You are right, of course. This also explains why all laptops have metal lining 
behind their funky (or not) plastic cases.

In my experience of running with cases open, no case at all, or even using a 
cardboard boot box as a case (yep, a student brought that in once :D) , the 
worst interference is with loudspeakers. Nothing much is detected with TV sets, 
radios or cell phones. I guess it's just that loudspeaker wires are so much 
longer than other equipment.

On the other hand, metal cases that are not appropriately isolated from the 
inboard electronics may act as emitting antennae, actually increasing 
interference with other equipment. Seen that mainly with some low-end tower 
boxes.

Cheers,
-Alan



-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of David Mathog
Sent: Tue 10/28/2008 12:32 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Beowulf] Re: Not all cases need be metal
 
I missed most of this thread, so somebody may have already pointed this
out, but cases are metal not just for fire safety reasons.  The case is
usually made of a good conductor so that it will also shield the radio
emissions from the electronics housed inside.  Failure to do so could in
theory bring the wrath of the FCC down on you (in the U.S.), or at least
make you really unpopular with your neighbors.  I wonder if the new
digital TV tuners are more or less sensitive to this sort of thing than
were the old analog tuners?  I'm thinking they are likely to be more
sensitive, since weak channels we could pick up with varying amounts
of "snow" and multipath using an analog tuner tend to be a big nothing
with a digital tuner.

David Mathog
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech
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