On Sun, 23 Jul 2006 16:46:34 GMT, "Leon"
wrote:


"Teamcasa" wrote in message
...

"Leon"
Simething to chew on, a builder in Houston IIRC Perry Homes, built homes
with steel studs in the SW Houston, Sugarland area off of HWY6. The
homes used wood for headers but the studs were all steel. These homes
are doing well 10 years later.

Hey Leon, I have a neighbor with a steel stud framed house and if he holds
the bedroom door open just right - he hears a radio station in his head!
;~)

Dave

LOL... I often wonder it all that steel would be a problem with radio or
TV reception from indoor antennas.

That said, my house has an Aluminum roof that looks like Cedar Shakes. No
reception problems at all.


The only effective RF shield is a continuous metal grid on all sides,
top and bottom. It is called a Faraday cage. So, if you have a metal
layer in both the subfloor and ceiling, and all of those studs are
electrically connected to them and each other, and you install metal
cross braces every 16", you would reduce the strength of all signals
below about 300 MHz, so channels 7 to 13 might have more snow than the
neighbors do, but 2-6 and FM would be much weaker. The commercial AM
band would be much weaker still, which might not be a bad idea.

For any one interested in the theory, a wire mesh screen will reflect
signals whose wavelength is longer than twice the size of the space
between the wires. Twice 16" would be 32 inches, just less than one
meter. For a wavelength of 1 meter, the frequency is 300 MHz. The
reflection is not total, and the change is not instantaneous, but
gradually becomes exponentially stronger as the frequency drops. At
300 MHz, the signal would be half reflected. at 150 MHz about 3/4,
etc. FM broadcasts are grouped around 100 MHz, between TV channels 6
and 7. AM is way down at 1MHz.

On the other hand, a steel building sitting on the ground pretty much
blocks everything.

Bob McConnell
N2SPP