Build Your Own HERF Gun

James writes "Rostislav Persion from Voltage Labs has successfully constructed a HERF gun (a device like EMP but directional) in his home that is capable of stalling cars at a distance and crashing computers as well. He has videos of the device in action as it lights up LED's at a distance and triggers motion detectors. Theres also a bunch of other security stuff and science stuff which is quite interesting and controversial, such as cell phone tracking, mood altering audio signals, gyro guns, and other things of this nature. The site owner was also featured in US News Magazine and MTV for some of his work."

Unfortunately

[by Anonymous Coward]

After learning about his device, the US military used their larger HERF gun to deactivate his HERF gun.

Not true...

[Eric_Cartman_South_P (594330)]

...I live accross the street from this guy and nothing unusual is going on. That 1-800-Flowers van has been parked at the end of the block for a few days, come to thing of it, but other thaH$^FHGHATDT^ATDT^h6[NO CARRIER]

No More High Speed Pursuits

[the-dude-man (629634)]

You know...this would put an end to high speed pursuits

What will fox air....guess they will have to resort to hardcore porn

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[mrbrown1602 (536940)]

Well actually if the car is older than 1980, it probably won't stall due to the lack of computerized components in the car. That's why I love driving a '56 Chevy. :-)

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[marbike (35297)]

No, There still is the as yet unaired "Who Wants to Marry a Middle Aged Producer?" or "When Shopping Carts Attack!: The Wallmart Files".

The hardcore porn will have a little time before it gets plastered over Fox.

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[antiquark (87200)]

I regret saying this already, it shows my age, and possibly my viewing habits.

In the brief remake series of Knight Rider, Knight Rider 2000 I think it was called, Kit could disable cars from a distance presumably with a similar device. I beleive the bad guys then did something to their Porsche Carerra 911's which made them impervious to this attack.

David Hasselhof's hair was similarly insulated from the radiation.

Exactly!

[tomzyk (158497)]

I'll install one in the rear window of my vehicle and when the pigs start chasing me down, I'll zap 'em before they get close enough to read my license plate. :-)

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[PissedOffGuy (612092)]

You know...this would put an end to high speed pursuits

i wonder if they consider it riskier than the strips of little hollow tubes that puncture and slowly deflate your tires.

without your electrical system and your engine spinning down you could lose power steering, power brakes, your lights would go out (at night at high speed most probably), various automatic transmission problems, etc.

i guess its still safer than the PIT maneuver.

No, you have it backwards.

[autopr0n (534291)]

It's not about stopping people who are fleeing the cops, it's about stopping the cops when they are chasing you.

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[Rolo Tomasi (538414)]

You know...this would put an end to high speed pursuits

So would this [www.saab.se] (scroll down to Carl Gustaf). Probably much more fun to watch, too.

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[Mika_Lindman (571372)]

Where's the 'add this to cart'-button? I hate those site designs where you can't find the functions you're looking for.

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[macdaddy (38372)]

They already have made one of these deals. It's like a spike strip but is really a mat that you position on the road. IIRC the officer that laid it out waits for the fleeing vehicle to drive over it and then activates the mat. He hits the button right as the car's engine is over the mat and it's jacks up the ignition system. The car dies instantly and rolls to a stop. The problem with any system like this is that 1) it's expensive and 2) it can only be used on vehicles moving slowly. You don't dare us

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[haystor (102186)]

Hell, I want to be throwing harpoons manually from a flatbed trailer. Then winch the car closer, secure the rigging and I'll be first across in the boarding party. Think Road Warrior...that was a good start.

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[Cyclometh (629276)]

Hmm, let's see- a 500V harpoon that, if it misses, impales some hapless bastard on the sidewalk, or takes out a bus or something. Can you imagine the fallout the first time they used something like that and missed? :-)

It's probably doable, but it would only be able to be used if there were no pedestrians/buildings/other cars about.

Re:No More High Speed Pursuits

[Grishnakh (216268)]

Simple: just embed some encryption software in the gun. The criminals then wouldn't be able to copy it since that's illegal under the DMCA.

This Could Improve My Driving Record...

[GroundBounce (20126)]

Couple this with my radar detector and have it stall the police car as he pulls out to nab me. Hmmm, time to dust off the old lab bench.

Can someone check the server....

[johny_qst (623876)]

I think the HERF device may have gone off next to it again! :) Gotta be careful with those experimental weapons.

Re:Can someone check the server....

