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EMP attack!

cjdelphi

Oct 26, 2011
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I was thinking if war starts one of the first weapons to get used would be an EMP warhead, what's the best way to protect our electronics from one?

Aluminium Foil?
Metal Box?
Half a ton of anti static electronic bags?
Live in a Metal Cage?
 

kellys_eye

Jun 25, 2010
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Puckered lips at a puckered ring would be my first thought......

The actualities of EMP are debatable - some decry such effects (on a wider scale that is). If you're close enough to worry about EMP you'll have lots of other things to worry about.

But on a practical scale any form of shielding will help and the more solid it is the better. Faraday cages won't work as the damage from EMP is induced magnetically, not electrically. Nor will foil - you need something to shield magnetism. Mu metal used to be the preferred shielding for oscilloscope CRTs but a steel box would keep your essential kit safe. Not sure how well mobile phone repeaters would cope though - your phone would be useless if they went down.

Without being too dramatic I do, however, keep a pair of walkie-talkies in a bug out box (kit). Everything else is 'hard copy'.
 

HANKMARS

Jul 28, 2019
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I was thinking if war starts one of the first weapons to get used would be an EMP warhead, what's the best way to protect our electronics from one?

Aluminium Foil?
Metal Box?
Half a ton of anti static electronic bags?
Live in a Metal Cage?
A few decades ago, I was commissioned to design a sales help device that would demonstrate a wrist band that dissipated static build-up in the human body which can be damaging to electronic components. It was a stand alone device, no cable to ground, no radio output as far as I know. I have no idea how it worked. My demonstration device worked in a prototype mock-up but the sales group said it was too clunky and the test button was too noisy. And they were. It was a mock-up to prove my design functional. Maybe they just took my design and ran with it. The company name was Dreary Engineering or Dreary Design or similar name. Perhaps they have developed EMP protective devices. Located in Phoenix, AZ, USA, area.
 

Alec_t

Jul 7, 2015
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IMO any EMP attack is likely to be directed at the national grid and other infrastructue, so even if your gizmos are protected they are not going to be functional.
 

HANKMARS

Jul 28, 2019
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IMO any EMP attack is likely to be directed at the national grid and other infrastructue, so even if your gizmos are protected they are not going to be functional.
I should think electronics enthusiasts could construct radio comm devices from surviving components. Maybe have local networks up and running in a week. I am totally unversed in EMP action. Is it predicted to toast every component thru which it passes?
 

kellys_eye

Jun 25, 2010
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I worked on UK Navy ships on occasion (installing and maintaining non-navy kit) and was in their central control communications room - all lined with perforated steel for interference and signal suppression etc presumably EMP protection too(?) - when someones mobile phone rang.......

If EMP works as some say (and it's a contentious issue) then its effects are confined to 'circuits' i.e. closed loops where the circulating induced currents cause the damage. Free-air components won't, obviously, suffer this effect as there's no circuit for the current to flow.

If - a big if - EMP is to be considered a potential threat then vacuum tube equipment comes into its own! I do have both a tube receiver and transmitter (very basic - kept as simple as possible in design and construction) plus a few commercial vintage tube receivers that I've restored just for the lols.

I keep them all in the same cupboard I keep the tin foil.........
 

HANKMARS

Jul 28, 2019
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Bend over and kiss your butt goodbye.....your electronics would be the last thing to be concerned about.
I for one, am much more comfortable knowing I have access to electric lights in the dead of night as opposed to, say, burning hog guts on a stick for my reading light.
 

HANKMARS

Jul 28, 2019
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Do you have an opinion about parasitic vibrations in tube devices resulting in a more pleasing "timber" of sound quality as opposed to the rigid construction of solid state devices? Be honest, I can take it.
 

kellys_eye

Jun 25, 2010
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Alrighty then, not a music enthusiast. NP.
Not at all - I love music. Just not at all interested in the 'finery' of sub decimal point distortion figures or the 'colour' of sound. These are subjective issues that talking about will achieve zero differences to the individuals impression. I leave such topics to those who have nothing better to do and the money to waste chasing perfection rather than appreciating the music for what it actually is.

If you played me Rush's Tom Sawyer track through two cans connected via a piece of string it would invoke the same response as hearing it on a £100,000 sound system and the second it stopped playing it would be resonating in my brain all day without the need for any form of playback machinery - thus saving me £100k.
 

HANKMARS

Jul 28, 2019
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Not at all - I love music. Just not at all interested in the 'finery' of sub decimal point distortion figures or the 'colour' of sound. These are subjective issues that talking about will achieve zero differences to the individuals impression. I leave such topics to those who have nothing better to do and the money to waste chasing perfection rather than appreciating the music for what it actually is.

If you played me Rush's Tom Sawyer track through two cans connected via a piece of string it would invoke the same response as hearing it on a £100,000 sound system and the second it stopped playing it would be resonating in my brain all day without the need for any form of playback machinery - thus saving me £100k.
You are truly then blessed because I somtimes jones for the resonance of a beat that in all earnest, struck and moved my bio-hearts rhythm and seemed to alter things. When that happens, my preference is to be struck by waves which lead with rounded edges rather than zero rise and fall times, hence, 90% knife edges. Capture my inference, sorta?
 

HANKMARS

Jul 28, 2019
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Are you inferring that you suffer from normal age-related hearing loss of high frequencies?
I had not given any prior thot to hearing lose but you do have a good point. Here is an analogy I have used which relates to the use of staccato when playing a saxophone. Base reference is Mike Shappiro or Mike Sharp. Author of song Spooky, made famous by Atlanta Rhythm something or other. Section maybe. Anyway, most sax players, when seeing the command staccato in a music score, will go to great lengths to put a sharp, right angle decay on the notes commanded to be played staccato. Shappiro would put an ever so small "round over" on a staccato note. Almost an inconceivable difference, but there is a difference to be detected if one listens for it. Equate a staccato note to the square edge of a piece of 1 by lumber material. That wood can come to a point where the face of the board stops and the perpendicular edge begins. This transition takes not even a micrometer to occur. What Shappiro does is, ever so lightly, touch that face to edge transition with very fine sandpaper and roll the transition. Taking it from a knife edge to an almost in-perceivable blunt edge. Blunt is a little strong but I hope I made the point. I find the slower transition more pleasant than the instantaneous change. I find it more pleasing in both the way my ear receives the note as well as the vibrations felt by my non-audio receptors ( bones, skin, etc. ). In reality, I can not prove that I am in a wake state or if I am in a dream state and asleep. For that matter, I have no empirical evidence that I, you, or anything even exists in some solid state form of matter, so these writings are to be taken with a grain of salt, and maybe a shot of single malt.
 
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