SHTF Radio preparation and models?

[Lscott]

I thought this might be a topic with general interest.

How many out there have specifically prepped one or more radios, chargers, battery packs, programming cables, software and computers to safe guard against an EMP event or similar. That would be specifically Faraday boxes etc. to store the above items.

If you have what radio(s) are you going to bet your life on and how did you do the prep? I’ve read about stuff as simple as a “shielded” bag to double storing sensitive electronics in metal trash cans stored inside of another while metallic tape used to seal the edges etc.

The “event” doesn’t have to be human generated. Something like a huge CME would do.

https://www.history.com/news/a-perfect-solar-superstorm-the-1859-carrington-event

[SteveShannon]

5 minutes ago, Lscott said:

I thought this might be a topic with general interest.

How many out there have specifically prepped one or more radios, chargers, battery packs, programming cables, software and computers to safe guard against an EMP event or similar. That would be specifically Faraday boxes etc. to store the above items.

If you have what radio(s) are you going to bet your life on and how did you do the prep? I’ve read about stuff as simple as a “shielded” bag to double storing sensitive electronics in metal trash cans stored inside of another while metallic tape used to seal the edges etc.

The “event” doesn’t have to be human generated. Something like a huge CME would do.

https://www.history.com/news/a-perfect-solar-superstorm-the-1859-carrington-event

Always keep at least one radio in the gun safe.

[WRKC935]

Here's the issue with this.

We don't know what we don't know when it comes to an EMP.  And much of what we do know about it, or think we know comes from Hollywood where all the battery powered everything from automobiles to wrist watches are going to throw sparks all over the place and fry in a very dramatic manner.

Yet it's said that old tube gear will be fine.  Which honestly makes little sense. 

So here's what I know about it.  And this comes from being an R56 certified installer and digging deeper into the bonding and grounding aspect of it.

First thing is you can't 'prevent' lightning, you can only attempt to prepare for it and hope you have done all that is needed.  We all know some CB operator that disconnects his antenna cables in puts them in a glass jar.  News flash on that.  Lightning jumps up to 9 miles during a strike.  That little bit of glass, the 6 to 8 inches of rubber on a car tire or whatever is NOT going to stop the strike.  And in truth, disconnecting the antenna cable if the cable and antenna isn't grounded at all past the shield being connected to the chassis ground of the equipment actually increases the chance of a strike. Glass jar be damned.  The antenna has no where to bleed off the charge that builds up on it and it actually becomes a better path to ground because it's charged and other stuff isn't.  Less of a voltage difference.  Yeah, you may see some arcing on the connector in the jar, but that is an indication of the very thing I am talking about. 

You ground and bond everything to a common point to bleed off that charge.  But you also bond it all together for when it does get hit.  If you have a  couple radios, a computer, power supply and such all connected together as a station, and your your tower gets hit.  If EVERYTHING is bonded, then all that gear jumps to several thousand volts and then back to zero,,, but it all does it at once since it's bonded together.    If you remove that bonding.  Lets say on the computer you are using for HF packet and the power supply.  Now all of a sudden, there is several thousand volts of potential difference between the power supply the computer and the radio.  Guess what happens.  

So back to the EMP business.

An EMP is nothing more than a light lightning strike.  And if you think about that statement, think about lightning and the voltages and currents present you will realize that 10 million amps across a number 2 or even a 4/0 wire is going to be THOUSANDS of volts in the wire.  Yet, towers get hit all the time.  R56 is a standard used for 911 centers where they CAN'T unhook their antenna's and stop working during a storm.  And if there is a tower at the center with radios connected to it and the dispatch console, then there is a direct DC path (considering the voltage potential of lightning) from the top of that mast to the headset of the dispatcher. 