[Wingnut64 (446382)]

This isn't good...
We've just slashdoted some guy with an EMP weapon...

Similar sweet page

[Op911 (593600)]

Don't forget to check out a similar page, Sam Barros' Powerlabs [powerlabs.org] which I find similarly tremendously entertaining. Guy's got railguns, homemade explosives, golfball cannons... it's sweet.

The answer to my prayers!

[Robber Baron (112304)]

Now will it fit behind the front grille of my Crown Vic?

Cut me off will you you asshole!!!

Re:The answer to my prayers!

[theLOUDroom (556455)]

The EMP will fry the anti-lock brakes. ABS systems are designed to lock the wheels in case of system failure. (Ironic in a way...)

Bullshit. It would be totally stupid to design the system that way. If it fails while you were going down the road at 70MPH you'd have a very good chance of dying. I can't even imagine what would make you think it works this way.


From http://www.abs-education.org/faqs/faqindex.htm [abs-education.org]:

What if the ABS fails? Anti-lock brake systems are designed to be fail-safe. Nevertheless, they are equipped with a diagnostic feature that automatically activates and tests the major components each time the car is started and monitors them throughout the journey.

In the rare event of a failure, the ABS would be deactivated by its own safety circuit. A warning light goes on indicating to the driver that the vehicle is now in conventional base-brake mode.

Logging.

[Daleks (226923)]

It's nice that this webpage says in caps "IP LOGGED" followed by your IP. I guess this way he can tell who's HTTP GET broke the webserver's back.

Best contraceptive

[aerogeek (669982)]

I was just worrying about not meeting my recommended daily allowance of EF radiation with this cellphone in my pocket and 10 PCs near my desk. Now I can build a HERF gun -- problem solved!

mirror (google cache)

[bumby (589283)]

Here it is: mirror [216.239.57.104]

weapons

[DNS-and-BIND (461968)]

So, what would this do to an airplane? One that's, say, in the takeoff phase, heavily loaded with fuel and hundreds of passengers on board?

Re:weapons

[John Whorfin (19968)]

Probably the same thing as one of those old-fashioned gas-expansion lead accelerators would do.

Re:weapons

[afidel (530433)]

The Boing 777 does not have hydraulic backups, it is 100% fly by wire, the Boing studies showed that well done redundant electronic systems were less likely to fail then a mechanical backup was to cause problems. I doubt a simple 1KV gun would do any damage at even a hundred feet to an airliner as the electronics are already hardened against the severe amounts of radiation they are exposed to at cruising altitude (a cross country flight would expose you to more radiation then a full body xray if it were not for the planes skin).

Re:weapons

[MythMoth (73648)]

That's, uh, Boeing. The Boing 777 would be made of rubber.

Re:weapons

[Beryllium Sphere(tm) (193358)]

There'd be some protection from the fact that the airplanes are designed to withstand a lightning strike. A tube of aluminum thick enough to carry its own weight is a really good conductor, better than most electrical connectors. Windows and antennas are all that keep it from being a Faraday cage.

I would never forgive anybody who tried it outside a lab, though.

This is already used by Police in Europe.

[rxed (634882)]

Similar, more powerful, device has been used by German police during hot pursuits. I'm not sure if its still used (because of the EU rules etc). Stop sticks are cheaper, although not as safe, and also don't kill the car as the EMG gun does. Oh yea, besides your dead engine/car you can say bye bye to all electronic equipment in the car; even your watch!

The HERF004..

[EinarH (583836)]

..looks like a great way to fry those RFID-tags for the paranoid of us. 1kW with high directinality should do the job.
Yeah, you can use a microwave oven but putting tires inside the oven is kind of hard.

This would probably work on those automatic traffic controller systems with digital cameras that take pictures of speeding to...

FCC Notice

[dracocat (554744)]

FCC Notice
This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions:

1. This device may not cause harmful interference.

2. This device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.

Good to see progress

[certron (57841)]

I'm glad to see someone is working on perfecting the HERF gun. After all, they have to keep up with the progress made since Slashdot perfected the website-killing HREF gun a few years ago. Just point and click, webserver goes down. :-)

rf can do strange things to cars

[ratfynk (456467)]

Reminds me of the Volks Rabbit, when it first came out with electronic ignition. Some cops I knew back then told me that the earliest ones off the assembly line didn't have much shielding on the electronic unit. If a cop pulled up behind one and keyed his mic the Rabbit would crap out.

