I may have the RFI story of the century (last century, that is). :-)
One day, I was called to the ARRL lobby. I met a woman there who introduced
herself as the neighbor of a ham. She was very unhappy with the RFI the ham
was "causing" to her telephone, stereo and cable TV.
I started at the beginning, explaining the rules, the basic causes and
cures, but she stopped me rather cold just as I got to fundamental overload.
She KNEW all that; she was looking for someone to make the ham stop causing
her interference.
To little avail, I tried to explain why the rules are what they are, what I
felt the FCC would have to say, etc. She had already contacted the FCC and
was not at all pleased with what the FCC had to say, and again told me she
was turning to ARRL "as a last resort" to find someone to make him stop.
Finally, in almost desperation, I asked her where she lived. It turned out
she was in South Windsor, CT, a location about 15 miles from ARRL HQ. I
decided to put a speedy end to the the problem and offered to her that I
would be happy to come to her house and cure all of the RFI problems for her
(holding up the ARRL RFI Book and telling her that I wrote the book on the
subject), but that she and her neighbor would have to be willing to work
together to help me do it.
She gave me a very disappointed look, turned her back and started walking
out of the ARRL lobby. Her parting words, shouted over her shoulder, were,
"Well, it looks like I am wasting my time here."
True story.
73,
Ed Hare, W1RFI
ARRL Laboratory Supervisor
225 Main St
Newington, CT 06111
Tel: 860-594-0318
FAX: 860-594-0259
Internet: w1rfi@arrl.org
ARRL Web: http://www.arrl.org
ARRL Technical Information Service: http://www.arrl.org/tis/
> -----Original Message-----
> From: k6ll@juno.com [mailto:k6ll@juno.com]
> Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2000 10:43 AM
> To: rfi@contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [RFI] RFI story of the day
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, 3 Aug 2000 09:11:27 -0500 bryan@prodistributors.com writes:
> >
> >
> > The company I work for sales some products that are used to
> > deal with RFI.....there is usually at least one really great story
> > each
> > week or so that comes in from a customer....
> >
> > " This electronic guy has moved in across the street and
> > ever
> > since he moved in my television and phones won't work. My
> > cousin works for the police and he went over and checked on this
> > fellow. He found out that he has two computers and a fax machine
> > in his house. No wonder I am having problems."
> >
> > Bryan W5KFT
>
> Here's another one. In the early days of cordless phones, when
> they operated around 1.8 Mhz, a neighbor behind us, who had
> previously complained about radio interference to her cordless
> telephone, rang the doorbell. She had the audacity to say, "I am
> trying to make an important phone call, and all I can on my cordless
> phone is YOU, carrying on a conversation on YOUR cordless phone.
> Please hang up so I can make my phone call." Honest to God, this is
> a true story.
>
> Dave Hachadorian, K6LL
> Big Bear, CA
> K6LL@juno.com
>
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