So what do we really know about an EMP?  Do we need to stick radios in Faraday cages to expect them to survive the pulse?  What happened to all the electronic equipment (yes it was tube back in the day) when the US and Russia would test nukes in Nevada and the island chains they were known for?  And when did the testing actually stop?  Well the US's last test was in 1992.  And the North Korean's was in 2017.  Yet there is no information available about peoples cars stopping, radios dying, or any of that.  So at what point would you need to store a radio in a Faraday Cage in order to protect it?  And the answer is striking.  If the EMP is that strong, the radio would need to be stored 30 to 50 feet below ground in a Faraday Cage to survive because you are close enough that the blast wave will destroy it at ground level.  Now of course connected to the grid, and an antenna that distance increases, but not if you have proper bonding and grounding and correct surge suppression on the equipment in question. 

Antenna size and type will also play a role in this.  A big HF antenna like a 40 meter dipole will take a bigger induced voltage than a UHF DC grounded folded dipole Like a DB-404 or other DB series base station antenna.  This is due to the design of the antenna.  Folded dipoles are closed loops with one end being grounded.  HF type dipoles are open ended and typically are NOT grounded.  In fact the standard half wave dipole is suppose to be a balanced design.  So in theory a balun of proper design can be used with an HF dipole to protect the antenna to some degree when coupled with a proper surge suppressor. 

A good reference for this stuff is the Military grounding and bonding manual that goes into not only lightning suppression but EMP mitigation.

 

[Lscott]

7 hours ago, WRKC935 said:

Yet there is no information available about peoples cars stopping, radios dying, or any of that.

https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/the-first-time-the-us-tested-an-emp-weapon-was-a-doozy/

A lightning strike is not the same as a nuke produced EMP pulse or a solar flare. However it can exhibit similar effects. 
 

The main effect is the high electrical field intensity in volts per meter. For nukes that could be in the range of thousands of volts per meter. 
 

https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2021/01/f82/FINAL HEMP MEMO_1.12.21_508.pdf

[WRXB215]

Not everyone will be in the worst part of an EMP. I think it's worth doing what we can to protect some communications devices.

[marcspaz]

 

I have a few things prepped for just such a thing... including some gear store well outside the predicted EMP blast range of my area.  (Everyone should learn how to ride a horse, btw.  Unless you own a CUCV, vehicles will be dead.)

 

There are two ways to protect radios (and other electronics) against an EMP. The first is metallic shielding made of a continuous piece of metal.  Steel or copper are good choices.  Unfortunately, a metal enclosure doesn't always fully shield the interior because of the small holes that are likely to exist in the structure or the metal plates, themselves. This type of shielding often requires additional elements to create a barrier.  A multi-tier system. 

The second method, buy a radio (or other device) that has tailored hardening.  The manufactures protect the vulnerable elements and circuits.  They are redesigned to be more rugged. The idea is to use parts that are able to withstand much higher currents, making existing systems less vulnerable.

 

@WRKC935  An EMP can break more than just semiconductors.  Semiconductor devices fail when they encounter an EMP because of the local heating that occurs. Usually due to excessive current due to the electro-magnetic pulse.  Think of it like a short being introduced by a high-voltage external source.  However, wires, fuses and even things like vacuum tube based circuits can be damaged.

[SteveShannon]

@WRKC935 I really appreciate everything you said about lightning protection, but EMP is different. The fact that we haven’t been damaged by EMPs when the North Koreans tested their nukes really isn’t very indicative of anything.  If those tests had been done in the upper atmosphere it might be different, but they were done in tunnels within mountains.

[PA141]

Not related to direct protection, but I recommend removing batteries from devices where possible.  All of my HT's seem to self discharge when powered off.  You can make it a habit to check/recharge them, but then you are subjecting the battery to charging cycles.  Disconnected batteries should have a much slower discharge cycle, hopefully fairly long with a good battery design.

Stored items tend to be forgotten and having a discharged battery when needed is inconvenient at best.

[WRKC935]

12 hours ago, Sshannon said:

@WRKC935 I really appreciate everything you said about lightning protection, but EMP is different. The fact that we haven’t been damaged by EMPs when the North Koreans tested their nukes really isn’t very indicative of anything.  If those tests had been done in the upper atmosphere it might be different, but they were done in tunnels within mountains.

And that was my whole point.  Thing is that the South Korea and China saw no damage either.  And I was at a loss to find any information on damage done in the US from tests when they were conducted, which was the point of what I said. 

