Are we allowed to post on this yet? I'll be unable to post for several days, so I'll leave it to the moderator to delete if my post is inappropriate. Hope that's OK...............I've lived off the grid in a houseboat. What I found most helpful:1. Aladdin lanterns. Besides heat (lots of it) and practical light, the psychological help of having the equivelent of a 60 watt bulb was very important. Crack a windo (duh) but not much more. Kerosene, in sealed metal containers is said to have a shelf life of 20 yrs, if kept sealed. For no stink use ultra pure lamp oil; although the Aladdins burn their fuel so completely they don't stink much, with fresh kerosene. 2. We adored our Honda 1000 watt gas, incredibly quiet generator. Even old fuel started easily, though not recommended. 3. Store food you normally eat, so as not to interupt your digestion or morale. 4. Bees Wax candles are said not to give off the same toxic fumes as regular wax candles. 5. Never did figure out a good pre-filter for water for sediment. 6. A widemouth stainless steel thermos to cook in. Add boiling water to grain and wait maybe 24 hrs. Needs experiments for various grains. 6. I just bought a kelly kettle for heating the water. Haven't experimented yet. 7. I have used one of the large wind up radios which gets short wave, fm, am, and has an led light. The sound is good, but you can only wind it 1000 times for about 40 mins power. I've heard a portable wind up radio gets good reception, name something like Keta. Same brand given to Gulf war troops I hear.8. If you buy kerosene for the lantern, get a kerosene stove too. Not sure on brand. I used to use one of the old Swedish designs which required alchol preburn. 9. Goatskin gloves are not ruined by water. 10. I recently bought canned supplies from a survival food site. Mostly #10 cans of brown rice, but hot chocolate mix too. Morale is really important......A few weeks ago I started a thread about what I should pack to be a refuge for long term. That seems more applicable now....My best to all, Capt

I've never understood the attraction of wind-up radios for anyone with the slightest bit of preparedness inclination. Radios don't use much power. A typical handheld portable will run for 24+ hours nonstop on two AA cells, probably a lot longer at low volumes or with earphones. A GE Superradio will run for 460 hours on six D cells. If you've got all that kerosene and generator fuel, surely you can stash a few batteries, or recharge some nimh cells from the generator once in a while, or run the radio from 12 volt power available on the boat.

"Long term" gets interesting on a boat when you have to refuel or resupply. I wonder how many boats that have been out on the water for the past week will come in to find out about fuel shortages and big price jumps, if they haven't followed the news while offshore.

Alternatively, there are some nice solar power battery chargers out there.

I kind of like wind ups, but I wish there were smaller one's out there, like cigarette pack sized with FM/AM/Shortwave/Weather alerts. Most of the wind up radios out there are horribly bloated with lights and features until they're like suitcases......

Yep that would be nice. Let me know if you ever find one.

Well, the grundig I bought at Radio Shack is still going, and it is I believe a nice little compromise. It does have a built in light, which I've found useful. It also has a battery compartment that you can put AAs in that will run the thing for about a week or so provided you don't use the light that much. When the AAs give out, then you can start cranking on the rechargables if you need to, or put new AAs in it. It isn't the size of a cigarette pack, but it isn't briefcase sized either, about the size of a good harcover book maybe. I took it to elk camp and left it outside sitting on a stump during a blizzard. Temps fell well below freezing, and the thing was buried in snow then next morning. I dug it out, cranked it up, and it worked just fine. Still does. I don't know how you are gonna beat a deal like that. The only drawback is the shortwave is not very impressive unless you get in and attach a longwire to the antenna circuit. That seems to be a common problem with portable shortwave radios anyways, so I can live with it.

I don't see much room for improvement on the market for this radio. You might make it smaller, but that generator can't get much smaller physically. It'd be a challenge.

Ben, get the clip on long wire from CountyComm. It works really well. It just clips on the external antenna.