OT: EMP and Equipment

[Allison]

>
>Subject: OT: EMP and Equipment
>   From: Al Hartman <alhartman at yahoo.com>

>Let's say that tomorrow, and EMP weapon is employed
>over a major city in this country.
>
>Is there anything an average citizen can do to protect
>their Computers (Classic or otherwise)?

Yes.


>Would having them unplugged help?

Yes.


>Or must they be shielded in some way?

It would help.

The reason for the terse questions is your asking a broad 
question.  Basically EMP is a sudden expansion then contraction
of a magnetic field. From basic electronics there are two ways
to generate power using magnets (or their fields) one is to move
the wire and the other is to move the magnet.

The amount of energy induced into a wire is dependent on how many
lines of force you traverse and thats related to how strong the 
magnets field is (also how close).

We get EMP from two sources, one common.  The nuke version can 
be very strong but if your close enough for EMP then you may be
too close to worry.  The other common source is lightinging, every 
bolt we see represents a momentary huge current that collapses 
very quckly with the attendent magnetic fields. There are two 
protection methods applied for lightining.  One being electrostatic
and the other recognizes the electromagnetic.  Protection for the
latter is simple most of the time.  Disconnect the power cord, 
antennas, and any control lines.  In short remove any "wires" that
can have an induced field and transfer that voltage inside to the 
sensitive parts.  Ideally for complete protection a iron or steel
case with no breaks is best protection against near misses.  In 
both cases distance fromthe event is a really good thing as 
magnetic fields are squarelaw IE: at twice the distance it's 
one quarter strength.

So yes you can protect your hardware, assuming your far enough
away to survive. You still ahve to worry about high energy 
particles (neutrons, beta and gamma particles) and other 
radiations ( Xrays and infared).



Allison