Advanced EMP Notes

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The non-public part of Comms in the AfterCrash on UrbanSurvival today.  As that article notes, you will have to adjust to an entirely different information world in the event of “an actual emergency.”  No reason not to herd a few neuron bursts in that direction while we can.

A note from military affairs contributor warhammer on EMP sets the tone for this morning’s discussion of how one might successfully prep for an EMP or massive HGD (*hard grid-down) event.  We’ll be doing this one a budget and with a purpose.

To round-out the concepts in the UrbanSurvival piece.

After some headlines and a check of how markets ended this options expiration week.

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25 thoughts on “Advanced EMP Notes”

  1. George

    While I’m not a subscriber, (wish I was), I would like to pass on some info from my former career as a manufacturing engineer. I worked for a very large corporation on a government project. The management of our division brought in one of the corp’s scientist who was an expert on EMP and gave a number of us a two day course on EMP.

    There was a lot of info to digest including mucho equations. The one thing that I still remember that may be the most important thing to remember was that the method of coupling of energy into a circuit was of paramount concern if your trying to defeat an EMP event.

    Primarily, many circuits look a Tank circuit to a high energy pulse.

    The use of filters to block the pulse was discussed as well as shielding. The path of coupling must be eliminated if your equipment is to survive an event.

    Everyone will say “sure, that obvious”! Not so much when you get into trying to implement an EMP protection program and still keep the functionality of your equipment.

    It been over 15 years since I had that class and memory fades. Unfortunately they did not let us keep the work books we used. They were classified!

    I hope this sheds a bit of light on this subject.

    • There are good Youtube videos showing how to make improvised faraday cages. Most of the information on specs for line and comm protection is no longer classified, and can be found on the web. Start with Transtector specs and white papers, and follow the ball of string. HEMP effects are really FAST.

    • RM, always enjoy your comments.

      Spend the 40 bucks and become a member. Lots of great ideas on The paid site and the money also supports George to keep doing the daily freebies.

      Well worth the money for entertainment value alone but the deeper dives from the daily freebies is worth 40 bucks for sure.

      • Good morning. i have off topic Question. i went river floating yesterday with some friends on the Colorado. I ended up hanging all day with a very very beautiful and super intelligent Wall Street power broker. We talked about stocks and trading the S&P 500 and shorts and puts and high frequency trading just all things of this nature. She was actually impressed at how much i knew. She had never heard of the Wymar Republic and few other things i knew. I spent 8 hours with her, i got seperated from the girl i wanted to hang out with.

        Anyway, she highly suggested i take my series 7. Which she is probably the 20th person who told me i should. She said she could probably get her firm to sponsor me. I have to take some other test first. I dont know if i have enough time before the collapse.

        I will send ya a picture George.

        Question is. Anyone else passed their series 7??? I guess you have to do like 4 or 5 other exams prior. What was your experience? Any advise?

        She said, “why the hell are you driving a dumptruck?? Your brain is marvelous. I said well, i like playing in the dirt and it gives me alot of time to be alone and think about stuff. She said you will have pleanty of time to spend thinking on the beachs of Fiji when your making a couple million a year. And a guy like you can easily make that. Plus you can remote in and trade anywhere in the world from your laptop.

        Fiji sounds wonderful. lol

        I told her i learned alot from George and reading alot of books. She didnt know about elliot wave or Fibonacci and few other things. Hmmmm why the hell not?!!

        She Jesus know more about this stuff than half the people in my firm. Hahahah

        She had her picture on the NasDaQ reader board for the day as one of the top female Traders.

        She is a yoga instructor too. Im supposed to go do Yoga this morning. im worn out. I ran 3 miles friday morning before breakfast, did deads and back after lunch, after dinner played 5 games of volleyball. The Saturday got up at 5am and did cardio, went river floating for 9 hours and then did arms in the gym and went in the pool for a few hours before bed. I dislike yoga. Always kicks my ass and then im ficxing some AC and doing squats and legs this afternoon and supposed to go to the driving range tonight.

        Hmmmmm any advice on the series 7 and all that??

        Learned a few things. Did you know 1/4 of the nations wealth vacations in Palm Springs in the winter? Also, did you know Bananas have 40% of the same DNA as Humans. Lol

        • Well, having seen Andy and this yung thin, all I can say is taker the Series 7 dude – follow beautiful wimmen with muny and somehow you’ll figure a way to make it all work out, lol

      • Thanks old man. Today is my birthday. i havent felt this alive in a few years. Since the divorce. I have been smiling so much the last few days my face hurts.

        Perhaps, as it was suggested. We can push the timeline for calamity forward another year into the future. It is inevitable.
        I will visit “them” in the other relms tonight and see what i can do. I have never asked “them” for anything. never not once. I dont even know how to ask. Hmmmmmmmmm. Its always a mix of “feelings” i sense when i walk into their council. I have no patience for the political crap even in the other relms. Lol

        I suppose,

        All we can do is the next right thing until we become the next right thing.

