[Novalug] OT: My iMac is vulnerable to my microwave

Matthew Thompson matthew.thompson@nrl.navy.mil
Wed Mar 26 08:39:50 EDT 2008


The heavens stretched forth and Palmer decreed the following on or about 
03/26/2008 08:27 AM:
> All of you are going to laugh, but this solution has worked for a similar
> problem (your microwave, WiFi setup, magnetic resonance, etc may vary):
> 
> Go to the local farm/seed&feed, etc and buy some 1" aluminum chicken wire.
>  It _must_ be 1" (that is the size of the openings) and it _must_ be
> aluminum.  Place this close to your microwave, between it and your WiFi
> devices.  You may need to ground the chicken wire if it's an old
> (promiscuous or "leaky") microwave.

You know, I was never great at this part of physics (stupid Jackson). 
Is there a rule-of-thumb for a Faraday cage that I should know?

I suppose my naive thought would be openings a fair bit smaller than the 
wavelength--which is about 12.5 cm for 2.4 GHz, if I did the math 
right--say 3 cm or so (i.e., an inch).  But then, the mesh inside the 
microwave door is about 1 mm on mine.

Also, wouldn't copper work just as well as aluminum?  Or even steel?

Matt
-- 
Matt Thompson, PhD
Naval Research Laboratory
202-767-2160



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