shooterX

Haven't finished it yet, been studying for two exams I have to take before the end of June, but I am about 200 pages into it, and have really been enjoying the story thus far. Thanks for posting.

ExSoldier

Ummmmmm YUP! Back in 1990 I traded a used S&W 44 magnum "Mountain Gun" + $200 cash for one of the fabled AR15 "Green Guns" that was a true semi auto but had no sear block welded into the lower group. Thus all it required was a full auto sear to be installed. Or so I was informed. That's something I would not do, but appreciated the investment potential. I sold it in 1994 coinciding with the AWB at a gun show to a dealer with a table. I included another great deal I'd made: An original Colt 4X scope (made specifically for the AR/M16 family with a butterfly attachment for the carry handle. It had a Bullet Drop Compensator pre-calibrated for Military ball ammo by the factory that I'd purchased from a guy getting rid of some of his late son's stuff. He said make an offer and I said $50 and he said DEAL, so I did. The price I got I'll keep to myself but it was HUGE compared to the price I paid. Enough to turn around and buy 3 others. I might be able to make that same deal or a lot better in today's climate and that would be the first time since 1994. My point is that for the next four years prices ain't likely to drop much, so get a fund started!

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Former Infantry Captain; 20 yrs as an NRA Certified Instructor; Avid practitioner of the martial art: KLIK-PAO.

DCT

This was an enjoyable read! I got a bit addicted and plowed through it in the course of a few days. Some minor typo's and such, but who cares as it was fun and not nearly as predictable as I would have expected. I liked how it wasn't as much a manual or overly survivalist as Rawles (which I enjoyed .. but just don't see so many folks going to such planning extremes .. maybe I'm alone here).

Well worth reading IMHO!

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** Sig P229 (9mm / .40) w/ CT / Walther PPS / Glock 27 / Kimber CDP Pro II **

elkhunter

I just started reading......
I'll get back to you in a few days.

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It’s so much easier now days, to "Love and honor" my wife, when she is armed, and shoots a better group than I do. (Till death do us part, eh?)

"The original point & click device was a Smith & Wesson" -Unknown

Tiny85

Fun read. started reading on the 17th. not many typos that jumped out at me. near the end they started getting repetitive with the recap on how many days it had been and "its amazing how much everything had changed in only (fill in number of days here)." Started to feel like they did a day count in every chapter. Warning this book is very addictive.


On a side note I know a lot of us have some Bugout plans or ideas, this book really brings to light (no pun intended) the challenege presented if all our cars and trucks stop functioning. how hard would it be if we're forced to make those same bug out plans reality on foot.

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There's nothing wrong with shooting so long as the right people get shot. -- Dirty Harry Calahan

ExSoldier

In that case, I'm fully prepared to "shelter in place." Of course, I live in the middle of Hurricane Alley where every right thinking citizen or illegal understands the inherent dangers. Life goes on in Miami, FL but everybody stocks up this time of year on storm supplies, including ammo.

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Former Infantry Captain; 20 yrs as an NRA Certified Instructor; Avid practitioner of the martial art: KLIK-PAO.

shooterX

I finally finished reading this story, I had to study for a couple of exams, so it took longer than normal. Gives food for thought. Like ExSoldier, I live in a hurricane prone area and am prepared to live in place without power and water, have done it in the past. Hope things never come to this, but who knows what the future holds.

AceHi

I have read this book several times and think it is very entertaining and one of my favorites. It caused me to start doing research regarding the effects of EMP. There is very little real info available - most of it is just theoretical. Also, there is a considerable disagreement on the magnitude of the problem EMP would cause. Most believe we will lose the power grid for an extended period of time (dependent on many variables), maybe for years. There is not a consenus on the effect on cars, but without power, getting around will still be limited. Better start thinking about the basics - water, food, heat, etc. and how to get them without power.

