Pages: 1 [2]   Go Down

Author Topic: Emergency Preparedness Concerns  (Read 1559 times)

WB8VLC

  • Member
  • Posts: 1155
Re: Emergency Preparedness Concerns
« Reply #15 on: February 21, 2022, 09:41:45 AM »

A solar storm  an order of  magnitude greater than the 1859 event would be well worth it just to see the look on Musk-Rats face when his RatsLink satellites flameout.
Logged

AC7CW

  • Member
  • Posts: 1789
Re: Emergency Preparedness Concerns
« Reply #16 on: February 21, 2022, 10:19:37 AM »

A solar storm  an order of  magnitude greater than the 1859 event would be well worth it just to see the look on Musk-Rats face when his RatsLink satellites flameout.

That calls to mind the idea that satphones might not work after a major solar event...
Logged
Novice 1958, 20WPM Extra now... (and get off my lawn)

KK4GMU

  • Member
  • Posts: 366
Re: Emergency Preparedness Concerns
« Reply #17 on: February 21, 2022, 02:16:46 PM »

A solar storm  an order of  magnitude greater than the 1859 event would be well worth it just to see the look on Musk-Rats face when his RatsLink satellites flameout.

That calls to mind the idea that satphones might not work after a major solar event...
Right.  Without satellites working,  there is an excellent chance "satellite" phones won't be working, either. :o

Never mind a "mere" solar event.  There are at least two nations (Russia, China, and maybe North Korea) who have the capability to knock out one or many more of our satellites at will.
Logged
IC-7100, RSPdx, AT-D878UVII-Plus HT, TGIF Spot

K4PIH

  • Member
  • Posts: 117
Re: Emergency Preparedness Concerns
« Reply #18 on: February 21, 2022, 04:47:25 PM »

A solar storm  an order of  magnitude greater than the 1859 event would be well worth it just to see the look on Musk-Rats face when his RatsLink satellites flameout.

Didn't this scenario play out about a week ago? A solar event pushed a portion of the starlink sats into an even LEO and they did not have the umph to get back up so they came down in a nice display.
Logged

K4PIH

  • Member
  • Posts: 117
Re: Emergency Preparedness Concerns
« Reply #19 on: February 21, 2022, 04:52:06 PM »

A solar storm  an order of  magnitude greater than the 1859 event would be well worth it just to see the look on Musk-Rats face when his RatsLink satellites flameout.

That calls to mind the idea that satphones might not work after a major solar event...


Right.  Without satellites working,  there is an excellent chance "satellite" phones won't be working, either. :o

Never mind a "mere" solar event.  There are at least two nations (Russia, China, and maybe North Korea) who have the capability to knock out one or many more of our satellites at will.

So this is just the problem I'm tying to solve. At work I keep getting pushed to get Iridium Sat phones in all my locations and I keep explaining that a Sat phone in not the end all to communications problems.
Logged

KB8VUL

  • Member
  • Posts: 654
Re: Emergency Preparedness Concerns
« Reply #20 on: February 21, 2022, 08:23:27 PM »

Do any of you go back and READ what you have written after the fact?
Some of you need to read the childrens book "Chicken Little" because you are also convinced the Sky is falling.

"We NEED TUBE RADIOS' because the that damn solid state stuff will never survive.
DO you KNOW anything about an EMP outside what some other ham told you at an ARES meeting?
YOUR HAMS for God sakes.  Figure this out.
EMP induced voltages are going to apply to the length of a conductor that the field is induced across.  If a radio sitting on a shelf with NO antenna or power cord is connected to it is fried by the EMP pulse then you are gonna get shocked to death by the metal button on your pants and the frames of your glasses or the keys in your pocket. 

Will there be enough voltage induced on a dipole antenna or other vertical stick antenna to blow a radio up, maybe.  Is it going to induce enough voltage to toast a radio connected to a DC shorted antenna system, probably not. 