Just a little history repeating itself.
Another tool, that when in the hands of the wrong people could be very dangerous! However to end a high speed chase, before someone gets killed?

Do we need more weapon ?

[aepervius (535155)]

What happen if you use it on an auto at 100mph on the quick road ? (yeah autoroute but I dunno how they call it). What happen if you use it on somebody with a peacemaker ? Did even the guy putting the to-do kit up think of that ?

Re:Do we need more weapon ?

[Snover (469130)]

We don't need peacemakers in this day and age, we need warmongers, to drive out the filth of the arab nations. Silly person. ;-)

Re:Do we need more weapon ?

[Cyclometh (629276)]

I suppose if you use it on someone with a Peacemaker, you'd get shot. :-) Not much electronics in those.

Road rage.

[rice_burners_suck (243660)]

The subject of mood altering audio signals is interesting to bring up. I have some interesting ideas about this.

I am certain that a lot of things affect moods. Audio is one of them. But I also believe that visual characteristics have a lot to do with mood. What's that Chinese art of interior decorating that is supposed to bring harmony? I forgot the name.

Mexico City (for those of you who don't know what D.F. stands for) is a heavily populated place. I've heard different accounts that it is the biggest city (or the third biggest) in the world, and I don't know if this means by population or by physical size. In any case, there is a LOT of traffic here. I have found that I am quite affected by "road rage," or let's just call it frustration behind the wheel, when I'm driving around town: Traffic moves along slowly. Going ten miles can take between 30 minutes and an hour, depending on the circumstances. It's just such a pain, and it is frustrating. Now, in my case, my frustration behind the wheel is caused by a number of factors:

• The brain assigns attentional resources to things. For example, your eye can see pretty well all around but your brain assigns more attentional resources to the thing your eyes are pointing at. With so much to look at and notice in a big city, the brain works overtime. This causes stress, fatigue and frustration.
• While driving around town, there are a lot of noises going on, like the sounds of other cars or your own. My car shakes when it idles and barely runs when it does. In addition, things rattle and squeak, and my keychain, of all things, swings back and forth and makes little (barely audible but certainly there) metallic ringing sounds. These are all sounds that my brain processes and tries to put in the background.
• I have to accomplish a lot of things during the day, but traffic wastes a lot of time.
• But here is my favorite part: The *shapes* of cars, of all things, pisses me off the most. Seriously... it's as if all I look at the whole time is the ass end of ugly cars. When the driver in front of me pushes on the gas after being stopped, the back end of his car moves down a couple of inches from the "recoil" of his car suddenly moving forward. When he stops, the back end of his car seems to rise up a few inches. Pay attention to this as you're driving around and you'll see it too. Now the part that pisses me off is this: That rising of the back end that I just mentioned? It looks like a dog raising its ass at you as an insult. For some reason, my brain associates the shape and motion of the decelerating car in front of me with dogs that insult you by sticking their ass in the air, as dogs do when you want to put a leash on them, give them a bath, or anything else that the dog doesn't want. And it's almost true: It's as if the driver in front of you is insulting you by stopping instead of getting the fuck out of your way. I can't explain how much this pisses me off.

Now all of this might sound totally psycho to you but I'm serious... people can't explain why they are the nicest people but turn into total bastards when they get in a car. It's not just sound waves that can piss you off... it's everything that your brain has to assign resources to, like motion and shape. I think this is why we associate certain feelings with certain faces, colors, shapes, body language, etc.

P.d., the worst road rage I've ever had was yelling profanities at the top of my lungs, and that only happened once when I was three hours late to work because I slept too long at my girlfriend's house and couldn't get to work fast enough. But that's how life is in the big city... I just go home in the evening and have some tequila. Because Denial is a river in Egypt.

The $64 million question.

[AnotherBrian (319405)]

All I want to know is will it fry the cell phone of thoes people who can't seem to STFU in the restaurant. Perhaps a hand held version of this could be wielded by ushers in movie theaters.

Re:The $64 million question.

[WhiteDragon (4556)]

I never will get why people talking on cellphones in a restaraunt is annoying, but people talking just as loudly to people sitting next to them is not a problem.

Re:The $64 million question.

[Quixote (154172)]

Because when you listen to a cellphone conversation, you are listening to only one half of the conversation.

Hey, if *I* am taking the trouble to evesdrop, I want the full monty, dammit!!

:-)

Re:The $64 million question.

