Charlie,
I too think poorly designed, noisy devices shouldn't be sold to consumers;
unfortunately Charlie, the problem is we are far outnumbered by those who
don't care what we think. And with worldwide internet sales making anything
available anywhere (even junk ham radios), this battle will not be beaten by
legislation because we hams are a tiny minority in an international market
of goods.
BPL didn't go away because we won legislative battles against it; it went
away because it was beaten by better technology that came along which was
what I expected. And some of that better technology also probably causes
some interference but on a smaller more controllable scale. So the RFI
battlefield keeps moving and morphing. The noisy touch lamp problems of the
80s/90s don't come up on this list too much anymore, and the noisy CRTs seem
to have faded away to our landfills. TVI is a rare problem that became
manageable with coaxial cable TV systems. Etc...
I'm not at all opposed to hams contacting Consumer Reports, congressmen &
congresswomen, or anyone else who might listen; however, we should all
analyze what might be the most effective way to solve each individual
problem based on what has worked for others.
Making friendships with our neighbors and helping them with their
electronics problems might get us further towards resolution than becoming a
RF community organizer stirring up protests and ill feelings on both sides.
Sometimes being nice may not work or the design is so bad the RFI cannot be
resolved, and that's when the FCC needs to step in and be the bad guy who
sends out their letter explaining the problem to the consumer and/or
manufacturer and what they expect for a solution. This is not our job so no
reason to be any more involved other than contacting the FCC about the
device's RFI problem. It might help, and it might not.
I feel each step towards a resolution is worth trying, right?
73, de ed -K0iL
-----Original Message-----
From: RFI [mailto:rfi-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of n0tt1@juno.com
> This all reminds me of the old 50s/60s TVI issue of adding high pass
> filtering to all of the TVs sold out there so they won't pick up RFI
I see where you are going with that, Ed. I think those noisy devices
shouldn't be sold to anyone. I'm pretty sure all it takes to eliminate the
most RFI is some smart engineering and a 10-cent part (if even that!!).
Yes, it makes sense to eliminate the noise even though most people won't
complain about it. More...
If memory serves, W8JI lives about 6 miles from the nearest town. When he
"points" his directional 160m receiving antennas that direction, the noise
increases by several DB. So, yeah, consumer devices do radiate far from
their sources and all of that just adds to the noise floor of our radios.
All because some manufacturer wants to shave a dime off their cost.
73,
Charlie, N0TT
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