Posted: 1/15/2010 8:26:28 AM EDT
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I'm sure this has been asked before but my search feature only goes back 30 days. I've googled EMP's before and it basically comes back with info stating that it's not as big of an issue as the movies and such make it out to be as a doomsday weapon. Meaning it's hardly going to fry every single car, in the country. But...........
I still would like to have a plan should the threat present itself. So my question is to prevent your electronics such as cars, house from damage, is it as simple as killing the power on your electronics like unhooking the car's battery, taking batteries out of cell phones, and for the house removing yourself from the grid as long as you don't live in the ground zero of the EMP blast? |
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Unhooking batteries as nothing to do with EMP.
Disconnecting your home may reduce/eliminate damage to plugged in devices in your home. But if the grid is shot, those devices won't do much good. Read AR-Jedi's advice here: http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=10&f=17&t=631841&page=2 this topic has been covered at least 87 times in the last 12 months in this forum and in the ham radio forum. your question of "threat to modern civilization" covers everything from hand held radios to GPS terminals to the national electric power grid to the international telecommunications networks. that's quite a thread hijack!
but here's a rule of thumb: if the system (radio, computer, etc) does not have any metallic wires longer than about 3 feet attached to it, it will likely survive an EMP. this goes whether the system is unpowered or powered up. systems with lengthy metallic wires will be most affected –– this includes the power grid. interestingly, every year the telecommunications networks (both voice and data) become more and more resistant to EMP. the network survival scenarios i looked at starting at AT&T Bell Labs 20 years ago are far different now due to the widespread use of optical fiber interconnections rather than metallic cables. see also this link. |
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Quoted:
I'm sure this has been asked before but my search feature only goes back 30 days. I've googled EMP's before and it basically comes back with info stating that it's not as big of an issue as the movies and such make it out to be as a doomsday weapon. Meaning it's hardly going to fry every single car, in the country. But........... I still would like to have a plan should the threat present itself. So my question is to prevent your electronics such as cars, house from damage, is it as simple as killing the power on your electronics like unhooking the car's battery, taking batteries out of cell phones, and for the house removing yourself from the grid as long as you don't live in the ground zero of the EMP blast? EMP is not so simple. Disconnecting your batteries is unlikely to have any effect one way or the other. Disconnecting yourself from the grid may well have some benefit, but I think it would be minor. Long lines act like an antenna for EMP and pull it in and destroy equipment on the grid such as switchgear and transformers. It is not real likely that EMP would be able to get past several transformers to hit your house's electrical system. It may well take out several transformers on the way to your house, but chances are your house won't get it. That is not a guarantee though. Just a moderately educated guess. And what is the chance that you will get a warning in time to disconnect your house from the grid? I would say close to nil. My moderately educated guess is that most electronics and electrical items will not be destroyed by EMP, but some certainly will. I don't think there is any way to predict how your stuff will fare. The nuclear tests in the Pacific in the 50s caused some power grid problems in Hawaii and a few places w/i the continental US IIRC, so even distance is no guarantee. OTOH, the fact that the damage was not all that widespread shows how unpredictable such things are. I suspect that more cars than not will survive and be usable after an EMP event, but that does you no good if your cars are some of the unlucky ones. And chances are that an EMP event would cause enough widespread disruption that even if your stuff was mostly unaffected, you will be in pain anyway. Your car might work, but the gas station is out of gas and no new shipments are coming in. Its not very satisfying to have a question that does not have a definitive answer, but thats just the way it is on this subject. Not unlike life itself being rather vague much of the time. |
| Most military vehicles(including armor) have nice big antennae on them, so if they don't have any warning there's a good chance that they'd get a good zap. Whether they'd be rendered inoperable or not is unknown, even though a lot of tests have been done under lab conditions. In the real world, it's pretty much still unknown exactly what would happen if somebody popped one over the central US. |
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Pulling the breaker would be a good idea, as would unplugging the cords (the wiring inside your house would make a decent antenna also.) Disconnecting an intergral or attached battery won't do anything, but there may be some adventage to powering down some electronics, espically recievers.
You can buy EMP protectors to block incomming EMP on signal, antenna, and power lines. It's been a while since I bought any, the common antenna protector I used (polyphaser ISO-NEMP) used to cost about $80. I've got acess to protectors, but I don't have any installed. I would put them on my ham gear if I kept it set up, but my HF rig stays in the box, and the VHF/UHF stuff in on the shelf, in the truck, or is handheld. I just don't mess with it much- not enought time. |