In this episode from 2011 I was joined by Tim Glance is the owner of Old Grouch Military surplus and a veteran of the US Army where he served for 18 years as a Construction Equipment Mechanic. In this episode we talked prepper vehicles, mil surplus vehicles, converting waste oil to fuel and more.
The show notes for the original episode with all relevant resources can be found here.
Welcome to Friday Flashbacks, after 16 years and hundreds of interview shows we decided to run them as flash backs every Friday, beginning with the oldest of them going forward.There is a tremendous library of wisdom in all the great interviews we have done over the years.
So sit back and enjoy, whether this is your first or second time around with today’s episode I am sure you will enjoy today’s episode and learn a lot from it.
Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon.
Join the MSB Today
Want all the Early TSP Episodes?
Remember in addition to discounts to over 80 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.
Special Note – This item is back on sale and I don’t know for how long. Today it is 22% off and remember as always you get another 5% off with my special discount code at check out. Worm compost is amazing and this is one of the easiest to use worm bins I have ever found.
Today’s Item of the Day is from Vevor—it’s their 5-Tray Worm Composter. Remember to use the code VVPROMO to get 5% off anything you buy from Vevor with my links. I mentioned this item in a recent podcast about various methods of composting. Enough of you guys got one that my Vevor rep literally reached out and said, “Hey, let us send you one for a proper review.”
I figured this one was safe to recommend without a review, as screwing up a worm bin isn’t easy to do, at least not from a manufacturing standpoint. Now, management of worms you can screw up, but that is on the worm keeper, not the bin maker. (More on that in the video at the end.)
I have to say, I am very glad to have accepted a sample of this worm bin. This bin is well-made and well-designed. Every aspect of it is well thought out. And, ole Jack discovered something for you guys on this one that makes it a hell of a good pricing deal. Here is the deal: one of the top-selling all-time worm bins is the VermiHut Plus 5-Tray Worm Compost Bin. The ViermiHut has over 1600 reviews with 4.6 stars overall on Amazon. It is all over groups and forums about worm composting, and everyone loves it. They sell for about 100 bucks on Amazon and other sites. Though they are on sale as of 10-21-24 for about 78 bucks, which is still more than the Vevor model.
Well, what if I told you the Vevor bin, at $69.00 when bought directly right now, was the exact same bin? I don’t mean almost the same; I mean THE SAME. Same accessories, same parts, same instructions, same everything. My instinct from my research is the only difference is the color; the VermiHut is green and the Vevor is black. It isn’t a car, folks; the color doesn’t matter. When I say the same, I mean they are likely made on the same molds in the same factory.
So out of the gate, you get one of the best-thought-of worm bins on the market for $20-40 off the cost of the competition on any given day. Can I be 100% sure they are the exact same bin? Yes. How? Because I know how private label products work, because I read the instruction manual for product reviews fully, and because we all know documentation from China on products is something that can miss things in translation.
In this case, the name of the private-labeled product I am sure mistakenly remains in the user’s manual. Click the image on the right to enlarge it, and you can see right in the product manual it is referred to as the VermiHut Plus. Clearly, Vevor made a deal with VermiHut to private label this product which means you get it for $20-40 less. Then don’t forget to use my discount code VVPROMO for an additional 5% off.
Now let’s talk about the bin itself. First, I was impressed by two things included that you normally need to buy separately. First, there is a brick of coco coir—call that about a $10 bonus item. It also includes a fiber top mat to cover the top tray of worm food. Additionally, they provide a small rake that may not be a big deal, but it is perfect for scraping off layers of the coco coir when soaking it for initial setup.
This system is designed in a way that should make the vermicomposter think a bit like a beekeeper. What I mean is the instinct of many will be to put it all together and fill it up fast; don’t do that. As you will see in my video, the best thing to do is start off with good bedding and one tray. As that tray begins to fill with castings, add a new tray on top with some bedding, food scraps, and inoculate it with a handful of castings from the lower tray.
