The Practical, Everyday Survivalist: An Overview...

Originally posted by viperdave
reply to post by paratus

 

you got some nice gear!! and it seems like you got everything covered

please read my post above, your xterra sounds like it can tackle any off road situation you might encounter but if you read my post above you will realize that if we have massive solar flares, (or a possible nuke strike near where you live..............just thinking) the ECM in that vehicle wont be worth the metal its made out of, hopefully we will have some indication of future events and you can shield it from electro magnetic interference so it will be drivable later


just trying to cover all the bases


also most cars made after 1975 have at least electronic ignition and may be inoperable if something happends but most american vehicles from the 70s can be retrofitted with an earlyer ignition system quite easy

be safe

The Quad has been converted over to carb and will also tow the trailer with a hitch.
Also have a carbed ducati s2r800 if need be.
IF we do have an EMP situation, it will be very bad.
I have a set of radios (and other things) in the basement in a "special" area that should avoid any sort of electronic attack/innundation.
Vehicles are doomed (about 90% of them) if theres an electronic frying event.

Originally posted by viperdave
reply to post by blangger

 

i have a 1in thick lead box to shield all the ECMs and sensative electronic equipment in my house so when things start going out i will take all the electronic equipment and put it in the box till things die down

viperdave

Love the lead box.... Gotta have a LEAD BOX!!!!

My extensive list is to provide for a small group of people 5-10...
Afterwards I can head out on daytrips alone or in teams to collect "supplies" once a base compound is established and fortified.
Family security first.

Also dont forget tradeable goods, alcohol, silver rounds, gun powder, wine, soap, etc

Services such as barber, first aid, building, sewing, hunting, butchering skills are also admirable for a newly established community.

reply to post by viperdave


I love it when people think outside the box. Have you ever heard of a Faraday cage? If not you should look it up because it is the same as the lead (protects electronics) but a little more convenient.

reply to post by blangger


the lead i got in small sheets and basicly made a boxouta it, well i cant move it as a whole but theres enough room for the equipment from both my vehicles


ill check out the cage, thanks

Quite interesting thread so far.. Must admit amazed at the amount of things on some lists that see.. The only things that I have are my randall knife from my army days, 5 ft ironwood staff (firearms illegal in most asian countries) bamboo tube to carry rice in, small leather bag to put medicinal plants / herbs in. Over here do as charlie did dont need the fancy stuff to live in the jungle and out where I am no roads vehicles useless.. travel is either by foot or boat .. But over there different terrain, climate and situation thus you guys do need different supplies / gear there than here.

I heard from an electrical engineer friend that a microwave oven is an effective Faraday cage. I have no emp weapon with which to test that theory, but it seems logical.

reply to post by sonofliberty1776

A microwave does have a built-in Faraday cage, but it is pretty thin. Its sole purpose is to prevent radiation from the magnetron escaping and messing with external objects, and it only has to handle the low power the microwave produces inside. An EMP weapon would probably overpower it, providing only limited protection to whatever is inside.

Lead is effective protection only against nuclear radiation, and does not function well as a Faraday cage. A lead box would offer very limited protection against an EMP. Steel would be orders of magnitude better than lead against an EMP, while lead would be orders of magnitude better against nuclear fallout.

TheRedneck

Still though, if expecting an EMP pulse, may not hurt to throw your cell phone or laptop in the microwave if you don't have anything else...(as long as you don't turn it on)... It would seem like a non-active fridge or freezer would be another, better solution.

For cars, the car body itself makes a limited faraday cage, but it isn't perfect (especially underneath it), so neither is the protection level. Most modern cars would likely be fried by a strong pulse, but as it follows the inverse square law, it's all about distance to the source of the pulse.

Of course, if the SHTF, there may not be a cell network to connect to, an Internet to connect to, or passable roads to drive on, so may be a moot point...

This is turning out to be a lot of talking and not much sitting, waiting, and listening.

reply to post by Gazrok

That's a good point. Especially if you have an older vehicle (thicker body mostly of ferrous metals), a car trunk is an excellent Faraday cage. The one open area is the forward wall; typically it is the back of the back seat. It would be fairly easy to install a piece of sheet steel on the back of the back seat to totally enclose the trunk area.

It is actually still unknown whether an EMP of a particular strength will really destroy a car's electronics due to the Faraday cage effect, or to what extent. The theory that it can, while plausible IMHO due to the non-ferrous areas like windows, has not been heavily tested to my knowledge. I know some of the controls I have seen are encased in a grounded thin steel box, which would isolate the interior of the box if not the exposed wiring.