EMP is a real thing, and I am not trying to minimize the effects of it when it comes to things like the electrical grid. 

But to hear some people talk about an EMP is that anyone with ear rings in will be electrocuted by the voltage induced between them across your head.  We had cars with computers in the 90's.  No one seemed to be effected by the EMP from any of the testing in that era.  Sure those detonations were below ground.  But if the EMP is that powerful to effect every car in the midwest from a high altitude air burst then how is it that no one was effected at all during any of the testing.  Or were those effects just not documented?  I don't know. 

 

[Lscott]

It’s the high altitude air burst are the dangerous ones for EMP.

https://doh.wa.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/Documents/Pubs/320-090_elecpuls_fs.pdf

[axorlov]

This paper mentions 1.4 MT nuke in the first part, as a practical tested example, and later mentions "EMP weapon in a briefcase". 1.4 MT charge is a lot larger than a briefcase.  If any actor detonates 1.4 MT over Kansas at altitude of 250 miles, I'm not going to worry about my radios or electronics. In that case, I'm sure I will be issued M4 or any sibling of it, and whatever else is needed to support the mission, be it radios or semaphore flags.

For solar events, we likely will have an advance warning. I know, it's only 8 minutes for light to get from Sun to our miserable planet, but coronal bursts take days to cover the distance. I already have enough of kitchen foil to wrap all the radios, computers, phones, playstation, etc. Kitchen foil makes an awesome Faraday cage.

[SteveShannon]

2 hours ago, axorlov said:

This paper mentions 1.4 MT nuke in the first part, as a practical tested example, and later mentions "EMP weapon in a briefcase". 1.4 MT charge is a lot larger than a briefcase.  If any actor detonates 1.4 MT over Kansas at altitude of 250 miles, I'm not going to worry about my radios or electronics. In that case, I'm sure I will be issued M4 or any sibling of it, and whatever else is needed to support the mission, be it radios or semaphore flags.

For solar events, we likely will have an advance warning. I know, it's only 8 minutes for light to get from Sun to our miserable planet, but coronal bursts take days to cover the distance. I already have enough of kitchen foil to wrap all the radios, computers, phones, playstation, etc. Kitchen foil makes an awesome Faraday cage.

The briefcase “EMP weapon” was given as an example of a non-nuclear weapon that could be used against sensitive targets without directly causing loss of life. 

[axorlov]

Cool, I did not know the non-nuke EMP weapons exist, and I did not know it is not a novel concept. Took me some reading to grasp the clever tech behind it.

Still, the area of damage of non-nuke EMP is tiny small, and this is the treat I refuse to account for. Life is too damn short for things like that. On the other hand, nuke EMP is a different thing, and should not be treated as a separate from full-on nuclear strike.

[SteveShannon]

7 hours ago, axorlov said:

Cool, I did not know the non-nuke EMP weapons exist, and I did not know it is not a novel concept. Took me some reading to grasp the clever tech behind it.

Still, the area of damage of non-nuke EMP is tiny small, and this is the treat I refuse to account for. Life is too damn short for things like that. On the other hand, nuke EMP is a different thing, and should not be treated as a separate from full-on nuclear strike.

I spent the last 13 years of my career in the control center for an electric transmission system. I supervised the team that maintained the Energy Management System (SCADA) software and hardware that controlled the electric transmission system.  We spent nearly all our time making sure the Energy Management System worked well with hot swap redundancy at every level in the control center.  Every electric transmission system has such a control system which controls energy transmission substations across huge sections of our three national grids.  Loss of a single control center or our largest substations has significant effects on the grid. Fortunately, such losses happen very infrequently and our systems are built to be restored quickly.

But, those EMP weapons, tiny as you say, would be sufficient to completely destroy the controls for our largest electric substations and control centers. Or any other cyber or communications infrastructure.

I think an atmospheric nuke, causing an EMP as a side effect, is a highly unlikely occurrence.  There are only a few countries which have the capability and for the most part there are checks and balances.  

But, it’s just a matter of time before a suitcase sized EMP only device is deployed by some small political or religious extremist group.  It’s the ideal weapon for group that might wish to “bring our evil society to its knees” but that might also have a fundamental aversion to taking lives.