        Aye, that i will do. Order my SIE exam prep stuff tomorrow.

        Have a wonderful night in dream land.

      • Hi, George,

        Here’s wishing you a speedy and complete recovery. About your shop apron, you could always alphabetize the pockets just like the guy on the old TV show, “I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster”.

        Happy Birthday to Andy.

        I am wondering why all of these gorgeous and smart ladies who Andy has been meeting just happen to be in the clinic with him. Just curious as to why would they need to be there at all.

  2. The variables associated with different EMP scenarios vary so much that you are left with a range of possible effects that start with some electronics damaged to all electronics not in faraday cages hopelessly fried, and complete loss of all public utilities, transport, and communication. Radiation from meltdowns or nuclear jousting is the worst case consequential EMP scenario.
    The first line of defense in an EMP operating environment is non-electrics. Obtaining non-electric potable water and water storage is going to be the worst problem for most early on. Non-electric heating and cooking come next. Don’t forget about non-electric lighting. The most important electrics will be radios, and solar battery charging. Critical electronic components need to be stored in an improvised Faraday cage. Having a couple of lined garbage cans and some large metallized mylar storage bags on hand will allow you to shield large electric items, if you get an advanced warning, but don’t count on it. The radio(s) and battery chargers need to be stored in shielded storage.

    • AND batteries, because most rechargeable batteries are now chipped, and most people don’t know how to surgically amputate the chips…

      • OMG. You are saying that Tenenergy Centura NI-MH batteries might be chipped ??? Provide documentation references please.

      • Sorry, few (if any) NiMH rechargeable batteries are chipped, but I have to ask: If mission-critical, why aren’t you using Eneloops, or have upgraded to Li-Ion devices, and if not, why are your NiMH/Alkaline devices caged…?

      • I originally started using NiMH batteries for game cameras I have for security, because of recurring cost of alkalines. The batteries I bought for this purpose are still going strong a decade later, in rather severe environmental service. I have gradually swapped over all the radios, flashlights, lanterns and remotes, etc., to the low self-discharge NiMH batteries, so there is now quite an investment in technology that has served me well for a decade.
        Occasionally I will find a remote which requires alkaline batteries to function, and I use Busnell game cameras. I have found dual voltage 12vdc / 120 VAC chargers which I have several of.
        I don’t keep spare batteries in shielded enclosures, so the suggestion that they might be chipped left me going WTF??
        Just because a piece of electronics is unplugged doesn’t mean a stiff emp jolt won’t get it, especially with radios and battery chargers.The full-time shielding is for the most vulnerable and critical electronics backups. I need to put a spare 12 VDC cell charger in shielded storage. Refer to the unclassified Homeland whitepaper for priortizing vulnerability.

      • Okay, and understood.

        FWIW ALL Li-Ion rechargeable batteries which have “overcharge protection” or “discharge protection,” and “smart” NiCd rechargeables contain a micro-sized charge controller.

        Example:
        https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Lithium_Ionen_Akku_%C3%9Cberwachungselektronik.jpg

        For 14430s and 18650s (and I’d assume other conventional-cased batteries like AA/14500, C, and D cells, it is located under the positive cap. For power tool batteries, it is located near the contacts (yes, yer DeWalt and Makita batteries are chipped…) The CC is extremely fragile, and will sh!t itself given the least provocation, or in some cases, none at all (over the years I’ve had to remove the CC from two, otherwise healthy Makita LXT batteries… so quit throwin’ away them thar $150 batteries, an’ learn to use a pair of 4″ dikes and a soldering pencil…) When the CC dies, the battery will refuse to recharge and a “smart charger” will display an “error” idiot light. Since they go tango-uniform so readily, I have every reason to believe an EMP will kill them all, regardless of whether they are attached to something the pulse can use as an antenna, or not.

        Two daughters have some 14430-powered stage props. They have both chipped and unchipped batteries, in both 3.6v and 3.7v for these props. The batteries function the same. The chipped batteries appear to me to be roughly 1/100″ longer, so one CAN possibly tell the difference by inspection (bring your Mitutoyo) but it ain’t easy…

        My N/V toys all (except for the one beacon) take 18650-powered, and I’ve never seen a battery in this size that’s not chipped.

        ALSO: Speaking of batteries, I dunno if the folks at LI4U have found a workaround or way to “adjust” them, or not, but Civil Defense surplus radiation gadgetry requires a carbon-zinc “D” cell battery to function properly, and within its operating parameters. I jacked with these things for several years, couldn’t get them to function properly, and set ’em aside as “junk.” I mean, they’re resistator and cappysitter electronics, not proprietary LSIs, for cryin’ out loud…!