[DennyK (308810)]

I've always found people talking on cell phones rather irritating. Maybe it's because of the way our brains process auditory data. When two people are having a conversation in person, their speech will follow a general pattern. Maybe they'll take turns speaking, maybe one always interrupts the other, or maybe they both trip on each other's sentences all the time, but there will be a pattern your brain can pick out, and then it can recognize that pattern as unimportant and dismiss it if you're not interested in their conversation. But when a person is talking to a phone, you can't hear the other end of the conversation, so your brain can't pick out the pattern. Instead of a flowing conversation, you've got one person speaking, then silence, then the same person speaking again at some random interval. It's very jarring, especially when people get LOUD as many tend to do on cell phones. Kind of like having a noisy, slow, irregular drip from your bathroom faucet. Because you never quite know when that next "plonk!" is coming, you find yourself anticipating it, and it really messes with your concentration...and of course, when it finally comes, it always makes you jump a little because you can't predict exactly *when* it's coming. In the same way, you can never anticipate when a cell phone user is going to start speaking again, and every time he/she does, it kind of startles you. This makes it harder to tune out cell phone users than it is to tune out a tableful of people chatting with each other...

DennyK

"This Account Has Been Suspended"

[blincoln (592401)]

The site now redirects to a suspension message [ipowerweb.com].

Fortunately for the owner, it looks like his host cuts off traffic after 30GB. A lot of them will simply keep jacking up the bill. Maybe Slashdot should direct some of the money from their banner ads to the owners of the sites they link to?

The obligatory

[Duck_Taffy (551144)]

Imagine a beowuÂÂÂâ'uylsffj-esufASD;LO8FU£ÃÃÃZâÃÃ" £Ã[NO CARRIER]

My god...

[floydigus (415917)]

My god - what I wouldn't give to get my hands on one of these things.

Where I live, streets that contain straight stretches of longer than about 10m are a target for the local petrol heads with their turbos. The only thing is, that in order to get the turbo to fire (which they like - it lets people know they can afford turbo - even if they only have a hatchback and they work in the local supermarket), they need to over-rev the engine even when they're taking they're mum to the shops. The sonic effect is something like;

"BRRRMMM!! (phssh) BRRRRRMMM phsssshhh BRMMRMRM phssh"

I would like to hear something like;

"BRRRMMM!! (phssh) BRRRRRMMM ph...ZAP! SHAZAM! phsszzzppt. put...put......put."

Show those suckers.

Anyone else think Slashdotting is criminal?

[BobTheWonderMonkey (144907)]

/. has willingingly just exceeded this guy's bandwidth. He now owes his ISP money (and probably lots of it) because /. linked.

Now, does anyone else think that the Slashdot Effect is getting to be criminal? C'mon, people, we GAVE IT A NAME. It's not like we don't know what posting to /. is going to do to someone's servers.

Editors of Slashdot: you guys are getting criminally negligent. If no one has sued you so far, you better start getting the lawyers ready.

Hmmm

[Querty (1128)]

Slashdotted already...

I'd say /. pretty much performs as "a device like EMP but directional" for web sites.

Cached Page

[randomErr (172078)]

SITE URL 01: www.VoltsAmps.com
SITE URL 02: www.VoltageLabs.com
SITE URL 03: www.SVBxLABS.com

Purpose:

This project is a continuation of the HERF003 project. It will be just like the HERF001 but many times more compact and efficient due to optimization and better calculated design. The actual device (excluding the horn antenna) will be about 50 times smaller in volume than HERF001 while having the same output power yet even better antenna efficiency and low VSWR. I hope to get much more detailed tests done on the effects and range of this device. Results and test images/videos will be posted allong with data sheets, radiation patterns and videos of test shots on dummy PC's.

Materials:

- 800W 2.458GHz Magnetron
- MOT
- 2kV @ 1.2uF capacitor
- 12kV piv microwave oven diode
- Sheet metal
- Sheet copper
- Other small parts

Details:

This is the basic magnetron coupling design. It is designed after the WR340 waveguide and can allow 1.70GHz to 2.60GHz to pass through with low attenuation. Of course my RF output will be within this range being 2.458GHz. The full dimentions of the waveguide are 4.318cm x 9.147cm x 8.636cm. The horn antenna is not as small as pictured. The magnetron feed will be inserted 1/4 the wavelength from the back of the waveguide.

a = 86.36mm
b = 43.18mm
c = 91.47mm

For a 15dB horn antenna:

p = 152.5mm
a1 = 320.6mm
b1 = 237.5mm

For a 18dB horn antenna:

p = 365.9mm
a1 = 452.9mm
b1 = 335.5mm

These are the dimentions of the plates that must be cut out in order to form a 15dB horn antenna.