[WRWH978]

Would ammo (metal) boxes work? Something like this?

https://www.minutemanstove.com/products/minuteman-faraday-emp-electronics-protection-box?variant=40623487287375

If so, would be a good way to stash an emergency radio and some accessories.

[WRXB215]

@Sshannon What are your thoughts on the Chinese balloon that crossed the US? It was quite large and some say it could have carried a very large EMP device.

[SteveShannon]

20 minutes ago, WRXB215 said:

@Sshannon What are your thoughts on the Chinese balloon that crossed the US? It was quite large and some say it could have carried a very large EMP device.

That would surprise me, but I have no actual knowledge.  My gut tells me it was more likely just for electronic surveillance, slowly passing over the US collecting signals while passing intelligence to Chinese satellites to be relayed back to China.  

[SteveShannon]

35 minutes ago, WRWH978 said:

Would ammo (metal) boxes work? Something like this?

https://www.minutemanstove.com/products/minuteman-faraday-emp-electronics-protection-box?variant=40623487287375

If so, would be a good way to stash an emergency radio and some accessories.

I don’t know for sure, but I would be optimistic. But for God’s sake don’t pay $100 for one just because a preppier supply company sells it.  Find a local surplus store.  I think I paid $10 for a 30 mm ammo can a few years back.  If you absolutely cannot find something locally at least shop around:

https://www.cleanammocans.com/50-cal-ammo-cans.html

[Lscott]

1 hour ago, WRXB215 said:

@Sshannon What are your thoughts on the Chinese balloon that crossed the US? It was quite large and some say it could have carried a very large EMP device.

I have a few thoughts on that. While a lot of criticism was leveled at the government for waiting to shoot it down over the ocean there might have been a legitimate security reason for it. Getting photos is one thing, but I think the main purpose was to monitor our military communications systems and gage our response procedures and times to an unknown threat. If China invades Tiawan that would be very valuable Intel. Waiting until it was over the ocean to respond sort of wasted their efforts in that area.

[marcspaz]

On 9/7/2023 at 9:04 AM, Sshannon said:

I don’t know for sure, but I would be optimistic. But for God’s sake don’t pay $100 for one just because a preppier supply company sells it.  Find a local surplus store.  I think I paid $10 for a 30 mm ammo can a few years back.  If you absolutely cannot find something locally at least shop around:

https://www.cleanammocans.com/50-cal-ammo-cans.html

 

 

The idea of paying for an ammo can blows my mind.  For decades I have been getting them for free as packaging when I buy ammo.  I have lost count of the ones I threw away because I have too many of them and no room to store them once the ammo has been fired.

[SteveShannon]

23 minutes ago, marcspaz said:

 

 

The idea of paying for an ammo can blows my mind.  For decades I have been getting them for free as packaging when I buy ammo.  I have lost count of the ones I threw away because I have to many of them and no room to store them one the ammo has been fired.

I agree for smaller cans, but I don’t buy much (any) 30mm.  

[UncleYoda]

1 hour ago, WRWH978 said:

Would ammo (metal) boxes work?

I tested an ammo box using radios (2m HT with rubber duck antenna) and it still RXed.  I figured it was because of the rubber gasket.  Old gutted microwave worked though.

[UncleYoda]

1 hour ago, WRXB215 said:

@Sshannon What are your thoughts on the Chinese balloon that crossed the US? It was quite large and some say it could have carried a very large EMP device.

It wasn't high enough, not even close, to cover a large area.  And yes I saw it, and 2 fighter jets that approached it.

[marcspaz]

22 minutes ago, Sshannon said:

I agree for smaller cans, but I don’t buy much (any) 30mm.  

 

Got to get the 40 mike mike training rounds for the under-barrel. LoL 

[SteveShannon]

20 minutes ago, UncleYoda said:

I tested an ammo box using radios (2m HT with rubber duck antenna) and it still RXed.  I figured it was because of the rubber gasket.  Old gutted microwave worked though.

Good to know.  I’m surprised.  I wonder if the addition of metal tape around the lid would help.