Rebooting the amiga with a couple of walkie-talkies!

[N7VQM]

Yep, the RF from your radios probably did conduct on a trace somewhere in the Amiga but there wasn't any "error mechanism" involved.  Induction was enough to cause a bit or two (or more) to flip on a bus et voila!  The computer goes down.

My 2 meter (144-148 MHz) transciever will cause my computers to reset if I xmit while close to them.   It's not that uncommon for RF to affect machines that aren't properly sheilded.

BTW, what brand and model are these radios?

[N7VQM]

KennyR wrote:
If its doing that to your Amiga through steel sheeting, think what its doing inside your head. :nervous:

That's dependant on frequency.  Different RF wavelengths heat different parts of the body.  If they're 49MHz (wavelength = 6.12 meters) radios, there's very little heating effect to the stuff in your head.  The head is just too small.  And 5 watts (most probable max output for a handheld) isn't going to heat you up much anyway.  However, if they are 400MHz (wavelength = 1.33 meters) units, your head DOES get the most of the heating effect.  But, like I said, 5 watts of transmit RF doesn't do much.  The computer really is in much more danger than you at these low levels.  A kilowatt or so and it's a different story.

As for athermal effects of RF, the jury is still out, it seems.

[N7VQM]

GPT wrote:
So if I assamble the side to the tower then it should sheild the RF signals.

Not neccesarily.  Just because you have all the case parts on doesn't mean your computer is properly shielded.  There are other factors to concider.  For example, how  long is the path from the shield to earth ground (not mains ground)?  If it just happens to be the right length to be resonant on the xmit frequency, it will act as an antenna.  Then, you have a system gound with an RF voltage on it which isn't a very good ground for electronics!  ;-)  This, in essence, is the problem I have with my compters and my handheld.  The path to earth ground is too long and RF gets into the system through the ground leg.

[N7VQM]

@KennyR

Did you forget about the last sentence of my post or did you ignore it?

It's not yet known just how RF feilds below the ionization level affect biologicial  mechnisms.   And, while the chemical soup in the brain is a decent conductor, it is not a good inductor.  If it was, I doubt we would have survived this long concidering the RF pulses created by lightning strikes.

[N7VQM]

KennyR wrote:

There's also reason to believe that EM fields disrupt the mental processes. Experiments with magnetic fields along the brain causes subtle mood changes or memory recollections.

Goggle "schuman resonance" for some interesting reading.  In particular, compare the frequencies of Schuman Resonance to the various frequencies of human brain activity.