That annoying RF shield

[smbaker]

After spending plenty of time bending the tabs straight and then carefully prodding the shield loose centimeters at a time, I finally have the mainboard exposed. I've taken the time to slightly file out the slots in the top half of the shield so that if I do reassemble it, it should come apart easier next time.

 

My question is, for people who've modded their 5200 (composite/svideo mods, etc) and had to remove that shield, do you bother to reinstall it? Seems like there was a lot more concern over RF shielding back in the 80s than there is now, and I'm wondering if it's worth the bother to reinstall. One could argue in favor of reinstalling in order to keep the original look, but I've already crossed that bridge when I started modding the console.

 

Scott

[Charlie_]

I never put the top shield back in. I leave the bottom shield and bend the tabs so it is nice and snug under there.

[+DrVenkman]

Seems like there was a lot more concern over RF shielding back in the 80s than there is now

That’s because in the 80’s, the FCC took a very dim view of every suburban household having small television transmitters operating in their homes (which is what the RF modulators were) plus all the radiated RF noise from game consoles and home computers ruining peoples’ TV and AM radio reception. That’s a much smaller issue now with TV all gone digital and so many fewer noisy RF generating consoles operating regularly. [emoji4]Modern computers and consoles are much less noisy and radiate a lot less interfering radiation than their vintage counterparts. Edited July 19, 2018 by DrVenkman

[fiddlepaddle]

Just because you are not FORCED to have it there doesn't mean you want to be putting extra RF noise in the air around you, especially if you are already using older RF equipment.

 

It may not mess up your TV watching, but it still might affect something you care about (or might care about in the future), for example slowing down the communication speed of something that it interferes with only a little bit.

I would put it back; it doesn't hurt anything, and it's more stock that way.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I always try and replace the RF shield whenever possible. Because honestly, we have more RF noise around us now with our bluetooth and cell communications than we ever did back in the 80s! I've seen Atari systems that definitely looked better with the RF shielding back in place due to outside interference and that is with both AV modded and unmodded systems alike.

 

I've never found the 5200 RF shield to be that difficult to remove honestly. I have had some issues getting 2600 4 switcher RF shields to come off though I don't know why, but the 5200s aren't usually that big a deal to remove in my experience. So I guess test your system without it and if it looks good, then leave it off?