        Several years later I stumbled on the answer in a MIL-tech paper. The power and discharge profiles of the batteries are significantly different. Despite being electronically primitive, they are highly-sensitive, and the wrong battery discharge profile creates an irresolvable aberration in the device’s function.

        Ray-O-Vac still makes, and Radio Sh!t and Harbor Fright still market CZn batteries, and I’ve seen them at Big Lots recently, a time or two. The things work beautifully, and within spec (and yes, I have a calibrator) with the proper power cell…

    • There won’t be another.

      We (not just the U.S., but everybody in every developed country) have become too arrogant and conceited. I have serious doubts a present-day “Mother Teresa” or traditional “Dalai Lama” type person, if they even existed, could be handed limitless power and authority, and turn it down.

  5. From your Tower Of Knowledge, could you be so kind as to specifically suggest:

    1) The most appropriate Linux distro for us hoi-poloy to go get —
    (for now, I remain steadfast on Win7. I have the install disks.)

    2) The most appropriate Open Office version to find —
    (I’ve been an MSOffice slave for decades, but as a lot of The Fed
    seems to be using Open Office now, it seems a good idea.)

    3) The most appropriate (learn-able) graphics facility? Gymp? Something else?
    (I’m on Photoshop 7 — it’s old, but I know how to use it, and it meets my needs,
    and, again, I have the install disks…)

    • Debian or Ubuntu.

      https://www.debian.org/

      https://ubuntu.com/

      With any free *NIX, you download the distro, then burn it to CDs or DVDs to have actual distribution discs. Most LINUX distribution centers also provide images of the CD and DVD (and “jewel case”) labels, so you can print your own and have store-bought looking optical discs. Debian can be bought from a number of vendors. All they’ve done is download the latest stable release and the pix, then burned the images and printed the labels, and a price tag.

      Ubuntu is slightly easier to config, Debian is more powerful, and comes in preconfigured distros (I have “Jessie,” the distro from last year, in both “multimedia” and “hamradio” distro flavors, on thumbdrives, and will upgrade to “Stretch,” the latest distro when the “hamradio” and “design” packages become available.) Both can be cosmetically-configured in such a manner that its GUI is indistinguishable from any flavor of Windows from Win95 on…

      Gimp is one of many, It’s not as intuitive as Photoshop, but probably as powerful. OpenOffice is generally written for *NIX, then ported to Windows, so the LINUX distro of it will always be as new, or newer, than the Win version.

      Most LINUX distros come in a “hybrid” version, which can be copied to CDs or DVDs, or thumbdrives, and are bootable from those media. This provides you a “Live” distro. Configged to boot off CD or USB, your computer will boot the Live distro so you can run LINUX without disturbing your Windows. This allows you to “try-it” without installing, to see whether you like it. It also allows you to try a number of different flavors of *NIX to see if some are more-agreeable, or more aesthetically-pleasing, than others.

      Every LINUX distro has an available Windows emulator, so any Win software you’re physically or emotionally attached to, should run more-or-less just like it does on a Microsoft OS.* BTW, I keep copies of old Debian, Ubuntu, and Red Hat in my OS pile, along with old versions of DOS and Windows… ‘Never know if a machine might someday need to be thrown together, to access an archaic bit of hardware or software, with which modern machines are incompatible…

      *The emu won’t be as fast as Windows, but because *NIX is a much faster OS, the difference in speed is slight. YMMV, especially with processor-intensive work (like rendering raw video.) Rendering video will be much slower than Windows in an emu, but much faster than Windows, if you use a *NIX-native renderer, etc…

    • I’m running OpenOffice 4.1.3 and it does everything I need it to do. Use it primarily for spreadsheets. It’s free! Try it!

    • LibreOffice 6.3.x is still being maintained, and has distributions available for Windows, Linux, and Mac. I switched to it from OpenOffice, and use it on all platforms.
      Most of the popular full-featured distributions of Linux are derived from Debian. I would normally start with Debian for an install, and go to Linux Mint if there is a compatability issue. Linux Mint has a different type of installer.

  6. Thanks Nancy! They are not all in the Betty. I just meet people where ever i go. Im definitely not afraid to srick out my hand and say, Hi! Im mildly retarded but im house broken and i make a damn good pet. Hahahaha

    That or i just lightly punch them i the arm and say, hi. You are pretty! and do my best version of a bashful 5 year old little boy dance. Hahahahah!

    Hope you have the best day ever!

    • Happy Birthday Andy! I might have figured you for a Leo with your outgoing socially successful nature. I know a Leo girl who’s that way, but she won’t settle down with anyone.

      Your approaches seem to work well for you given your affect and nature. Some of us would creep out girls if we did something similar – it seems to be vibes or something. Around a university it’s positively dangerous with Title 9 and #MeToo today.

      Good luck with asking your entities about delaying bad times for a year or more – we’d all appreciate that.

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