In article , rattlehead@computronDOTnet
says...

and more reliable...
...especially, and God knows I hope this never happens,
if there is ever a surplus of EMR after a few nations or
terrorists get mad enough to light off a few really big ones...
you can kiss all modern communication goodbye, and
even modern transistorized rigs.

This is something we've kicked around over at misc.
survivalism. The problem is, to generate the kind
of EMP wave that would trash communications on a
widespread basis you need a very high altitude nuclear
detonation. There aren't many nations capable of
doing that, and the only way terrorists could pull
off such a stunt would be to smuggle a hydrogen bomb
onto a jetliner and set it off as the jet reached
maximum altitude.

Doubtful.

This doesn't rule out the risk of a once in a hundred
lifetimes solar flare that does the same thing...

I keep an old grandfatherly-type tube reciever around,
JUST IN CASE the doom & gloom prophet nuts are
right.

Those are fun!

FW