This guest post is by ZBM and entry in our non-fiction writing contest .
More than one survivalist has lectured me on the uselessness of electronic gadgets, when viewed in the light of a long-term grid-down event. I firmly disagree with this outlook where it concerns one such device: an Amazon Kindle (non-Fire).
Why? Simply, the ability to carry hundreds of books in a very lightweight package which takes up almost no room in my pack, while also benefitting from extraordinary battery life, is too good to pass up. From a tactical perspective, it’s nice to have a flashlight-readable screen which doesn’t emit any light to give away my location.
That said, I’m not denigrating physical books. My reference library at home is and always will be a “dead tree” collection. However, my BOB has one physical book (The SAS Survival Guide) and a Kindle 3G. I prefer the 3G for the modern convenience of wikipedia access and wireless download of purchased books, but any non-Fire Kindle or similar e-reader should work, as long as it offers the same remarkable battery life.
Considerations for including a Kindle in your bugout kit are:
How do I configure the Kindle?
The Kindle is remarkably user-friendly when it comes to adding books. Simply plug in the USB cable (it uses a “Micro B” USB connection; probably the same as your cell phone) to your computer. In most cases, your operating system will open a folder, allowing you to drag-and-drop files onto the device.
Find the folder named “documents” and copy files to your heart’s content. Later (but still non-Fire) Kindles will support a variety of formats; most popular are TXT, PDF, and MOBI. DOC files and other formats can be converted by sending them to a pre-determined Amazon email address, but charges may apply for this service.
Which books should I put on it?
I found that I had to prioritize my document choices; my preference for Kindle books is those that I might find useful in the event of a bugout or very short term emergency – military manuals, first aid guides, survival references, local and regional maps, and so on. 4GB of storage allows for hundreds of books, but it won’t hold everything. I found that long term knowledge (agriculture, animal raising, etc) was better stored in books in my BOL; the point of the BOB is to get me out of my house in an emergency. Why would I need to review hugelkultur if I’m on the run? On the other hand, having a book or two for pure entertainment is never a bad idea.
Where can I find books for the Kindle?
Anywhere you find PDFs of your favorite books; there are several websites dedicated to hosting such files. Perhaps the most popular right now is /// http://modernsurvivalonline.com/survival-database-downloads /// “Modern Survival Online”, which maintains a database of useful files. A quick Google search for “yourtopic PDF” ought to yield nice results.
How will I power the device?
Including the charging cable allows me to charge it anywhere I can find a powered USB port – a laptop, a wall charger, or other source. My favorite “other source” is a solar USB charger. This is a foldable, lightweight strip of small panels connected to an open USB port. Simply unroll the charger, set it out on a rock or table outside, and plug in the Kindle. 4 to 5 hours of charging should completely recharge the Kindle, allowing for several days’ reading. This is a win in my book.
So that’s it?
Yep. For around $160, I have a Kindle and charger that collectively weigh less than one pound, can provide up to 30 hours of reading per charge, can hold literally hundreds of reference books, and can be recharged in an afternoon by leaving it in the sun. That’s plenty of utility for me, and I hope, for those of you who might have been on the fence where the Kindle is concerned. One last note, regarding the battery: it will gradually lose charge if left alone for long enough. It’s probably best to recharge the Kindle whenever you have other BOB maintenance (food rotation, etc) scheduled.
This contest will end on August 7 2012 – prizes include:
First Place : 1 Year Subscription to AlertsUSA, 1 Radiation Safety Package consisting of the following; (1) NukAlert Radiation Monitor and Alarm (5) Radsticker Peel and Stick Dosimeters (1) Box Thyro Safe Potassium Iodide. All courtesy of AlertsUSA. A $150 gift certificate for Federal Ammo courtesy of LuckyGunner Ammo. And a British Berkefeld water fillter system courtesy of LPC Survival. A total prize value of over $700.
Second Place : A six pack Entrée Assortment courtesy of Augason Farms, a Nukalert courtesy of Shepherd Survival Supply and a WonderMill Grain Mill courtesy of Kitchen Kneads. A total prize value of over $550.
