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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BillM" data-source="post: 4075152" data-attributes="member: 45785">Have you read of the Carrington Event? That happened in 1859. <a href="https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/08/carrington-event-warning/" target="_blank">Carrington Event still provides warning of Sun’s potential 161 years later - NASASpaceFlight.com</a>  According to that link, there was a 2012 event of similar strength that just missed Earth. And earlier in the thread I cited a link to a nuclear test done in the 1960's that shut down power in much of Hawaii from about 900 miles. I'd like to believe we're safe, but I was an electronics tech for the USAF from 1985 until 1997. We're using more solid-state electronics for more purposes, and the traces in the micro-electronics we use are getting smaller and smaller, and therefore more susceptible to any sort of  EMP or similar event. And we have more countries in the world that are nuclear armed, and several of them are not exactly our friends. Nature or enemy action, it's not what I'd consider a negligible possibility. Are there simple and relatively inexpensive things you can do to prepare for such an event, or events? Yes, there are. Faraday cages are amazingly simple to construct, though the materials needed can be a bit costly if you want to protect an entire house or workshop, and you're retrofitting. Surge suppression has improved by leaps and bounds over the past 27 years, and that can help. And you used to find lighting arrestors and such on most buildings, but that seems to have fallen by the wayside in the past 50 or 60 years. I've got some old Ham books and magazines that show how to build an lightning arrestor for an HF radio antenna with spark plugs, for example. And have you been inside a recent cell phone lately? Plastic case, exposed circuits on open boards. No little or no shielding. I've been building PC compatible computers for as long as that's been possible, and they aren't much better. Thecases are usually mostly metal, but with lots relatively large holes in them. Most modern cars are more plastic than metal, as well. And you're trusting the same government that told us that the Covid-19 vaccines are perfectly safe, and very effective at preventing the disease. If it can happen, it has happened. And if it has happened, it can definitely happen again.</blockquote>

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