A Possible “EMP” Hit On A Solar Power System — And How To Reduce The Risk
EMP is just a super-duper version of regular old radio frequency interference. With enough signal strength to blast past the reverse voltage limits of most semiconductors, an EMP attack is expected to destroy many solid-state radios, computers, controllers, etc. I *may* have had my own small “EMP” caused by my own ham radio station, and this article explains what I learned.
My solar power system is based on Outback inverters & charge controllers, so I had their computerized Mate3 monitor installed. This is a very compact little special-purpose computer that displays current and daily total power at multiple points throughout the entire solar power system, including panels, chargers, batteries, inverts, circuits and power being sent back to the utility. In my case, I had it connected via cat5 cable to a nearby private WIFI router so I could read the results from my easy chair. (NOT connected to the Internet!)
I subsequently put up a new random-length dipole antenna, fed with an antenna tuner, and got a linear amplifier working, and was finally able to get a fairly powerful signal out. The antenna end was just about exactly over the Mate 3 controller, about 20 feet above it. Do you see where this is going?
I can’t be sure that these are related, but my previously reliable Mate3 suddenly died, acting as if its startup-circuitry was either fried or reprogrammed: it would perform initial self checks, but then would go in circles, refusing to go on to the actual monitoring task. No amount of resetting made any difference.
Of course, it could have been a lighting-related event, or just a component failure, but the recent antenna and ham shack work made me wonder if the high voltage field at the end of the dipole on some frequencies might have been related?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
