I am sorry but there are no BUTS here. Jim Brown is 100% correct in his
statement. Fixing issues out in the field requires considerable
resources spent in personnel, travel expenses, and labor to fix the
issues. A few dollars in the design and development stages can save
millions.
As I see it, the real issue is that hams are not bringing these issues
to the attention of the FCC with enough factual evidence that will cause
the FCC to act. There are too many hams that will fire off an email to
the FCC and expect them to do something, but they do not provide any
details in what they did in an attempt to resolve the issue or provide
any details that will assist the FCC Personnel in resolving the issue.
When I was working we attempted to categorize the issues that caused
problems with our products then we kept track of how many times the
particular issues occurred. When the count got too high for an issue, a
team was appointed to look into the issue and come up with a remedy. It
doesn't take too long to fix the vast majority of the issues that are
causing the most problems.
I suspect the FCC works in the same fashion. When enough people submit
problems with enough factual evidence of the issues, the FCC will act.
This may even result in recalls being issued to get manufactures to fix
the issues like the Takata air bag inflator recall. Once they act on a
few, the others will fall in line and start correcting issues too.
Collecting the factual evidence is a difficult process that takes a lot
of time and will usually involve other individuals or companies. This
may include images of the spectrum, recordings of the interference, DF
bearings to the interference, copies of letters and other
communications, a daily log book, a list of other nearby hams that are
also experiencing the issues, time of the day the interference is
occurring, etc. The key here is to document the facts and leave any
assumptions, and guesses out of the details. Just because the
interference appears to be coming from the house on the corner that just
installed a solar panel does not mean the solar panel is causing the
interference.When the FCC does decide to act, then it is an easy process
for the FCC Field agent to do a quick verification and get the person or
company responsible to resolve the issue or pay penalties. I am
confident that the solar power companies would not like it known they
are being fined by the FCC for producing defective equipment.
Chuck K9LC
On 3/18/2017 11:23 AM, Jim Spears wrote:
Jim Brown is certainly 110% correct in stating that the design and
manufacturing stages are the right place to implement RFI mitigation
BUT
Those of us who have to deal with the downstream effects of manufacturers
who failed to do so through ignorance or calculated omission of needed
components can only deal with them after design, manufacture and
installation are complete.
Perhaps and we can only hope that the pendulum is starting to swing the
other way toward "encouraging" manufacturers to take RFI to others into
account.
Jim Spears
N1NK
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