The utility lines that are out on the poles will have 10's or possibly 100's of thousands of volts inducted by am EMP.  But you shunt that to ground with a proper surge suppressor and move on. 
If you REALLY think that your HF radio is no safe, buy a second radio and put it in a metal box.  You know a Faraday cage, problem solved.  Line you 'go kit' with aluminum foil or whatever, but thinking that simply disconnecting the antenna and power cable is not enough without understanding that IF that were to happen and the inducted voltage was so great that the radio was fired and you would survive it is frankly ridiculous.  I have seen the after math of a direct lightning strike on a tower site that the grounding had failed on.  There were arc marks on filing cabinets that had inducted voltages high enough that it jumped 6 inches between the cabinets.  And there was STILL radio gear at that site the wasn't harmed. 
Logged

KB8VUL

  • Member
  • Posts: 654
Re: Emergency Preparedness Concerns
« Reply #21 on: February 22, 2022, 03:36:33 AM »

And don't be me and NOT proof read what you typed before posting it. 
Lest you have spelling and grammar errors all through your post. 
Logged

AC2EU

  • Member
  • Posts: 2793
    • McVey Electronics
Re: Emergency Preparedness Concerns
« Reply #22 on: February 28, 2022, 08:12:04 AM »

If someone is close enough to an EMP for that much induction, they are probably dead or soon will be. Comms not required.
Some asked how to power a tube radio. WWII radios worked on 6, 12 and 24V using dynamotors to generate the HV.

Also, the "emergency professionals" at EOCs, etc, never include hams in local emergencies around here. Even though they have an area inside the building!
Hams already know how to communicate, so why do they need to beg for info from the county? Waste of time.

I'm not very active on VHF, but I do find the "grass roots" efforts of the VHF ops to warn about road conditions and other dangers for travelers during emergencies very helpful. They are there and see it for themselves. No need for an "official report".

KD0VE

  • Member
  • Posts: 1490
Re: Emergency Preparedness Concerns
« Reply #23 on: March 06, 2022, 06:54:53 PM »

A big EMP event (either nuclear or a solar CME) would disable the grid for months or more likely years.  Congress funded a study in the mid 2000's that is very educational.  The estimates for American loss of life ranges from 50 to 90% after one year.  If that seems too high ask yourself how many people would be ok after a week of no electricity which for most would also mean no water, heat, or food.  People would be dying in droves within a week from drinking polluted water.

It's a relatively simple matter for hams to prep for this by storing an HF radio in a metal enclosure.  Since many hams have multiple rigs this could be easily done and the metal enclosure could be almost anything as long as it completely enclosed the electronics. 

Tube rigs are often cited as a good alternative but even a tube rig would likely suffer some significant damage if it was connected to an antenna when the EMP occurred.

An EMP is a truly scary scenario and given the failure of Congress and the utilities to take preventive actions it's been left to the individual to prepare as best he can.
Logged

KB8VUL

  • Member
  • Posts: 654
Re: Emergency Preparedness Concerns
« Reply #24 on: March 07, 2022, 04:02:05 AM »

A big EMP event (either nuclear or a solar CME) would disable the grid for months or more likely years.  Congress funded a study in the mid 2000's that is very educational.  The estimates for American loss of life ranges from 50 to 90% after one year.  If that seems too high ask yourself how many people would be ok after a week of no electricity which for most would also mean no water, heat, or food.  People would be dying in droves within a week from drinking polluted water.


An EMP is a truly scary scenario and given the failure of Congress and the utilities to take preventive actions it's been left to the individual to prepare as best he can.

Polluted water will take more than a week to kill you.  But the level of stomach discomfort WILL make you wish it had.
You failed to mention the other issue that will take a bit more than a week to be a significant reason that people are killed.  That being other people.  When faced with a real survival situation, people will revert back to 'any means necessary to survive.  It they THINK you have any supplies or food they will be willing to kill you for it.  And your radio will do you no good at this point.  No one to call for help.  The police will NOT be coming.

Sitting and blaming congress and the power companies for NOT doing something to mitigate the destruction of the grid due to am EMP is frankly silly.  There really isn't a good answer to that problem.  You are talking about an amount of energy that will be similar to a direct lightning strike or possibly worse. The electrical grid is well protected from a lightning strike due to grounding and creating paths to ground for lightning to follow instead of it hitting the live conductors.  This works well for lightning but will do NOTHING for an EMP as that is energy induced on anything conductive including the grounds and live conductors.  The longer the conductor the more voltage that's inducted.  The failure will be the breakdown of the insulation in the transformers feeding the live lines and arc over from the secondary of the transformers.  Again, not much that can be done to prevent this.  The transformers will be destroyed and once that happens, it will take months or years to repair. 