Follow this method until you are working on the 5th tray as new; at that point, remove the bottom tray’s castings, and it becomes your top tray. Once you get a system running, you will be harvesting castings say every couple of weeks. Again, think a bit like a beekeeper; you add those supers on top of the hive as the lower areas are full of brood and honey. Do the same here as the worms have almost filled the lower tray; add the next one.
Again, I give more tips in the video, but I want to say something here about any worm bin. There are two reasons for most worm bin failures (other than murder by invading fire ants). They are, in order, too much liquid and too much food, and sometimes too much of some foods that have a lot of water in them, is part of the first one. This bin, like many, has a spigot for removing leachate. This is a good thing, and leachate is a great thing to water down and spray on your plants or drench soil with (an ideal dilution rate is 10:1), but it is NOT something you want to produce in high quantity with a worm bin.
Look, folks, the more leachate you get, the more you are overwatering your bin. Now some say you should get exactly none. Like many things, I am in the middle on this issue. I expect to get some drainage over time; when I do, I back off the moisture, but I don’t freak out and simply see the leachate as a resource. I have never had issues with this approach. And as well as this thing can drain, I can’t see why anyone would.
Problems arise when new worm compost folks think leachate is something you want on an ongoing basis, so they add moisture until they damn well get it daily. Then the worm bin becomes too active, active composting starts, like compost pile style with HEAT, and your worms fry. Unlike a pile outside, they have nowhere to go; you made a worm oven. You can also end up with just being too wet, then they drown or create anaerobic pockets that are bad for worm health.
Next, on overfeeding, most new folks totally overfeed, and one of the reasons is really a surprise to many. Here we go, worms don’t even eat most of what we feed them. This is the real key and why new worm keepers often have catastrophic loss very quickly. We tend to think of a worm bin like, say, a mealworm farm; you feed the worms, they eat it. But compost worms, and honestly, most earthworms do not actually eat the stuff we put in bins, just as they do not eat the mulch on top of your gardens.
No, worms partner with microbes, many actually, that pass through their guts. These microbes break down the food; the worms eat that food partially broken down, they eat the microbes’ waste, and they even eat some of the microbes. I found this fascinating when I learned it; check out this video from Ray Archuleta of worms on a farm literally “farming microbes” by pulling corn refuse just slightly into burrows.
What this means is a new farm should start light on worms and lighter on food. Allow the microbe population to come up as the worm population does. Once you get going, just keep an eye on things, and you will, in time, learn what to look for. One big thing is if you feel significant heat when you open your bin, you are likely overfeeding; again, you have gone from a slow compost to fast thermophilic compost. To correct this, remove some food and add some carbon and stop feeding for a time. Again, more tips in the video.
Let me finish with one more thing here, the value concept. Many pride themselves on “homemade bins” for their worms, and if you are a major operation doing 100 giant long beds and selling commercially, well, you may very well want to do that. But for the average person, you need one or two of these tops, and blatantly, you can’t make anything this good, with 5 layers using something like Rubbermaid tubs for less than 70 bucks. Just price 5 tubs in the 3-5 gallon size, and you will see what I mean, not to mention the drainage and spigot, separation screen, etc., for bottom leachate removal and the ant traps for the feet.
Y’all know me, I am all for making things yourself and DIY and such, but I am not for spending more money to get something that doesn’t work as well as an off-the-shelf purpose-built product like this. It just makes no economic sense and has a bad price to value ratio. Once you take the additional 5% off, the cost of this item is $56.99; it comes with bedding and a mat to cover the top tray, so you don’t have to buy those. You can set it up the day you get it with zero tools. If you build your own instead of getting this, I will say what I say often, “You hate money, and if you hate on money, it will hate on you.” This is a well-respected $100 product for $60 bucks; you just can’t beat that in 2024, and if well cared for, it is also a very long-term investment.
