[Amps] Love those rules that keep us on the straight and narrow!

Peter Chadwick g3rzp at g3rzp.wanadoo.co.uk
Fri Apr 28 04:56:14 EDT 2006


I thought that the FCC do require 3rd party testing, which is, in many cases, just a way for test houses to get money. They really aren't necessary , as a responsible manufacturer will design/test etc to make sure he meets the harmonic and spurious emission requirements, and if he doesn't, there's always the big fine and even jail for the CEO. Some of the 'approved' test houses are a joke anyway - I saw one in the Bay area where the open air test site had so much external interference that you had to test at 2 am to get things quiet enough to make the measurement!
Over here, a manufacturer can self certify, which makes life easier, although the requirements on stuff pushed into the mains can be quite hard to measure without some very expensive test gear. Also, there's no limit on how many amplifiers (or anything else) that I can make in a year, provided I don't sell them.
Interestingly, the harmonic limits on commercially available amateur transmitters here are strange, in that under the EU rules, the limts are less stringent than the ITU  Radio Regulations! The same applies in the US, too, although not to the same extent - FCC rules are only 6dB less stringent, while the EU rules are 10dB less stringent. The FCC ones are wrong because they mis-read ITU-R Rec SM.329, even though the FCC delegate to the ITU Study Group 1 meetings is a ham himself!
73
Peter G3RZP


More information about the Amps mailing list