.

As I recall, the GPS V had a location accuracy field which you could see get smaller in size as the satellite hits were aggregated over time and the locational accuracy improved; the best I ever got was 12' and that took a long time. The Oregon 600 is similar in that it has a "confidence bar" that starts at O and fills with time to 100% at which time additional satellite hits will not improve the accuracy. The accuracy is shown in a separate field and in the case of my mailbox, the accuracy is 9'. The process of getting to that accuracy took about 2 minutes -- an improvement in both time and accuracy over the older GPS receiver.

The reason I bring that up is the Oregon 600 has a set of functions for GeoCaching, for which a more precise fix would be useful. It can also use something called a Chirp. Not really sure how useful that would be outside geocaching recreational games. But if you are into caching supplies, finding them later would be a good thing.

Chirp is only useful for geocaching.
As you mentioned geocaching: Geocaches may compromise your supply cache site. It might be a good idea to occassionally check if there are geocaches near your supply cache site. Sometimes the GPS reception is bad and some geocachers get carried away when they really want to find a cache. In Germany there has been a "wrecking ball of the month" award for some time because of that.

I went shopping to fill in what's missing from my preps. I bought undergarments, electric toothbrush heads, two cases of bottled water, I refilled my supply of nutritional supplements, two boxes of protein bars, a box of Alka-Seltzer and a TRI first aid kit.

Jeanette Isabelle

I've finally got around to ordering Silcock keys for our GHB's and BoB's.

I ordered a fire escape mask (same as the 1's that we already have in the house) for drill purposes. After the drill, I'm taking it to my local firehouse to let the firemen get a close look at it also.

I ordered 2 lock picking cards and an acrylic lock for training.

We'll have a camper bugout drill later this month for 3days/4 nights out to a distance of 150 miles.

Just out of curiosity, what type of lockpicking cards did you order?

Acrylic locks are not a really good choice if you want to learn lockpicking. Lockpicking is about feeling a lock´s reaction and manipulating accordingly. Acrylic locks have too major disadvantages. They allow you to see what you are doing and they react differently (acryl has different material properties and friction behaviour from metal). I tried my hands on lockpicking too. I´d give you the advice to use real metal cylinders. It takes longer to get your first lock open but after that you really aquired some skill.
If feasible it might also be a good idea to organize a group of interested people and exchange cylinders and ideas. There are some lockpicking clubs. Maybe there is a chapter in your area.

These are metal"cards" that are the size of a credit card. The tools are in the card and have to be broken out when needed.

I've started charging up the AA and AAA Eneloops along with the 12vdc storage battery and battery packs for the Ridgid drill/driver... looks like an interesting week or so in the Western Tropical Atlantic