TheRedneck

reply to post by TheRedneck


I think that many older cars with limited electronics could survive and run if their batteries were disconnected. Newer cars with all of their sensitive electronics and "keep alive memories" in their power train control modules(as well as body control modules etc...) would all be fried by any significant emp. Their very vulnerability to EMI(electromagnetic interference) would seem to back up my theory. It is only a theory though, with no way I can actually test it. I BELIEVE that any carbureted vehicle would still be usable after an emp. Even those with a mixture control solenoid should(imo) still run, though maybe with much less fuel efficiency. My only concern would be for the electronic ignition modules of said vehicles. So for my vehicle, I have purchased an older distributor with points and a condenser.

reply to post by sonofliberty1776

Well, here's the deal:

The real electronic damage from an EMP pulse comes from the sudden magnetic fluctuation that occurs. Any conductor in a changing magnetic field generates a voltage based on how much the magnetic field changes in time. So essentially, if there is a sudden drastic magnetic pulse, every conductor around, be it part of a car body, a piece of scrap steel, a wire, or the copper trace on a circuit board, becomes a little battery. As the pulse passes, it becomes a battery with the opposite polarity until the magnetic field stabilizes. So it really depends on both how sensitive the components are to stray voltages (computer chips are extremely sensitive; the coil in an older car is not very sensitive) and how much voltage is generated by the pulse.

Steel, or any ferro-magnetic material, will cause the magnetic pulse to divert through it instead of traveling through whatever is inside it, making those voltages produce harmless eddies of current in the material itself. That's why lead won't do much; it is not highly magnetic.

Probably the weakest component in an older ignition system is the condensor... they are rated for a particular voltage and anything above that zaps them into paperweight status in a millisecond. The coil, points, even the battery to a point, are pretty tough. It all comes down to how much of that magnetic pulse travels across them, however, since a strong enough EMP can create sudden microsecond voltages into the thousands of volts on each conductor.

TheRedneck

Originally posted by Xterrain
This is turning out to be a lot of talking and not much sitting, waiting, and listening.

Then leave the thread, i'm enjoying the back and forth survival information..

Semper will pipe in when he is not busy, until then, this information is ALL relevant to the thread.

Do you guys really believe that an EMP is a realistic and high probability event that may cause us problems?

Originally posted by MMPI2
Do you guys really believe that an EMP is a realistic and high probability event that may cause us problems?

Honestly? If I were Iran or North Korea, I would have done it already. 2-3 tramp freighters, one off of each coast could launch a short range missile from international waters. Our infrastructure would crumble immediately. The death toll would be horrendous.

reply to post by MMPI2

Modern mythology has attributed the EMP to a full-scale nuclear war, which is probably not realistic. However, EMPs can accompany several other situations:

• A nuclear weapon could be detonated in the atmosphere specifically to render infrastructure useless.
  
• There are devices which can produce EMPs without the devastation of conventional warfare.
  
• Any bomb of sufficient size will create an EMP. Medium-scale bombs, as in those possible under a terrorist attack, would affect an appreciable area.
  
• The Earth itself, should the magnetic field destabilize a certain way, could create its own EMP.
  
• A mass coronal ejection would be accompanied by an EMP.
  
• Should the magnetosphere collapse, solar radiation itself would be an EMP.

As you can see, it is conceivable that an EMP could affect an area, even without an accompanying nuclear war.

TheRedneck

Originally posted by MMPI2
Do you guys really believe that an EMP is a realistic and high probability event that may cause us problems?

Not a matter of "if" but "when". I have been working with a couple of NASA teams on solutions to these very real solar events. They have been trying to tell everyone for a few years now on what they know and see coming, but nobody wants to listen.

Another story has just ran again. I suggest there be several thread like this one. We are already in the danger zone on timeline, but this next year on 2012 will be telling.

www.breitbart.com...

All you need for a SHTF situation are:

A good knife,
A good pair of boots,
A lethal brain and
A kick ass torso and great abs.

Originally posted by Ilovecatbinlady
All you need for a SHTF situation are:

A good knife,
A good pair of boots,
A lethal brain and
A kick ass torso and great abs.

What about us poor schmucks who have the first two, but are much lacking in the latter three?

reply to post by MMPI2
LOL. I would not worry too much. Just be in the best shape you can be. I am not in my 20's anymore; but I still hunt, fish, hike, and play with my 2 young children. Try playing soccer with a horde of 8-12 yearolds. If you can do that for a couple hours and don't have a heart attack, I would say you are ok. Could you be in better shape? Sure. However, you will be head and shoulders above the standard American couch potato.