Third Place : A copy of each of my books “31 Days to Survival” and “Dirt Cheap Survival Retreat” courtesy of The Survivalist Blog dot Net and “Kelly McCann’s Inside the Crucible Set” courtesy of Paladin Press. A total prize value of over $200.
Contest ends on August 7 2012.
43 comments
Regarding DOC files, you can load them in OpenOffice and export them as PDFs. It will read a number of other files too, although you can’t import PDFs. The program is free to download from OpenOffice.org.
Great article. You can also charge the kindle while cooking with something like the BioLite CampStove:
http://biolitestove.com/campstove/camp-overview/features/
https://www.facebook.com/ArmedandInCharge
I trust everyone here will enjoy this page!
Gun Slinger,
Do we sometimes shoot together with the “Outlaws”?
Curley “Bull” Yonsen
ZBM, (Sorry if this appears more than once, I tried posting and it totally disappeared in the middle of a sentence) Thank you for this reminder, I must take the Kindle! My Kindle has MANY books (and games for entertainment), most of which have been down loaded free. Natalia has been posting books daily (preputilityvehicle.blogspot.ca) that are being offered free or at a greatly reduced price. We now have an incredible amount of information for little more than the investment of the time it takes to review and download—then to read and use, of course.
I use a tablet for most of my book storage. It’s a little heavier, but I have both and AC and DC charger for it, and it meets most of my travel computer needs.
I also got a Nook for both the DW and myself. It would cover more formats, had a user replaceable battery, and (at the time) was a little cheaper.
Great point – I have lots of PDFs saved to my smartphone and Vizio vTAB tablet – the key is to store the documents on the local storage, as connection to the web/cloud where most documents are stored may not be feasible in a crisis situation.
A good solar charger can go a long way, too. Goal0 – has a great lineup if someone needs a starting point. Just be sure it can charge the higher demand devices like tablets – some camping/portable chargers can only do smartphone/ipod-sized devices.
A friend of mine his wife has the bible on kindle. She uses that for church so that she can read cited scriptures. The advantage with the kindle is she can use larger type size without having to lug around a 20 lb bible that is 2×3 feet large. I kinda thought that it was weird at first until I noticed her type size. I did not know her eyes are that bad.
I too have a Nook and I appreciated the link and additional info!
calibre can convert most formats into ebook formats and it’s free. Not all pdf’s render well on the kindle, particularly multi-column pdf’s but a run through calibre’s conversion process can usually clean them up.
And there’s Mangle for converting comics and manga to kindle format. It’s great for making custom Kindle wallpapers also. How To Geek has an excellent article on jailbreaking your Kindle so you can change the wallpaper.
Flashlight to read by? Get a Kindle cover with a built in light. Yeah, it drains the battery faster but it beats holding a flashlight in one hand and the Kindle in the other. Also less light spill with the cover.
The Kindle’s a one trick pony but it does that one trick really well. Just don’t make it your only document storage option. Everything dies.
Good stuff, and something I’ve definitely considered. I have a Kindle 3G that is a perfect bug-out bag item, but I have yet to find a solar charger that works very well. If you don’t mind, could you post the brand or model of roll-out charger you’re using?
I like the concept. However I looked into the Kindle and found that like so many things today it is a platform to sell apps and software. I am hoping the manufacturer makes changes that cripple the Kindle. include a word processor, better access to and management of non-book files. In other words; a computer. But wait! I have a laptop that will essentially do everything the Kindle can do and so much more. The Kindle platform needs to grow up.
Country Girl, that’s why I’m peeved that the EEEnote got killed. Basically it was a B&W tablet, designed to last through a week’s worth of student note-taking. I would have liked an e-book reader with input. It might still be possible to get a hacked EEEnote from Taiwan.
The e-ink Kindle does one job very, very well. It isn’t the perfect device for every circumstance, but if you want a way to carry a hundred books in a few ounces and have a battery that’s going to last more than a day or two, it has few challengers.