These are the dimentions of the plates that must be cut out in order to form a 18dB horn antenna. Of course two of each plate must be made in order to make a complete horn antenna. The back end is then welded to the waveguide.

This is the circular waveguide and conical horn and its dimentions. The distance between the magnetron feed and the back waveguide wall should be fine tuned and adjusted as needed. The waveguide diameter is 3/4 the 2.458GHz wavelength and the distance from the magnetron feed and the base of the horn is 1/2 the wavelength.

This is the schematic of the HERF004 if powered from a 120VAC (or 240VAC) source. The circuit consists of a transformer and a voltage doubler cap/diode setup. A filiment heater is also needed.

This is the schematic of the HERF004 if powered from a 12VDC battery source. This design will provide less average RMS output power but will provide the same if not higher pulse peak power. Most magnetrons have the markings F, FA, C, or K next to the leads of which F, C and K are the magnetron cathode. Most microwave oven magnetrons will be marked with FA and F while radar magnetrons will only have one lead marked with either a K or a C. Since the magnetron I am planning to use is not a pulsed magnetron I will not construct a pulse forming network although it would help.

Videos:

herf004-test001.mpg (8.03MB)

This clip shows a series of herf004 shots at different distances. The video clip contains both video and audio. In the audio you can hear the 60Hz hum as it was induced into the camera via 2.458GHz carier wave.

herflight01.mpeg (0.98MB)

This clip shows HERF004 exciting the gas within a flourecent light tube causing it to glow.

herfmotion01.mpeg (0.97MB)

This clip shows HERF004 triggering the driveway motion detector of my home and the house next door.

Images:

This is the horn right after its construction. I cut it out of sheet copper and then welded each sheet together. My welding skills weren't that great so the plates may be misaligned by upto 4mm. The horn was designed to be 17dB since my sheet copper wasn't large enough to make an 18dB horn. I will probably make a conical horn after this one though and use it instead since this one turned out to be quite large.

First HERF004 victim, me. As I was drilling a hole for the magnetron feed the

Re:magnetron?

[00_NOP (559413)]

Cavity magnetrons were invented in the Second World War by the Brits (iirc, apologies to the Yanks if I am wrong) and were used to hunt and kill German submarines in the Battle of the Atlantic. They blast electrons over small cavities and create microwave radiation - which was good enough to detect, by radar, submarines in the Atlantic swell. That, plus the combination of longer range bomber aircraft, finished the job started by Station X.

Re:magnetron?

[BigBlockMopar (191202)]

Magnetrons are the main component of microwave ovens. Beware -- unshielded units are dangerous. You can end up sterile, or dead... or both.

Oh my god.

Before the dot-com meltdown, I used to design radar equipment for a major defense contractor. Radar systems use microwave energy - which is just radio waves within an arbitrary range that we call "microwave", like we call some radio waves "VHF" and others "UHF".

A microwave oven is simply a ~500W unmodulated carrier wave at ~2.4GHz. Neither the power nor the frequency is terribly precise.

A magnetron is a vacuum tube used to generate microwave-frequency RF. It's a special kind of directly-heated diode surrounded by a very strong magnet, hence the term "magnetron".

It is utterly and completely harmless (except to magnetic media and the magnetic stripe on your security pass, from personal experience) until you apply power. Typically, a microwave oven magnetron wants about 6V to light the filament and about 6kV anode; in pulsed navigational radar, it's usually 6V to light the filament and about 10kV to pulse the magnetron in 25kW 12GHz pulses at 3kHz (think of AM modulation).

If you take a direct blast from a radar, it's unlikely to make you sterile, or to cause cancer. Those are caused by ionizing radiation (ie. nuclear and X-Ray). This is non-ionizing; essentially just a radio wave. In the S and X band radar ranges - and presumably everything in between - the primary damage would be to the corneas of the eyes. And it burns - I got it to my torso once, no permanent damage, just like a bad sunburn.

In other words, don't operate your microwave oven with the door open, and don't look into the waveguide.

Oh, and don't play with the power supply which runs the magnetron. Anything capable of supplying enough current to make 500W at 6kV (ie. power supply of a home microwave oven) is capable of setting fire to your skin. And the capacitors in a microwave oven hold a charge for a while - don't play with them.