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NRA Life Member

ExSoldier

I just posted this over at Conservative Stronghold, but since this seems to be "on topic," I'll post to this discussion:

ExSoldier's NOTE: This may not provide 100% protection, but at least you can give yourself a fighting chance!

A Faraday cage or Faraday shield is an enclosure formed by conducting material, or by a mesh of such material. Such an enclosure blocks out external static electrical fields. Faraday cages are named after physicist Michael Faraday, who built one in 1836.

An external static electrical field will cause the electrical charges within the conducting material to redistribute themselves so as to cancel the field's effects in the cage's interior. This effect is used, for example, to protect electronic equipment from lightning strikes and other electrostatic discharges.

To a large degree, Faraday cages also shield the interior from external electromagnetic radiation if the conductor is thick enough and any holes are significantly smaller than the radiation's wavelength. For example, certain test procedures of electronic components or systems that require an environment devoid of electromagnetic interference may be conducted within a so-called screen room. These screen rooms are essentially labs or work areas that are completely enclosed by one or more layers of fine metal mesh or perforated sheet metal. The metal layers are connected to earth ground to dissipate any electric currents generated from the external electromagnetic fields, and thus block a large amount of the electromagnetic interference. This application of Faraday cages is explained under electromagnetic shielding.

History

In 1836 Michael Faraday observed that the charge on a charged conductor resided only on its exterior and had no influence on anything enclosed within it. To demonstrate this fact he built a room coated with metal foil and allowed high-voltage discharges from an electrostatic generator to strike the outside of the room. He used an electroscope to show that there was no electric charge present on the inside of the room's walls.

The same effect was predicted earlier by Francesco Beccaria (1716–1781) at the University of Turin, a student of Benjamin Franklin, who stated that "all electricity goes up to the free surface of the bodies without diffusing in their interior substance." Later, the Belgian physicist Louis Melsens (1814–1886) applied the principle to lightning conductors. Another researcher of this concept was Gauss (Gaussian surfaces).

How a Faraday cage works


An external electrical field causes the charges to rearrange which cancels the field inside.


A Faraday cage is best understood as an approximation to an ideal hollow conductor. Externally applied electric fields produce forces on the charge carriers (usually electrons) within the conductor, generating a current that rearranges the charges. Once the charges have rearranged so as to cancel the applied field inside, the current stops.

If a charge is placed inside an ungrounded Faraday cage the internal face of the cage will be charged (in the same manner described for an external charge) to prevent the existence of a field inside the body of the cage. However, this charging of the inner face would re-distribute the charges in the body of the cage. This charges the outer face of the cage with a charge equal in sign and magnitude to the one placed inside the cage. since the internal charge and the inner face cancel each other out, the spread of charges on the outer face is not affected by the position of the internal charge inside the cage. So for all intents and purposes the cage will generate the same electric field it would generate if it was simply charged by the charge placed inside.

If the cage is grounded the excess charges will go to the ground instead of the outer face, so the inner face and the inner charge will cancel each other out and the rest of the cage would remain neutral.

The cage will block external electrical fields even if the cage contains some charges and an electric field in its interior. This is a consequence of the superposition principle and the fact that the Maxwell equations are linear.

A Faraday cage will not shield its contents from static magnetic fields. However, rapidly-changing magnetic fields create electric fields in accordance with Maxwell's equations. The conductors cancel the electric fields and therefore the changing magnetic fields as well. The wall materials' thickness and skin depth set the frequency at which the cage suppresses electromagnetic fields. Static or slowly-changing magnetic fields penetrate the cage; rapidly-changing ones do not.

Real-world Faraday cages

Mobile phones and radios may have no reception inside elevators or similar structures. Some traditional architectural materials act as Faraday shields in practice. These include plaster with metal lath, and rebar reinforced concrete. These affect the use of cordless phones and wireless networks inside buildings and houses.

The cooking chamber of the microwave oven itself is a partial Faraday cage enclosure which prevents the microwaves from escaping into the environment. these ovens can still have a strong effect on electronics operating within the frequency of microwaves such as phones and wireless networks.

