Poor Bluetooth performance with all aluminum Mac Pro

Question

The all aluminum case for pre-mavericks Mac Pro is the primary reason for poor antenna performance of Bluetooth. Aluminum, being a good conductor, acts as a reflector of EMF forming what is known as a Faraday Cage, essentially trapping emissions within the box. Normally, holes drilled in the case would allow enough EMF to pass through the case but the hole size for transmission is directly proportional to the lowest frequency that will pass through easily. An example is the typical microwave oven where the window is actually a conducting sheet with small enough hole such that higher freq light waves pass easily through the sheet but lower frequency microwaves do not. Perhaps if the drive bay covers were made of plastic, transmission of the Bluetooth and wifi would be sufficient. One might carefully nibble a slot or two in the side door but this would surely invalidate any warranty and care would have to be taken not to get aluminum particles inside the computer. This would probably nullify any FCC approval of the machine due to clocking noise interference with other devices. The best approach would probably be a tuned waveguide that passes frequencies only around 2.4 GHz ~ 5 GHz through the case (very similar to the way tuned ports on audio speakers pass a band of frequencies needed to extend bass response). I'm sure Apple will have corrected this design flaw in the new Mac Pro introduced this year. If you have lots of time on your hands you can get a college level text on electromagnetics (Maxwell's Equations, etc.) and derive all the details but with a bit of experimenting and reading about tin can antenna mods to wireless routers you should be able to improve Bluetooth performance significantly.

Answer 1

Thanks for the suggestion.  I will have to move my wireless home base station.  It is on the same desk as my mini so much less than 5 feet away.