On Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:52:46 -0500, tom wrote:

To see you write that the "clever engineering of shorting a capacitor"
is remotely similar to standing in front of a microwave oven is very
disappointing to say the least. You are losing your edge.

You know very well that they aren't remotely similar in the effects
produced. For one thing the "clever engineering of shorting a
capacitor" is very misleading without at least some explanation of how
different it is from simply shorting a capacitor.

Hi Tom,

EMP is a fast charge/discharge event. EMP products come in three
flavors, I will only discuss the fastest. The fastest is rarely
described with a risetime less than 1nS, but I have seen others bandy
about the frequency of 10GHz, so we have to assume they have links to
literature that claim a risetime on the order of 33pS. Be that as it
may, mercury switches can switch a 1000V pulse into a 50Ohm load in
500ps. This is laboratory stuff, not armament. Armament can be
engineered to perform with larger supplies as one-shot disposable
switches (you don't run lab equipment to failure, new out of the box
on the first application of power). Such switches are controlled
access and limited sale items.

To generate this 10GHz pulse would require very, very short very, very
low resistance leads; which would, of course, become part of a tuned
(to 10GHz) circuit. The trigger device often employs a charge driven
shorting bar. It is only a matter of capacitance and low resistance
metalurgy from there.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC