[RFI] FW: TV set RFI questions

[Hare, Ed, W1RFI]

> ARRL HQ used to maintain a list of engineering contacts at the various
> companies who were more knowledgeable than the 800-number 
> crowd.  You might try an e-mail to W1RFI@arrl.org.

That list was actually maintained for a brief time by the Electronic
Industries Association. It has long-since been discontinued by EIA (now the
Consumer Electronics Association). 

In 1994, ARRL undertook contacting automobile manufacturers, to ask them
what their policies were wrt RFI, if they had any service bulletins about
RFI for their vehicles and who people should contact if they had problems
that could not be resolved at their dealer.  About 25% of the companies
responded to the first letter, after 3 or 4 inquiries, the last directed
throught their Public Media Relations Departments, we finally got the last
of the companies to at least answer the questions. And this from an industry
that has a very active RFI standards committee through the Society of
Automotive Engineers.  Unfortunately, NONE of the companies were willing to
have their engineering-level contacts made public.  I have a few, my fellows
on the SAE EMC committee, but they generally are not able to get involved
with indidual problems.

Considering the amount of staff work and calandar time it took to get
answers out of a few dozen automobile manufacturers, I don't know if trying
a similar approach with consumer manufacturers would get the desired
results.  It could be that by the time some of the information was finally
obtained, the first info would be obsolete.  There are probably several
thousand consumer electronics brand names. Nonetheless, I think it is worth
pursuing.  One of the proposals I am going to make for the ARRL RFI Task
Group is that ARRL contact manufacturers, with the intent of writing an
article for QST. This time, I think I will *start* with the media-public
relations folks instead of the customer-service managers.  No promises here,
folks, in some cases, the League won't be any more successful than you in
actually getting answers to letters, but any info at all will be better than
the almost none that exists now.  As usual, once the info is gathered and
published, I will make it available on the ARRL public web pages.

The automotive info I referenced is available at: 

http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/rficar.html

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: Pete Smith [mailto:n4zr@contesting.com]
> Sent: Monday, July 24, 2000 10:22 AM
> To: EDWARDS, EDDIE J; 'rfi'
> Subject: Re: [RFI] FW: TV set RFI questions
> 
> 
> 
> At 09:14 AM 7/24/00 -0500, EDWARDS, EDDIE J wrote:
> >
> >Below is an example of why RFI is such a problem for 
> consumers.  This is a
> >response by Panasonic to my questions about TV RFI.  Even TV 
> manufacturer's
> >don't seem to understand the problem, or at least their 
> customer service
> >folks don't have a clue at all.  I'll probably get the same 
> response from
> >JVC as well.  Sony just e-mailed me their 800 number which 
> has a VRU that
> >dead-ends me at a busy signal every time.  Lot's of help 
> that is!  I won't
> >be buying Sony this time.
> 
> ARRL HQ used to maintain a list of engineering contacts at the various
> companies who were more knowledgeable than the 800-number 
> crowd.  You might
> try an e-mail to W1RFI@arrl.org.
> 
> These days, an awful lot of 800-number customer service is 
> being outsourced
> to telemarketing shops where the only info the people have is 
> what they
> have been given in their script.
> 
> 73, Pete Smith N4ZR
> 
> The World Contest Station Database 
> is back up and running at
> http://www.qsl.net/n4zr 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/FAQ/rfi
> Submissions:              rfi@contesting.com
> Administrative requests:  rfi-REQUEST@contesting.com
> Questions:                owner-rfi@contesting.com
> 

--
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/FAQ/rfi
Submissions:              rfi@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  rfi-REQUEST@contesting.com
Questions:                owner-rfi@contesting.com