So, check out the 5-Tray Worm Composter (Remember to use code VVPROMO to get 5% off anything you buy from Vevor with my links) and up your composting and fertility game today. Again, check the video for more tips on bin management, including how to accelerate microbe inoculation, where to locate your bin, and more.
And remember you can alway help us out by beginning your online shopping starting at TspAz.com first and when you do so, on Vevor items always use discount code VVPROMO to get 5% off anything you buy.
Check Out this Video Review with TONS of Griddle Tips Even if You Already Own One
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Remember My Discount Code Works for ANYTHING in the Vevor Store, just use my links to get there and use VVPROMO at check out for 5% off literally anything they sell.
Today on The Survival Podcast the expert council answers your questions on government spending, fitness, foraging, permaculture, pricing a product, solar power, biochar and more.
Make sure if you submit content for an expert council show you do the following….
Email it to me at jack @ thesurvivalpodcast.com
Put TSPC Expert in the subject line
Ask you question and state the expert you have the question for in one coherent sentence
Hit the return key a few times and then give all the details you think are necessary `
Following that procedure makes it about 100X more likely your question will get though screening and sent on to one of our experts. All expert council members can be found on the Meet the Expert Council Page.
Join Me Today to Discuss…
Government spending is a tax, cut it by 2 trillion as a good start – Dan McAdams & Dr. Paul
Thoughts on “chemical fitness” – Andy McCann
Foraging wild greens in the fall – Kerry Brown
Dealing with a lot of St. John’s Wort as a pasture weed – Geoff Lawton
How to set pricing on your product when your labor is the only labor – Nicole Sauce
Evaluation of an existing off grid solar system when buying a homestead – Shawn Mills
What is the best way to make very large brush piles into biochar – Jack
Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon.
Join the MSB Today
Want all the Early TSP Episodes?
Remember in addition to discounts to over 80 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.
Today CJ Kilmer returns to TSPC to talk about how and why the Soviet Union collapse along with the lessons the US and its Western Partners failed to learn from it.
Born & raised a Florida Man, CJ Killmer holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Flagler College and a master’s degree in history from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He taught college history from 2006 to 2022. However, he was always too much of a power-skeptical libertarian anarchist to feel comfortable working in conventional academia, which is (and has been for a long time) dominated by Progressive, pro-Establishment propagandists.
In 2014, CJ started the Dangerous History Podcast, initially as a hobby/experiment for some of his most radically revisionist takes on historical topics. It gradually grew until, in 2022, he decided to take the plunge of leaving conventional academia, resigning from his college teaching position in order to pursue podcasting & other independent content-creation projects full-time.
The Dangerous History Podcast is dedicated to sharing history that the Establishment would rather you NOT know, so you can learn the past and thereby better understand the present & prepare for the future. If you’re interested in history but can’t stand the Wokeness & Establishment propaganda narratives that dominate most mainstream & academic history today, you’ll love the Dangerous History Podcast!
Resources for today’s show…
My Nostr Pub Key – npub15879mltlln6k8jy32k6xvagmtqx3zhsndchcey8gjyectwldk88sq5kv0n
Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon.
Join the MSB Today
Want all the Early TSP Episodes?
Remember in addition to discounts to over 80 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.
Special Note – These are deeply discounted and on sale again. One of the best selling items of all time on TspAz and fall gardening is on the way fast. These are the easy button for expanding or establishing new gardens.
Today’s Item of the day is Galvanized Raised Garden Beds by Vevor. There are many options here but the two I feel TSP’rs will be most interested in are standard 4×8 dimensions at two different depths…
Today we have a brand new type of item of the day. Up until now all Item of the Day reviews have been for items you can get on Amazon. Recently Vevor reached out to me about working with them and we came to an agreement. I will be receiving some free products in this agreement for review for disclosure I will tell you when ever that is the case. It is the case here but this item is so great I also bought one myself because I want two for my coming project.
