Rick,

Well thought out, but I think my response was meant more than just the results
if you are near enough to the event to cause you direct harm. If such an event
occurred and a majority of the solid-state devices are cooked, will your
immediate concenrs be a radio? Who are you going to talk to or listen to? It
seems the resulting chaos from such a scenario would make the fact of whether
or not you have a working short-wave radio not very important.

Again, just some thoughts...

Barry - N4BUQ


...probably the fact that if you are close enough to a nuclear blast which
wipes out your gear due to EMP, the least of your worries will be whether or
not your radio works.

Good afternoon, Barry.

From the best my limited knowledge and aptitude on the topic has been
able to determine over the last couple of weeks of research, that's
probably not entirely accurate.

A lightweight nuclear blast high up in the atmosphere can wipe out
equipment for hundreds to a thousand miles around.

Lower-altitude blasts have a lesser range of damage, but my guess (and
it's only a guess) is that a 50-kiloton device on the observation deck
of the Empire State building would result in EMP damage far outside of
the range of heat and blast destruction.

If someone set off such a device at the top of the Prudential Center
or John Hancock Tower in Boston, chances are pretty good that my
computers, telephone, cell phone, modern solid-state ham gear, not to
mention the electrical power, would all be pretty well destroyed here
in southern New Hampshire, but we probably wouldn't get any blast or
heat damage to speak of. There would be time to load my old tube gear
(which I don't have yet) into my motorhome and get outta Dodge,
assuming the engine-control computer in my motorhome didn't get smoked
(which it probably would, though I don't know how much of that type of
high-techie stuff they put in Toyotas in 1990 so maybe not...).

Rick WA1RKT