Have I turned into a Prepper

Hobbies and projects that I have been interested in have been moving me naturally towards a more self reliant future

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Have I turned into a Prepper

The reality is that my life in the past 5 years has been slowly evolving to more self sufficient lifestyle. Hobbies and projects that I have been interested in have been moving me naturally towards a more self reliant future.

These projects include:

Does this mean I'm now a "prepper"?

Solar electricity and solar hot water

To me this is a no brainer considering I live in southern Spain. Only God knows why I didn't do this many years before. We don't have a massive installation, only 8 panels, but it provides for 100% of our electricity requirements for the 6 summer months and 90% for winter months. Grid cuts in sometimes on the cloudy days. We also have constant hot water.

Next step will be to install an air conditioning unit. This will provide cool air in the summer months and raise the house temperatures a few degrees in the winter months. Might need a few extra panels installing, but they are cheap.

Developing a local mesh network

As discussed in prior posts, I am building a local mesh network using cheap LoRa radios. Originally programmed using Reticulum, then Meshtastic and now Meshcore software. If the proverbial "shit hits the fan" then this mesh may become the main form of communication available in the area.

I have successfully sent messages from 12 kilometers distance from my home (line of sight). Next step is to expand the network by placing a repeater on a high plateau at 1200 meters altitude which will double the available network.

Getting into radio communications

Thanks to cheap Boafeng radios my wife and I can communicate either locally or within our walking groups up in the mountains. Yes, know these radios are not fully legal, but we stick to PMR channels, which are legal.

Moving farther and farther away from mainstream social media

We all know that Social Media on the internet is broken. Irreparably so in my opinion. Timelines designed by algorithms that only really care about delivering advertisements and trying to get engagement for selfish purposes. Twitter gone, Facebook nearly gone. Never had Instagram nor Tiktok.

Thank goodness for the Federation and ActivityPub. Mastodon is a breathe of fresh air allowing me to host my own social media site yet interact with many interesting people with real timelines, interesting things to say, and no adverts.

I dabbled with the Gemini Protocol back in 2021. Returned back in 2025 as it seems even more relevant now. Clean websites free from privacy intrusions, cookies, JavaScript etc. Like the old web, try it, you'll like it!

Less reliance on Big Tech, especially if based in the US

Moving to European based tech companies seems like the right way to move forward. No Gmail or Hotmail for me, Tuta Mail and Protonmail much better. No Google Search either, I have tried Kagi but now use SearxING hosting.

As much as I can I am going to eliminate everything I can from Google and Zuckerbergs empire from my life. I haven't used Windows since 2006 so Microsoft has already been eliminated.

Mobile phones - have been using a form of Lineage for a couple of years on my main phone. No more Google nor Apple. I use this phone in the mountains for navigation in airplane mode. I also have a small, cheap Unihertz JellyStar that I carry when travelling around. Not exactly a dumb phone but I haven't had to sign into Google and yet can still chat (Signal), email and send and receive calls. Less reliance on mobile phones has to be the way forward for me.

Resource buiding for a disaster or emergency situation

It might not be a full on zombie apocalypse but there are definitely times ahead. We have already suffered countrywide blackouts here in Spain. There is talk of a coming collapse of the monetary supply at some point. This I believe is likely.

It makes sense therefore to be prepared. Some suggestions:

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