Thursday, November 6, 2008

Link

The main site for the Survival Report can be found at

www.survivalreport.net


I started this as a newsletter in 1993, writing quarterly and compiling the editions into volumes and selling them at gunshows in the early 90's. Later some dirtbags would copy my work and there is a rip off photo copy simply called "Survival Report" that could be found at gunshows.

I traveled a lot in the 90's, so I always had fun walking up to people's tables at shows, Knob Creek, etc. to see what they would say about MY WORK they had copied. I remember one clown at Knob Creek. I stood and read through one of his pirated copies of my work. He comes over so I said "Hey this is pretty good! Did you write this?"

He replies "Ahh yeah, sure did." WRONG ANSWER BUD!

My reply- "You $%#$%^& LIAR! This is MY WORK and you copied it!"

His face went white.

"Well I just bought these from some guy and ahhhhh....."

I stated early on and in each edition that I had no problem if people copied them to GIVE THEM AWAY to other people. But not to SELL my work to someone else, that's just wrong.

The only guy I really had to nut up on was a guy here in the S.E. that I had to tell twice. I watched him throw his pirated copies in the trashcan.

I've told people they were welcome to copy the info to FREELY give away, but this wasn't "freely" this included a $20. price tag. LOL

In 1993 we started exhibiting at Preparedness Expos around the country and did not miss one show till the later part of 1999. And that was a show that had been a dog 3 years prior, I didn't see much sense in throwing good money after bad.

Also in the mid 90's we started doing some shortwave radio advertising with guys like Mark Koernke, John Stadtmiller of the "Intelligence Report." Another friend in shortwave down in Arizona suggested I start my own show covering preparedness topics. At the time no one was covering anything preparedness or survival related in any real depth.

So beginning in June of 1998 I brought "The Survival Report" to shortwave radio. Every Friday night at 10pm (probably one of the worst time slots in SW, but I was able to develop a good listening audience) I spoke for an hour teaching folks what I knew about a host of survival and preparedness related topics.

The shortwave time was fun but very costly. In retrospect I should have went into it with a "sponsor" to help me cover the airtime costs. I continued the show through Y2K and in early 2000 most preparedness businesses were sucking wind, mine included. Luckily where in 99 some companies were buying up big buildings (they would later have to sell) we leased space for our cannery, shipping and retail operations. Whereas a lot of companies were expecting a big "last minute" selling push the end of 1999, we slowly drew down inventory towards the end of the year, culminating with a huge 70% off sale before we moved. The result was that we ended up without huge stocks of inventory at the turn of the year. I remember some preparedness companies still having 80,000 or more #10 cans from 99 that they were still trying to move in 2001!!!!

By mid 2000 the costs of the shortwave air time was biting into me bigtime. I made the announcement for the first time that if folks appreciated the free info they were getting from me, that they would support the show costs with $5. or 10. The last thing I wanted to do was ask for help with the show, but every time I even mentioned the possibility of cancelling the show, I was deluded with calls for a couple hours after the show "please keep doing it, we are learning so much" type of stuff. In the final tallies, less than half a dozen people stepped up and helped with the airtime costs, covering less than a half month of the costs.

August of 2000 I had to call it quits with the shortwave show, the costs of the show and the fact that I had very little coming in then, was the ultimate demise of the show.

Several times since then I've been asked to do a show again, I've always declined. I may change my mind in the future, but it's unlikely.

I've concentrated my efforts on some of the internet forums- Frugal Squirrels, AR15.com, Viking Preparedness.com, etc. I can be found at pretty much any public gathering in the Southeast from these forums, usually teaching, cooking or helping out. I enjoy it greatly. These efforts have netted me real friends so I consider them well paid. Read my "Robert Henry" blog post here on blogspot, good friends remember you when you've helped them out. For that I'm grateful. :)

In 2005 I decided to put up a site with articles relating to preparedness and survival. That is where we are currently-

www.survivalreport.net

Also, we have a youtube site where we have 30+ (currently, more to come) videos on preparedness and homesteading subjects. Now just "talks" about these subjects, but in depth how to's. That site is easy to remember-

www.homesteadingandsurvival.com

Thanks for taking the time to read! Always open to suggestions and comments. Email me.

Robert Henry