Please note that I’m not writing about the Kindle Fire – the full-color, Android-powered tablet is an interesting device, but not the target of my essay at all. Its battery life is far too short for me to consider it for bugout purposes.
It would be easy to take my commen ts as criticism of your essay, that was not my intent. I think what I am hoping is that either the Kindle people put more utility into it or that competitors bring out a more useful platform. The battery life is what attracted me to it, possibly it’s best feature.
Out of ignorance, why specify a non-fire Kindle? I don’t own either, but am thinking about buying one.
While I don’t have a trade marked Kindle, I do have an E Book reader with enormous capabilities and it contains my entire resource library on it’s main memory. On the micro SD card (32 gb) I have an alternate copy of the reference library and this is where I include all of my other reading, listening, viewing literature. Battery life is shortened with videos and audio files from the read only book files and if you turn of the screen light feature for daylight viewing, it conserves battery life. While it is true that it is readily chargeable by solar, I have found that it takes about eight hours for a complete battery charge up no matter whether I am using USB from the computer, wall charger or solar. Given that is something I will have to live with, I would highly recommend purchasing a spare (Colorbooks are 50 bucks at Dollar General) and have all of the advance features of the Kindle or more costly type and will access anything except DRM protected material which can be cleaned with an appropriate computer program prior to loading. A spare contained inside the copper braid, leather covered sleeve which I use for my spare should render the device EMP protected and you will have a vast amount of material you can carry much easier than a hard copy library. Of particular use for people without experience is the videos you can download from youtube on subject matters and you can store an enormous number of them to assist you in your endeavors. I highly recommend acquiring a pair of them soonest and 32gb micro SD cards (if your machine supports this size or the size it will support) and load up your library of printed matter, video instruction and audio filels.
I have a question that I haven’t been able to answer. What will the fate of the Kindle or iPad, or other sold state devices, in the case of an EMP? Virtually all of my survival books are in electronic formats, and while I am slowly collecting paper versions, knowing my Kindle will be safe after an EMP will make lots of worry go away.
You know, I’m not really sure, since IANAEE (I Am Not An Electrical Engineer)… but what I can say is that most of the bad effects of EMP center on long lengths of wire which act as antennae for the power surge.
Smaller devices may not have enough metallic wire in them to generate significant voltage. I’d love the opinion of someone professionally trained in the field, however.
Amanda, one thing from my limited understanding of electronics in an EMP situation is as long as the device is off it should be good. I keep mine in a Mylar ziplock type bag and sits inside another heavy duty ziplock bag. A good portable solar charger will help keep its longevity.
Thanks for the info on solar charging the Kindle. Thought it would work but hadn’t tried it yet. I have a lot of information the the Kindle, but also have hard copies of books with lots of diagrams and instructions.
Goal0 Guide Adventure Kit works great for me – frankly, if you want to save a little money, getting a non-brand tablet may be fine to save money, but don’t skimp on the solar charger if it can charge a multitude of devices and has a track record of being rugged.
http://www.amazon.com/GoalZero-Guide-Plus-Adventure-Kit/dp/B008GYM19K/ref=pd_sim_sbs_sg_3
Charges devices (USB) and AA or AAA batteries – can tie it to your pack and charge while you hike, if you like. Even has a built-in LED flashlight – I give it 2 thumbs up.
If you turn off the wireless connectivity on the kindle, the battery will last for much longer than a few days – maybe a month or more of reading. I have the cheapest kindle (wifi only, no 3G), and even though I read it probably every day or every other day, I have yet to charge it since it’s initial charge when I bought it a month ago. I bought it for this purpose, as I already have a Kindle Fire (given to me as a gift).
That’s exactly what made me think that it would serve well in a BOB. That kind of battery life could support occasional reference for more than a month if you just checked a quick figure or image in a book before putting it away again.