Here is the best part, this product is awesome and I am going to save you a lot of money on it. Retail on this product is 140 bucks, but if you use my links you can get it for a LOT LESS. Just by registering as a customer with Vevor through my link before you buy and your cost will go down to only 99.99 then at check out just enter code VVPROMO for an additional 5% off.
Now let me tell you about this product and why I love it. First I love raised beds for gardening and we all know why. You get space to build new perfect soil and things like ducks and dogs tend to stay out of beds at least 20 inches high and these are just a hair under 2 feet high.
Next last year I sold a metric ton of this product by Frezone. They are awesome and were costing you guys between 120 – 160 plus dollars a pop. Here we have what I consider a better product for less money. Why do I say it is better?
Painted – mostly aesthetics but they do look great
Rectangle vs. Oval – simply put this gives you more total square feet to plant
Horizontal Reenforcement – There are six reenforcing straps that prevent bulging
Heavy Steel – Most beds of this type are made with .01 thick steel, these are made with .04 thick steel
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Now in general since this form of garden bed showed up, all steel, shipped in panels so they can ship cost effectively I have been all in on them. You are talking a garden bed that will stand up to the test of time better than anything built from pressure treated lumber. And let’s look at the cost of building a 4′ wide x 8′ long x 2′ deep bed with lumber that will rot in time to one of these.
For each bed you would require…
16 2x6x8 pressure treated boards (at my local Lowes that is 120 dollars)
A box of good stainless or deck screws about 12 bucks
Likely some coroner reenforcing lumber we can call it 10 bucks
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All in building a 2 foot high bed with 4×8 dimensions with lumber at todays prices is about 140 ish bucks or for just under a hundred bucks, a box will show up at your house with every thing you need, bolt it all together and fill it up and just start growing.
And folks NOW is the time, spring is springing as we speak. You know those beds you were going to build but didn’t this winter, order today and by the weekend you can be assembling all the beds you want for the coming season. And the best part is these beds will LAST. I am not going to say forever but certainly 3-5X longer than a wood based bed that costs about 40% more to build along with a trip to box store hell on your weekend.
Yea look at it that way, you want to build your beds next weekend right? So you can get up early, go to the box store, blow 1-2 hours of your time, come home, then get to work. Or you can assemble one of these in about 30 minutes with simple hand tools while spending less money and getting a better product.
Remember you can get this deal in two different sizes depending on the depth you want. I went with 2 foot deep beds but they are pretty massive. I do this because it is a nice working height and because it keeps the ducks out of my gardens. The tradeoff is fill volume, a 4x8x2 box will hold just about 1 cubic yard. If you don’t want the higher working height or are not worried about animals the 1 foot tall option may be bette for you. Again the options are…
4Wx8Lx1D 65.99 less 5% with my special code VVPROMO
4Wx8Lx2D 99.99 super deal and you still get 5% more off with code VVPROMO
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So get registered as a Vevor Customer today and get this great deal and just know I will be bringing you a ton more or personally selected awesome products from Vevor as we move forward. But there is a reason I am leading off with these awesome garden beds, now is the time and this is one of the best deals I could find for you on the Vevor website.
Video Review of These Awesome Beds
Two questions were common when this video was released. They were about the supports and their location. To that one there are a total of 6, only two are installed here as we are going to reconfigure the beds as described. `
Next was is the top of the bed sharp? No it is rolled but there are edges on the corners so right where they panels connect you have some potential for scratches. Vevor does provide a top cover of thin material to cap the box with. We didn’t use it and have no plans to, but you may want to or to do something with the sharp corners.
P.S. – With this new partnership I will be expanding TspAz.com to include products from both Amazon and Vevor and will continue to recommend the best options regardless of source. As always anything I would not spend my own money on, I will never recommend to you. I will always continue to disclose any products I am given as samples, etc. Integrity is why you know you can trust my recommendations and that will never change.