Coaxial cables are in fact data cables wrapped by a hollow, flexible conductor, effectively a Faraday cage.

RFID passport and credit card shielding sleeves are small, portable Faraday cages.

Some United States national security buildings are contained in Faraday cages, intended to act as a TEMPEST shield, and possibly also as a mitigation against electromagnetic pulse.

A teacher in the UK has come up with the idea to curb cheating (via text message using cell phones) in examinations by lining every exam room with a Faraday-like cage.[1]

Cars and aircraft. When lightning strikes an aircraft or a car the electric currents induced on it are forced to travel on the outer skin of the vehicle's body. Other signals such as mobile phone signals penetrate the skin of cars and aircraft because the wavelength of the signal is significantly smaller than the holes present on the surface of the conductor (the windows). The BBC television program Top Gear once sat the presenter Richard Hammond in a car while it was struck by a simulated lightning bolt of 800,000 volts at the Siemens High-Voltage lab in Berlin. [2]

The Discovery Channel television show Mythbusters used a Faraday cage made from a brass mesh to "cancel out" radio signals that might have interfered with the consistency of an experiment.

In scientific environments such as the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Greenbank, West Virginia, Faraday cages are used to enclose computer equipment rooms that, despite being vital to the cause, interfere with experiments involving radio astronomy. The cages block the electromagnetic waves that skew data and could damage radio telescopes. Pulsed high-voltage experiments also use such Faraday cages to protect sensitive electronics from the experiments' electromagnetic pulses. In this context, the cages are often called "screen rooms."

Antistatic bags form a Faraday cage around the enclosed electronic components.

Faraday cages have been built into wearable suits, allowing high-voltage workers to sit directly on power lines.[3]

Wifi signals are often confined inside of a building, especially if the building has metal siding.

The internal metal part of Xbox 360 is a Faraday cage.[4]

The effectiveness of a Faraday cage or shield is dependent upon the wavelength of the electric or electromagnetic fields it is intended to shield. This explains why a microwave oven, for example, can perform such shielding from the observer peering through the metal mesh screened "window" at the front of the oven to watch the cooking process take place. The holes are sized such that the waves within the oven cannot pass through even though visible light which has a much shorter wavelength easily passes through the holes. This also explains how cell phones have improved in building performance using the higher frequencies (shorter wavelengths) of EMFs than the earlier predecessors, notwithstanding improved digital modulation algorithms in so called 3G handsets today and later standards forthcoming. Quality levels of shielding also depend upon the types of metals used in the cages as well as the thicknesses.
SEE ALSO:

Michael Faraday
Frieder Kempe
Anechoic chamber
Conductive textile


Faraday Cage Protects from 100,000 V :: Physikshow Uni Bonn
Physics lecture on Faraday cages from Michigan State University

ExSoldier's parting note: I STILL had to have this 'splained to me and it was put like this: Want your car to survive an EMP burst? Line your garage all the way around the vehicle with "small hole" chicken wire, so that it forms a total enclosure when you close the garage door. To protect smaller items sink a metal garbage can into concrete also lined with chicken wire and put things like cell phones, video cameras, digital still cameras, night vision gear, etc.

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Former Infantry Captain; 20 yrs as an NRA Certified Instructor; Avid practitioner of the martial art: KLIK-PAO.

mcp1810

If you are really worried about an EMP event, but don't want to clue family or neighbors in, classic cars can be a great hobby. With an old fashioned carb and breaker point ignition about all you are going to lose is the radio. You might want to keep a spare coil and condensor in your metal tool box or a filing cabinet in the garage. You could even stash a circa 1978 HEI distributor and module in the box that you just never seem to get around to installing.
Old mechanically injected Diesel engines are nice too. And with Diesel you can make your own fuel if you have to.

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Waiting on the research and verification.......