Detailed Guide to Protecting Radio Equipment from EMP Threat
billj 07.20.17
I love me some EMP-related prepping guides, especially in this era where the Norks now have a nuke that can quite possibly reach US shores. I rate the odds of an actual EMP attack at far lower than I do a nasty, civilization-ending solar flare, but the preps for both are the same.
That’s my long-winded way of saying that this in-depth article at ITS Tactical is eminently worth your time.
So how might we protect electronic devices, including communications equipment, from injury or death as a result of EMP? Long ago, I advocated the metal ammunition container as a Faraday Chamber approach. However, in lieu of replacing the rubber gasket with a copper screen and rendering the container no longer air and watertight, I recommended wrapping the lid/can body interface with metallic plumbers tape (the real duct tape). Spark generator tests producing an EMP indicate this approach greatly increases container protection.
The very small gap between the metallic foil and the underlying metal of the container caused by the adhesive in the foil and paint layer is insignificant and offers a barrier to all but the very highest radio frequency energies (beyond microwave).
A simple way to greatly reduce the vulnerability of valued electronics to EMP is to nest metal ammunition containers, suitably insulated from one another. Each container/lid interface should be taped with metal foil and gasket treated with Jet Lube. Aluminum medical chests will hold large munition cans such as the CNU 405 or two .50 caliber ammunition containers.
Either the medical chest or CNU 405 container will hold larger electronics without nesting, but this will reduce protection.
These containers all have rubber gaskets to ensure air and water tightness, which is of great utility in itself. Each metal container in the nested series should be carefully cleaned out and repainted as needed. Rust-Oleum spray camouflage paint is both durable and contains a rust inhibitor.
It goes on like that. And on and on and on. Most of these how-to prep guides are cheap clickbait traffic grabs, but this is an honest-to-God detailed, in-depth look at EMP prepping.
So go read it, and learn how to protect your radios from EMP.
(You do have radios for comms and news, don’t yet? Please tell me you’re prepping a halfway decent radio setup… If you aren’t, then first run out and get some short- and medium-range radios that you can use for comms, and a solar-powered radio for getting the news. Then come back and learn to cache them.)
