In Case of Emergency - Protect the smart phone / tablet PC

This is going to be a short thread, my apologies. I just had a thought.

In case of an EMP strike or other loss of power get your smart phone and tablet PC protected with a Faraday cage. Why? You will need to keep as many survival e-books as you can download for future reference. I propose something small enough like a smart phone or small tablet pc ( or perhaps kindle e-book reader) that can be powered and or charged by solar power. This is in case you have to be on the move and aren't savvy enough to think your an expert survivalist. This will allow you to travel without a ton of books. To me, this information could be your greatest survival resource.

ATS has many good threads on free survival e-books. Everyone should get them all. Here are a few:

www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Here's one to build your own Faraday cage www.abovetopsecret.com...

If I may add something to this... We all own a Faraday cage by what I've been told from those who know these things far better than I. Well, almost everyone these days has one anyway.... It's normally thought of as a containment field to keep energy IN, not OUT ..but should do the trick just dandy.

Your Microwave.

Just don't forget and hit the 10 button while your stack of tablets, phones and other doodads are sitting on the turn table. It'd defeat the purpose of trying to save them, I'm thinking.

reply to post by JohnPhoenix
.. ....or you could just go "old school" and keep actual BOOKS on hand that are not dependent on any kind of technology or power source to be of use. You could even copy and print pertinent sections of e-books to have on hand as a back up if you prefer. Technology is a wonderful thing, but if your device breaks or malfunctions you will be "up a creek" if you don't have hard copies as a plan B.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Heard about the microwave solution before but I was thinking whether or not a highly charged atmosphere / eddy currents could actually energize the magnatron and fry the electronic devices' inside that way instead?

Probably safer to use an old, non-working microwave with the magnatron and capacitor removed...the case would still act as a shield.

You can make a Faraday cage for $20.... go to Home Depot, buy a steel trash can... line the inside (including the lid) with cardboard... and you're done. You can take extra precautions by keeping your electronic items in a cardboard box wrapped in alternating layers of tinfoil and bubble wrap, and then place them inside the lined trashcan.

So . . . there's a big war and some dickhead (which roughly translates into Korean as Kim Jong Un) orders that some sort of EMP device be 'sploded over the US thusly wiping out all electronic type things.

In one fell swoop, all communications, communication devices, towers, transmittors, retransmittors, sattelite dish receptor thingies and the like are turned into the world's largest collection of ash trays in seconds.

But, if we put our iPhones and iPads and tablets and other instruments of mass laziness in the microwave, they'll be safe.

Just wondering . . . how big of a microwave should I be buying to fit inside and thusly protect things like cell towers, sattelite dish receptor hingies, transmittors, retransmittors and all the other doo-dads that are needed to make the little iPoddy things functional?

Without those additional doo-dads, it's kinda like owning a Corvette but having narry a drip of fuel left in the country to make it move . . .

What's the point of saving stuff that ain't gonna work anyway?

Just wondering.

reply to post by littled16


Books are preferable If you can do it so your point is well taken. They just may not be practical to keep on hand in every situation. In the event of an EMP you wont be able to carry those books via an automobile. The bug out bag might have room for one or two small books but not the amount you can stuff into a small device. I'd want all the info with me that's possible to carry as well as all the tools and gear I'd need.

It's all this N. Korea stuff that got me thinking about this. Kim might be crazier than anyone believes and it's best to prepare for all contingencies.

reply to post by littled16


Both ways have pros and cons of course. The big pros to an e-reader is the amount of info you can store, easily transport and quickly search. The cons are obvious, power and non-repairable if damaged.

I'd say put absolutely everything that could be useful in anyway on the e-reader device and have hard copies of the essentials.

reply to post by GoalPoster


Whats the point of saving things? Well... I don't know about everyone else but I have collected thousands of PDF books and capture files from the internet on everything from making soap to making gunpowder. If TSHTF I'll have a fair number of things to barter with for the little things in life to make my days as comfy as can be managed. Information and knowledge would come to be very valuable, I'm thinking. Since...the majority of people wouldn't even think about what they'd just lost until the first idea of "Let's google it....err...oh ..wait...

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by GoalPoster

 

Whats the point of saving things? Well... I don't know about everyone else but I have collected thousands of PDF books and capture files from the internet on everything from making soap to making gunpowder. If TSHTF I'll have a fair number of things to barter with for the little things in life to make my days as comfy as can be managed. Information and knowledge would come to be very valuable, I'm thinking. Since...the majority of people wouldn't even think about what they'd just lost until the first idea of "Let's google it....err...oh ..wait...

Good point . . .

I stand corrected.

reply to post by GoalPoster

You're right that the publicly-available communications infrastructure will basically be toast. The military will still have something as they already have taken measures to "harden" some of their comm systems against EMP attacks.

However the OP wasn't talking about using iPads and smart phones to communicate. The point is that they will work fine as information storage devices, rather than comm devices.

Obviously, there's no point loading all the saved e-books etc onto a phone, iPad or laptop that you use every day. It's too late to go and put it in a Faraday cage after an EMP device has gone off! So, the idea is to load useful info into an electronic storage device that you don't need to use for day-to-day communications and then store it away in a Faraday cage, until or if you ever need it.

Just a note here: it's worth putting a few bags of silica gel inside such a cage, if it's also a hermetically sealed one. It helps to reduce the chances of corrosion from humidity in the air.

reply to post by MysterX

In theory, a magnetron should be protected from EMP, on the same basis that the casing of the microwave oven is to shield us from the magnetron's EMR.

But purely from the point of view keeping things simple, it would be easier to just use an old microwave oven and remove all the electronics from it. No point having any extra weight in there when all we need is the box to store our devices, after all.