Transformers are wound by machines,  if you have no power, you are hand winding them.  That's a simple enough process for a pole pig that is 12 inches in diameter.  When you get into substation transformers that are the size of a large truck or bigger, things change.  And this is where the time will be required.  My guess is that many of them in this situation will be rewound on site because moving that stuff is not a simple task. 
And frankly, it's not something the average lineman is going to know how to do. 
And once stuff is STARTING to return to normal, the amount of rationing will be huge.  Fuel and food being the obvious things being rationed as the need for fuel for trucks and equipment to rework the grid will be top priority. 
Logged

KD0VE

  • Member
  • Posts: 1490
Re: Emergency Preparedness Concerns
« Reply #25 on: March 07, 2022, 04:57:29 AM »

"Polluted water will take more than a week to kill you."

Cholera from water polluted with fecal matter (which is a very likely scenario if all the waste treatment plants were off line) can kill you in a day.  In 1849 when the Oregon Trail was flooded with travelers headed for CA the water became polluted in many places on the trail and many people died.

from who.int:  "Cholera affects both children and adults and can kill within hours if untreated. Feb 5, 2021"   In an EMP scenario professional medical treatment would be unlikely.

There is a lot the utilities and Congress could do, not the least of which is buying and staging spare transformers and restoring the USA's ability to make the units.  Today the only sources are overseas and the lead time for a big unit is over 2 years.  A really energetic EMP would do great damage but the recovery period could be dramatically shortened by intelligent planning.
Logged

KB8VUL

  • Member
  • Posts: 654
Re: Emergency Preparedness Concerns
« Reply #26 on: March 07, 2022, 01:48:32 PM »

"Polluted water will take more than a week to kill you."

Cholera from water polluted with fecal matter (which is a very likely scenario if all the waste treatment plants were off line) can kill you in a day.  In 1849 when the Oregon Trail was flooded with travelers headed for CA the water became polluted in many places on the trail and many people died.

from who.int:  "Cholera affects both children and adults and can kill within hours if untreated. Feb 5, 2021"   In an EMP scenario professional medical treatment would be unlikely.

There is a lot the utilities and Congress could do, not the least of which is buying and staging spare transformers and restoring the USA's ability to make the units.  Today the only sources are overseas and the lead time for a big unit is over 2 years.  A really energetic EMP would do great damage but the recovery period could be dramatically shortened by intelligent planning.

Hadn't considered Cholera.  But yes, drinking toilet water will kill you. 

The issue with the transformers are not the ones that are hanging on the poles outside your houses or even the ones that are sitting at a substation feeding small to medium towns.  It's the huge ones that are sitting in the yard outside a power plant and the other big ones that are at the other ends of those runs.  Your talking about spare transformers that cost millions of dollars for one of them.  You're not gonna get the power companies to pony up that money.  And they shouldn't be required to do so.  Consider that there are 2 types of EMP event's, or at least causes.  One being the extraterrestrial solar event or other outer space thing, the second is a nuclear weapon.  Now if someone sets off a nuke to shut down our electrical grid, they are probably gonna nuke us anyway and that's done to get things started and maximize damage.  Get people out in the light so you can roast them with the next round.  Be assured that if that happens, that the major switch yards with the really big expensive transformers WILL be targeted as well as major power plants.  So WHY have transformers sitting there 'spare' to just get destroyed.  And if it's some huge solar storm, how do you know when to turn stuff back on?  If you are not sure it's over, and you switch to the backup, and it gets fried, where are you at then?

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be SOMETHING done.  But the easiest way to deal with something like that is having sensors that blow the circuits via cutting the lines and then shunt the lines to ground.  Problem is that you can't send the command faster than the EMP pulse travels. And every time you get a false trip, there are tens or even hundreds of thousands of people in the dark.  And the general public ain't gonna put up with that.
It's too much energy to do much else with.
Logged
Pages: 1 [2]   Go Up