* Note – This Item is available on Amazon but you will pay about 20 dollars more for it if you order it there. Still I wanted you to know about this in case you simply prefer to buy from that channel.
Today we reunite 4 members of the Unloose the Goose team. I am joined by Nicole Sauce, John Bush and CJ Kilmer to discuss the coming election, fall out around it and in general how screwed the country is economically, culturally and globally heading into 2025.
Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon.
Join the MSB Today
Want all the Early TSP Episodes?
Remember in addition to discounts to over 80 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.
This week is going to be kind of dark in topics over all. Tomorrow in an Unloose the Goose Reunion show, Nicole Sauce, CJ Kilmer, John Bush and I will discuss what is coming with the election and civil unrest and more no matter who wins. The Wednesday CJ returns solo to talk about the USSR’s collapse in the 80s-90s and how it corrulates to the current situation in the US.
So today I figured we should discuss something more optimistic and came up with this show topic idea. Today we discuss 12 decentralized technologies we can use right now and in the future to improve our own situations. These technologies range from low to high tech but will allow us to improve our situations from standpoints of…
Economics
Food Security
Communications
Water Security
Health and Sanitation
Energy
And More
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The great news is they are all absolutely decentralized meaning they are acessable to any and all that want to use them. Sure some of them can be built into “centralized systems” but none can be held captive as such. Anyone, anywhere can use any and all of these if they choose to and build on a local or regional level with them.
Join Me Today to Discuss…
What I mean by decentralized for today’s discussion
None of this is magic, all of them are simply tools
Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon.
Join the MSB Today
Want all the Early TSP Episodes?
Remember in addition to discounts to over 80 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.
Every day I bring you an item on Amazon that I personally use or has been purchased by many members of the audience and I have researched enough to recommend.
Today’s TSP Amazon Item of the day is the Syantek Remote Control Light Switch Kit. These things are just awesome and for under 25 bucks they provide a lot of convenience. The set comes with two remotes and 5 individual switches.
They are pretty intuitive but here is how they work. You plug one of these into an outlet, then you plug in what ever you want to control remotely into it, you just installed it, you are done. Now if it was unit one, when you push “on” for unit one, what ever is plugged into it comes on, when you push off, it goes off.
I know some of you are thinking, oh gee another gadget so people can sit on their ass and not even walk across the room to turn on a light. Now hold on, here are a few uses that make a lot of sense.
For one we have a floor lamp that is behind the couch, to get to it you have to walk around the back and contort yourself in an odd position to get to it. It isn’t a huge deal but it is a pain in the ass and it is also the best place for the lamp. Install one of these and no more contortionist activities to turn on the lamp.
When I first found these our grandson was too short to reach the wall switch in the bathroom, so I installed a small light, popped in one of these. No more, “I’m scared to go to the bathroom alone” stuff. Ended the excuse cold and he learned to see to his own needs. He also enjoyed using a remote to turn on lights.
I shoot videos at my desk and I have some pretty heavy lights that make the room work well for that. Say I want to shoot a video on the fly, push a button they come on, then off. Not a big deal but when it comes to my work with as much as I do I try to be as efficient as possible.
A few years back I put some really nice string lights in the rafters of my main shop building. The outlets that power them are for the garage door openers. I popped in a couple of these, each switch runs two sets so I have zoned mood lighting now. Nice for TSP Workshops and movie nights out in the shop, etc. Basically any time the LED shop lights are just over kill and too bright.
How about your annual Christmas lights? For us our tree is one of those pre lit jobs. Dorothy has some weird form of OCD around lights on Christmas trees, (okay honestly she is a Christmas tree Nazi, really) that is unsettling. So I got a pre lit job to end it! After that she started building her annual “Christmas Forest” (seriously check out that link it is really cool). She has like 30 of those small tinsel trees she wire tied lights to and a bunch of other small trees. It really is beautiful but it is almost impossible to get to the wall and shut it off. Not with one of these, I just hit 2 and 3 when we go to bed and the forest is dark.
