Christmas Tin EMP Faraday Cage

... or debate it!

 

... that is the beauty of the "ignore" function!

 

A fellow ham friend spent his military career and professional career evaluating devices in EMP situations. He subjected a 2 meter hand held to more EMP than would ever be experienced in reality. As long as the hand held was not in the charger and the antenna disconnected, it survived just fine as most of the other electronic devices he tested. EMP is a bit overrated.

Bill - K5MIL
Advanced Class

 

Not for long.

 

The best way to stop a nuclear war--EMP for example-- is to assert the balance of terror, over an imbalance of error.

So-called home grown preventatives are a huge error in knowledge and judgement. ANyone asserting some advantage--such as a working HT--will find themselves at the end of pitchforks and zombies...

IF you want to find a useful app for a cookie tin--as a ham-- make an antenna with it as a reflector.

 

Well, the cookie tin makes a great tin hat!

 

Instead of EMP, would this protect against CME, which is a more likely and for us humans a bit more survivable scenario? A problematic CME could end up frying lotsa electric stuff-a-roo so a widdle 2m handheld might come in handy to talk to the ranch when that gang of mobile zombie bikers comes roaring down the country lane...

 

The problem of EMPs are, where they were produced by. So the question is, if its man-made or natural. Man-made is the EMP always gone after one or two seconds. When its getting natural and the Sun produces something like that , it can be hold for several days. The Faraday-Cage or to be under ground is the only thing, that offers protection.

 

Ammo cans have isolating seals. No metal contact all around = no faraday cage.

 

The USMC and USN did NOT. Any problem was not with the radios but with bonding, grounding and surge protection.

Military radios do not have any magic components or special anti-EMP design. Again, proper bonding, grounding and surge protection is the solution. THAT is how the military handles preparation.

The USN and USAF shut down their full size EMP testing facilities in 1991 after the Cold War ended. The engineering of EMP protection is well understood, and it isn't radios in ammo cans or butter cookie tins.

 

I made to the 18 second mark.

 

If your telecom device and system can fit into a cookie tin it does not have a sufficient aperture cross section to be sensitive to a burn out from CME.

 

None of that is anything but proof we need less crazy paranoia and more rational science:

1.) An HT not connected to mains or not connected to some large unprotected improperly installed outside antenna would not be damaged by EMP. To be damaged, it has to have a large unprotected collector of the pulse energy

2.) Very few if any standard cars and trucks would ever be damaged by an EMP, including the ECU's. The vehicle would need terrible open loop wiring outside the chassis and a hypersensitive ECU to be susceptible.

3.) A ground is not necessary to stop voltage inside an enclosed contained. Faraday's and other laws say voltage inside is zero no matter if you ground it or hook the garbage can to an insulated tower.

I'm not trying to pick at anyone, but most of this EMP stuff should have Ozzie singing Crazy Train as a theme song.

The same is true with the "tube radios will live and solid state will blow up" bologna passing around. The same things that mitigate local lightning strike damage, like entrance grounding and bonding, will mitigate EMP.

The same wiring and installation errors that encourage or allow lighting damage, like isolated grounds and poor or no ground bonding, will allow or encourage EMP damage.

73 Tom

 

With very high probability if it can fit inside a large barn it does not have sufficient aperture.

The most logical use for a cookie tin or garbage can is just pulled over one's head.