OT: EMP and Equipment

Yes. Yes. It would help. The reason for the terse questions is your asking a broad question. Basically EMP is a sudden expansion then contraction of a magnetic field. From basic electronics there are two ways to generate power using magnets (or their fields) one is to move the wire and the other is to move the magnet. The amount of energy induced into a wire is dependent on how many lines of force you traverse and thats related to how strong the magnets field is (also how close). We get EMP from two sources, one common. The nuke version can be very strong but if your close enough for EMP then you may be too close to worry. The other common source is lightinging, every bolt we see represents a momentary huge current that collapses very quckly with the attendent magnetic fields. There are two protection methods applied for lightining. One being electrostatic and the other recognizes the electromagnetic. Protection for the latter is simple most of the time. Disconnect the power cord, antennas, and any control lines. In short remove any "wires" that can have an induced field and transfer that voltage inside to the sensitive parts. Ideally for complete protection a iron or steel case with no breaks is best protection against near misses. In both cases distance fromthe event is a really good thing as magnetic fields are squarelaw IE: at twice the distance it's one quarter strength. So yes you can protect your hardware, assuming your far enough away to survive. You still ahve to worry about high energy particles (neutrons, beta and gamma particles) and other radiations ( Xrays and infared). Allison