You have 18 hours! What will you do? #hamradio #NatlPrep #LastingLegacy

Our friends at the Space Weather Prediction Center do a great job with Space Weather, including those pesky solar flares that fry the electrons of a Prius on the Florida highway during an evacuation for a hurricane.

Have you lost count how often the Carrington Event has been mentioned by this author?

Asking our friends at SWPC, what the lead time for an event might be, the answer below might give comfort, compared to the 13 minute average warning time for a tornado.  

 

If it were a Carrington-like event, and it had an associated CME that was directed at Earth, we would likely have on the order of several hours to possibly a day to provide the public with a warning. If I'm not mistaken, one of the fastest transit times that has been recorded was approximately 18 hours from the time the CME departed the Sun to when it impacted Earth. 

 

So, in 18 hours, what are your plans for protecting your cell phone, HF radio, walkie talkie, Roku device, weather radio, Fusion or Dstar hotspot, electronics in your automobile,  television set, or portable AM/FM radio?  How sure are you that the stuff you listen to will be transmitting anything?

Reality is the Amish may be your Uber or Lyft ride.  Bicycles and walking will be the norm.  Anything with electronic ignition has lost its mind.  

Transmitters with ALL tubes, i.e. tube finals, exciters, modulators, and power supplies will all function. Solid state devices will not, unless they were stored in a Faraday cage.  Now you know why Soviet Mig-15 fighters had tube type radios.

There was a scene in the show Jericho where the survivors were using their cellphones for batting practice.  Without some preparedness now, that scene is likely to be reality. 

 

The museum piece cars and farm tractors were transportation.  Gasoline and diesel, however, were on short supply.  Pipelines may be able to move oil but refineries may be a bit challenged to convert it.

OK.  What will you do?  After a drought, I had an emergency management director ask "Now that your drought is over, what will you complain about now?" after which the reply was "a solar flare".

Don't have an answer?

Here's two ideas:

Cellphone, solar charger, other small electronic items, go in a Faraday cage.  Christmas popcorn tins come in handy after Christmas.  One article has a number of suggestions.

The first suggestion is to wrap your cellphone in plastic wrap and wrap that again in aluminum foil.  Test the microwave as a Faraday cage.  Put your phone in it.  Close the door.  Call the phone.  If it works, it is not in a Faraday shield.  If it does, wrap your phone, radio, solar charger, AM/FM radio, walkie-talkie and put them in the microwave.  

After the Event, carefully unpack them and test them.  Maybe a good thought would be to do that at night.  Don't expect them to work (remember the transmitters have to be 100% tube-type) but, if they do, tune the AM broadcast channels for clear channel stations.  Your first goal is to determine "How big is BIG; how bad is bad".

The second suggestion from the link is the aluminum trash can (here's the Christmas popcorn tin idea).

Clubs?  How about a cache of radio gear for club members to use?

 

OH, our friends at the Department of Homeland Security have a handy little document also.

 

It's your turn now.  In comments, give suggestions.  Tactfully worded comments will be approved.

Ready?  Set?  Plan, prepare, practice.