A Kindle battery can be replaced very easily. Just watch any of the videos available on youtube.com. You can also google “kindle replacement battery” to find replacements. The only other major thing that can go wrong with your kindle is breaking the screen and that too can be replaced using the same process. You can get a daily email listing free kindle books from http://ereadernewstoday.com/ and signing up. You can also obtain a kindle reader for your pc or mac at kindle.com if you don’t own a kindle. I have over 1,000 kindle books and about 1/3 of them are for future reading… Well by the time I get through them my memory will have forgetten the others so I can reread them.
There are programs you can purchase that will convert kindle books to a standard PDF format for printing when needed. Just google that.
Regarding EMP and weather, you can get EMP-resistant mylar bags in a size that these devices, or tablets, netbooks, etc. can easily slip into – if you create a simple insulative pouch to keep the case from touching the inner surface of the bag, you should be fine in all but the most extreme circumstances.
http://techprotectbag.com/
http://www.disasterstuff.com/store/pc/EMP-Faraday-Bags-c128.htm
As I mentioned in an earlier posting, I have a copper braid bag I acquired a long time ago from Allied Electronics that has a leather inner liner to insulate the device from the braid and a leather outer cover to protect it. It is closed with a bronze sipper so the Faraday cage is complete. Should protect from any strength of EMP. While it is true that most of the silvered mylar bags will protect against static electricity, I would be loathe to completely trust them with my electronics in a strong (capable of disrupting the grid) EMP situation. A complete metal enclosure with the item insulated from touching the metal works just fine. No need to keep one grounded as long as they are discharged to ground before opening.
I can’t quite recall the details, but it seems like I had a readability issue last time I force-fed a PDF to a Kindle. I think that it had something to do with font size while maintaining pagination. I ended up just copy-pasting it into a text file.
Folks,
Didn’t know where to post this for all to see, but Humless is running a 50% off sale on their small Roadrunner solar “generator”. Reg. $499 now $249 with free shipping. Good deal! I got the info through their facebook page and they posted this link
http://store.foodforhealthinternational.com/Roadrunner/
I thought I would get a Kindle, but in checking them out in the store, I realized that the Nook with glowlight was a better fit. I can put in a micro SD card up to 32 gigs and it has a built in led illuminator. It has both a touch screen as well as page navigating buttons. I like the fact that I can have a pretty unlimited library, and have multiple cards to expand even further without having to have a pc available. There is one limitation I have found with some PDF files that are old books which are scanned, not produced in PDF. Those may not show up, or the image may be small and you can’t scale it up to make it more readable.
Two more benefits of the Nook over the Kindle:
1. Kindle stores excess books on the cloud. When the cloud goes down, so does your library. Nook has everything on SD cards you take with you.
2. Can be “rooted” to give you a full-fledged Android tablet, letting you install other apps, even a Kindle book reader. There simply is no eInk-based Android tablet on the market at that price. eInk sips battery versus other screen types, so it requires a much smaller solar charger, and must be charged less frequently.
True Kindle stores books on the could but that is a backup. I have every book purchased located on my hard drive also. I can move books between my hard drive and my kindle and back without ever using the “cloud” storage.
…Until you hit the 2GB limit. I have about 60GB worth of survival data (not even counting mp3s and movies) so the Nook is far superior for me.
60GB wow, I have about half that and that is more than enough. So I don’t know where you get the 2GB limit from? As far as the Nook being far superior that is your opinion. I’ve owned both and prefer the Kindle simply because of it’s 3G network capability and it’s battery life. That is all that is available in our neck of the woods. I have close to a thousand books on my computer and a hundred or so on the Kindle itself.
I don’t use my Kindle much for survival info. I prefer printing most of it out and have it in binders. Easier to share it with others.
I’m sorry, the limit is 3GB on the Kingle 3G black and white:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005890G8O/ref=famstripe_kt3g
Internal storage is 6GB on the color Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0051VVOB2/ref=famstripe_kf
Once you go over 3GB, the rest is stored on the cloud. It’s seamless so you won’t notice it — until the cloud goes down, or you lose connectivity. Caveat emptor.
