This actually contradicts a lot of what other professionals have said. That African-American physicist that's on all the Science Channels a lot said in plain English "Today's technology is exposed so often to electromagnetic interference that most products are already shielded." More importantly he said one thing that really made sense, if I recall it went something like this "For an EMP weapon to be effective it needs to be able to go high enough to get a wide range, but not high enough that ozone absorbs the electromagnetic interference. The Earth is struck by EMP's constantly from the Sun."
I regard this as soothing nonsense. These reassurances are like a cowboy singing to the herd to keep them quiet so they don't stampede in the face of real danger.
EMP is vastly different from ordinary interference in both duration and magnitude of energy imparted. Consumer products already suffer plenty interference from each other. (For example- I hear cellphone digital racket transmitted on police frequencies as the police dispatcher's system is affected by her cellphone.) And much of the good behavior we think we see is due to regulations which minimize noise output from the various devices- not so much reducing susceptibility to noise.
The EMP problem is that so much US civilization depends upon semi-conductor electronics that a single EMP strike could cause real havoc. If we were using vacuum tubes then we'd have less issues :-)
Why do you suppose the Iranians keep practicing erecting and shooting missiles from the decks of ships and sending the missile high into the atmosphere rather than on an aimed re-entry trajectory. (unclassified sources not necessarily reliable or easily found)
I've put a few vital pieces of my electronics into EMP-resistant cans (metal cookie tins with paint cleaned from the lid joints) for storage.
Would you rather be prepared? Or well-soothed?
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