Laser pointers for survival...

I figure they're like "emergency mirrors" or whatever they're called - the ones used to reflect light into peoples' eyes to either communicate or to signal for rescue - except they can be used at night, and you can see the beam so they're super easy to aim.

Look at these videos and think of the possibilities for search and rescue...

www.youtube.com...

www.youtube.com...

www.youtube.com...

People do carry laser pointers for rescue. There are drawbacks however.
First pointing a laser at an airplane is a serious no,no.
Second you have to make sure you pack it in something water proof.
Third they are difficult to aim at someone far away, especially in the day.
Fourth most are poorly made and have a much higher failure rate than a mirror.

That being said, my thermal imager (which I generally have with me when I'm in the bush) has a laser pointer built in and I find it handy for all kinds of things.

I built two of these.

One for my xbow, the other a hand-held device.

Crossbow laser here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Handheld laser here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

they make waterproof laser pointers.

they make strobe lasers.

they make "blacklight" lasers, or ~405nm lasers. (those are pretty sweet, like blacklights in laserbeam form.)

they make red, blue, green, yellow, orange, infrared, and:
hightechdealz.com...

they make, expensive laser pointers.. all of them.

As far as survival goes.. i enjoy "killing" dark colored plastics and paper with my 75mW laser pointer.

You could change the color of the laser pointer by grabbing a clear sheet, and using a colored permanent marker and run the red or green laser through it, hopefully the laser won't burn through your color filter. As goes for survival it's a great little handy tool.

reply to post by Shrukin89


The output from a laser LED consists of only one color so trying to filter another color out of it doesn't work. You'll just end up with a much dimmer beam of the original color.