I too was a Kindle lover until I discovered that Kindle is building a data base about me and know every book I buy and read — that is if I buy kindle copies. I do not trust any corporation with that kind of information. So for the time being I am back to reading “dead tree” books until another alternative is available. I only use my Kindle now to download free books on the Internet and there are many.
I used to be concerned about stuff like that, but I figure that in today’s society, there’s really no such thing as privacy anymore. For example, the government has access to all your information via social security, all your criminal information via your driver’s license and state databases, all your property purchases are a matter of public record, all your employment and income information can be obtained from the IRS, every bank account you use is trackable through the Financial Crimes and Enforcement Network, all your commercial firearms purchases are trackable through ATF forms, all your credit and debt information can be easily obtained from TransUnion, Experian and Equifax, your location and travel habits can be tracked through the footprint left by your cell phone, your purchase history can be obtained through bank and credit card records, your web browsing habits can be tracked through your internet service provider, and the list goes on. I figure that with that much of the deck stacked against me to begin with, the fact that Amazon might know how many zombie novels I read every month is relatively harmless. Sad but true.
It is extremely difficult to not leave a footprint in today’s society. Practically everything you access that is contained online is keeping records of you. My advice and practice is to go ahead and let them keep a database on me on the trivialities that I purchase and the really important things I don’t wish to reveal are pair for in cash at locations remote to where I dwell. I keep a list of what I need and when one of the truckers I am friends with (there are a lot of them out there who have the same feelings as we and a lot of them are real preppers also) is going to be in the area of something I want to obtain, I just slip them the money along with some cash for their problem and have them obtain what I want at a much distant location from where I am. Ammunition bought in a state that doesn’t require all of the information that some states do and transported to my state is one example. Fortunately for me my supplies are already assured, separated and cached discretely and most of the other items I still require are not restricted but nevertheless I do not want to appear on the radar as a terrorist.
Mine is sitting on my desk not charged. Great article. Going to charge it and start downloading immediately. Thanks
I have a kindle in my pack inside a Mylar ziplock type bag for the possibility of an EMP and it sits in a heavy duty ziplock bag to keep it from contacting anything as well as waterproof.
I also have a GoalZero Plus 10 solar charger so if the grid was down for a prolonged period of time I can charge that as well as my iPhone that I’ve stored some important things such as maps for alternate routes home and answers to the big what ifs.
I have decided that I will not make anymore contributions to the Survivalist blog. I have done so, but my donation was obviously insignificant and could not warrent a simple thanks. Five dollars is certainly not a lot, considering what on gets from this site, but when you are on a limited income it is. Besides, most bums on the street would thank you multiple times for such a token.
Anybody have links or suggestions for solar chargers that will work on the Kindle and like devices?
Holy Cats! If you Google Kindle solar charging you will get pages of suggestions on chargers be sold for just this type of purpose. FYI the below ($49.00) is just a sample and the review (only one) says it does not have the ummph to fully charge and take two days. Others say they will fully charge in a day or less depending on the mah rating of 3000 or higher. I think this is a viable option on the whole…
“Solar Powered Rechargeable External Battery Pocket Charger for the Amazon Kindle Latest Generation ( Wi-Fi Free 3G 6in. 9.7in. ) – uses Gomadic TipExchange Technology Product Features
Includes rechargeable internal battery (2000 mah) in a compact design
Battery pack can be charged either via direct exposure to the sun or via traditional plug-in power source
Continue to use your Amazon Kindle Latest Generation ( Wi-Fi Free 3G 6in. 9.7in. ) for hours OR recharge your device on the go without being tethered to a wall outlet
Uses Gomadic TipExchange Tips (Amazon Kindle Latest Generation ( Wi-Fi Free 3G 6in. 9.7in. ) tip is included) which protects investment with easy upgrades that allow users to charge multiple mobile devices with the same solar power pack
Charging kit includes Solar Powered Charging Battery Pack; USB charge cable; and two charging tips for both the Amazon Kindle Latest Generation ( Wi-Fi Free 3G 6in. 9.7in. ) and battery pack. Backed by a lifetime warranty!”
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