Not to be the gloomy guss here, but the verynature of an emp attack, makes any of these precautions worthless.

Emp travels.at C or the speed of light, so no warning is possible, and no reaction to it achievable.

One would have to keep said device in the cage at all times, just to be safe.

Your best bet is to keep an old ham or cb radio, anything nonsolid state. We are takking vacuum tubes here, just to be safe.

The telephone wires will melt off the poles, the wiring of your house will.melt, your hair will stand.on end just like and old b movie, your tv will have a weird green glow for days after the amount of energy in the air. Depending on yur proximity to the emp.source, and its power.

This is a return to the stone age weapon.

Unlike the movies, you cannot just replace your.cars solenoid and it will.work again, in fact all the electronics will be fried.

This is the largest threat to the modern world.

Blame the fed .gov, it is the fcc that rewuiresall electronics to be open to this type of attack.

reply to post by inverslyproportional

All very true. If it's an extremely powerful EMP then replacing the black box and related sensitive electronic components in a modern car is a huge job. (That's one reason I like my old diesel-engined car. Much less of the modern electronic wizardry to get fried.)

But as I mentioned above in another post, the idea is to have a storage device (laptop or whatever) that you don't need stowed away inside a Faraday cage in advance.

You remember those creepy 1950s public service ads the US Govt did? Like, "If you see the flash -- duck! and co-ver!"

Besides the total horse manure those ads sold the public -- namely side-stepping fact that if you see the flash and you're not blinded, then you probably just got irradiated -- these days it's:
"If you see the flash -- your iPods... are fri-ied!"

But cute little 1950s duck and cover jingles notwhithstanding, it's true that any electronic device can fail even if it didn't get fried -- and without the know-how and the spare parts and servicing equipment, very few can repair them.

So, that's why it's a must to have the most basic information either in print form or stored away in your own head from learning it.

The old home compendium books from the late 19th century are absolute gold. They were written for folks who had to be basically self-sufficient in everything, so they cover topics from baking bread to pouring lead, pulling stumps to pulling teeth, cleaning glass to cleaning wounds, setting tables to setting bones. Well worth grabbing if you ever find one.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I am with you Bunny. I too have a pretty large collection of PDF's. But the biggest issue is keeping the ability to access them after TSHTF scenario.

I print out my pdf's and keep them all in a small binder with tab dividers so they stay organized according to subject.

Depending on any kind of electric device makes no sense to me.

I do both actually. My kindle stays in its faraday cage unless I am actively downloading to it. That was its only purpose when I bought it, as a storage place for information. I have a couple ways to charge it in the cage as well.

In addition to that I go to the local used book store and scrounge around for books on first aid, survival, plants, etc and get them for cheap and store them in a watertight storage bin along with some basic first aid stuff.

Ideally I would be able to remember it all, but at my age, remembering where I put stuff is getting to be hard to do.

reply to post by phantomjack


Well, I can tell you what I have for a solution and we'll see how it works out if that time ever comes. Trickle chargers for a car battery. When I was a kid on CB radios with friends, rather than screw with 12 volt converters to run a mobile unit from my bedroom, I simply ran a 110v battery charger to a car battery in a simply wood frame and the CB running off that. In that case, the battery was a buffer to filter the electronic noise the battery charger generates.

It wasn't perfect, but it worked. If you have the trickle chargers, you have unlimited power ..at least until they wear out. Nothing electronic inside an old car battery to be effected that I know of on an EMP, so it should function. Then it's just a matter of cutting the 12 volt plug in off the appliances ..or wiring up 12v accessory plugs which I still have from trucking ..and you're set.

From my days on the truck I have about everything in that way. A little lunchbox stove (Which cooks hot dogs with no problem for an idea of how it works), coffee maker, waffle maker and 'Stinger' or electric coil which is bare metal that clips to the side of a container to dip directly into a liquid or soup and cook it that way. A truck stop is a veritable treasure trove of useful stuff in the $25-$30 range each if you solve the 12v power problem for a disaster.

* Oh.. I need to clarify the trickle chargers I have on my shelf here are solar. They'd designed to maintain a charge on an RV or other vehicle in long term storage by leaving the panel on the dash board when you park it.

Other possible faraday cages around the house...(though not good for electronics when on, of course)

Oven
Refrigerator
Deep Freezer
Dishwasher
Washer
Dryer
Truck Tool Box (steel kind)
Metal Tool Box
Metal Roasting Pan

Some people have done this in their homes...apply a chicken wire mesh to walls, ceilings, and floors, then covered up with other materials...essentially making their home a giant faraday cage. Cool idea, but again, if a massive EMP happens, chances are, most things won't be good for anything past how long you can get batteries for them, etc.

Originally posted by GoalPoster
So . . . there's a big war and some dickhead (which roughly translates into Korean as Kim Jong Un) orders that some sort of EMP device be 'sploded over the US thusly wiping out all electronic type things.

In one fell swoop, all communications, communication devices, towers, transmittors, retransmittors, sattelite dish receptor thingies and the like are turned into the world's largest collection of ash trays in seconds.

But, if we put our iPhones and iPads and tablets and other instruments of mass laziness in the microwave, they'll be safe.

Just wondering . . . how big of a microwave should I be buying to fit inside and thusly protect things like cell towers, sattelite dish receptor hingies, transmittors, retransmittors and all the other doo-dads that are needed to make the little iPoddy things functional?

Without those additional doo-dads, it's kinda like owning a Corvette but having narry a drip of fuel left in the country to make it move . . .

What's the point of saving stuff that ain't gonna work anyway?

Just wondering.

See, this is what happens when your too lazy to read the post.

When you just read the title and then post a reply you look foolish......