How about a shop with a light on the far end? Some of you likely have older parents with mobility problems, hey less than 25 bucks to make their life a little easier right? I put two cheap box fans in the roof of my back shop and can just turn them on for circulation in warm weather with a button push. I mean those cheap ass box fans that you can get for about 30 bucks BTW.
Okay you electric Nazis that hate phantom loss of electronics that are plugged in but not on. This can really add up, but if you put one of these in the connection and test it with a Kill a Watt, you will find they draw 1/10th of a watt in standby which is almost nothing. Over a year that would cost about 10 cents in electricity, where some devices can cost 20-30 dollars a year in “vampire draw” or even more. With that alone they can pay for themselves.
So if you have any lights or other electronic devices you would like to be able to turn on and off as easily as you do a TV, check out the Syantek Remote Control Light Switch Kit today. I do use my nifty mechanical timers a lot too but sometimes on demand is what you really want.
Remember you can always find all of our reviews at TspAz.com
P.S. – If you are thinking didn’t Jack used to recommend something like this from Etek City and doesn’t Jack love Etek City? You are correct on both counts. And if Etek still made something like this I would still be recommending them. Last year when Dorothy broke out the Christmas stuff we could not find her outlets (likely because some Jerk reappropriated them for other things). So I was like, I will just order more. Welp, nope! Etek stopped making them. So I read reviews, etc. and found that these by Syantek are well thought of (4.6 stars with over 700 ratings). I ordered a set and put them though their paces. They work just fine so they are my official replacement recommendation.
In this episode from 2011 I was joined by Paul Seyfried of Utah Shelter Systems to discuss civil defense in the US and in other nations, the continued threat of nuclear war, chemical attack and biological weapons. He also explains the value of shelters for storm protection, storing supplies and more. Shelters can seem like an “extreme prep” to many but in this episode we took a balanced view of their practical applications.
The show notes for the original episode with all relevant resources can be found here.
Welcome to Friday Flashbacks, after 16 years and hundreds of interview shows we decided to run them as flash backs every Friday, beginning with the oldest of them going forward.There is a tremendous library of wisdom in all the great interviews we have done over the years.
So sit back and enjoy, whether this is your first or second time around with today’s episode I am sure you will enjoy today’s episode and learn a lot from it.
Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon.
Join the MSB Today
Want all the Early TSP Episodes?
Remember in addition to discounts to over 80 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.
Today on The Survival Podcast the expert council answers your questions on the election, dogs, guns, gardens, foraging, cooking, collapse scenarios and more.
Make sure if you submit content for an expert council show you do the following….
Email it to me at jack @ thesurvivalpodcast.com
Put TSPC Expert in the subject line
Ask you question and state the expert you have the question for in one coherent sentence
Hit the return key a few times and then give all the details you think are necessary `
Following that procedure makes it about 100X more likely your question will get though screening and sent on to one of our experts. All expert council members can be found on the Meet the Expert Council Page.
Join Me Today to Discuss…
If Trump wins, will he keep warmongers out of his cabinet – Dan McAdams & Dr. Paul
How to break you dog of a habit of going to the bathroom it isn’t supposed to – Joel Ryals
If Kackles becomes POTUS what will happen to gun rights and what options may we have – Michael Milito
What does it mean when mushrooms pop up in your raised beds – Geoff Lawton
Foraging wild rose hips for multiple uses – Kerry Brown
Internal cooking temps on pork and chicken – Ken Daniels
Some follow up on my interview with Col. Miller yesterday – No I don’t agree with him on everything and no I don’t think hearing from people we disagree with is some sort of horrible thing either. – Jack
Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon.
Join the MSB Today
Want all the Early TSP Episodes?
Remember in addition to discounts to over 80 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.