[RFI] Good news: Panasonic stops making plasma TVs

[Donald Chester]

The bad news is that Panasonic is just one manufacturer, and there are already millions of plasma TVs in service that are likely to continue spewing out their garbage for years to come.

Those things are everywhere! Fortunately for me, I live out in the country and don't have this problem, and a plasma TV will never enter these premises, but many if not most hams I talk to, who live in a densely populated urban area, tell me that plasma TV interference has made the lower HF bands difficult or downright unusable. I wonder if this problem might not be far more widespread than most people 
think, and a major reason that activity on 160m and 75m has clearly dwindled in recent years. 

This shouldn't even be an issue. This kind of interference is clearly a violation of FCC rules and never should  have been allowed to get out of hand to the extent that it has. RFI hash trashing up the bands could end up being as much a threat to amateur radio as TVI was back in the 50s.

I don't understand why ARRL and the AM broadcast industry, along with other HF users such as aviation and the military, haven't joined together to sponsor an urgent research project to retrofit plasma TVs to eliminate the RFI, and then once demonstrated that this would be feasible, exert pressure on congress and the FCC to follow the law that already exists on the books, and force manufacturers and existing users to clean those things up, just as the FCC did with the guy who had the defective well pump motor. Amateur radio probably couldn't accomplish this alone, but a combined effort with other interests probably could pull it off. Remember, NTIA nixed a real 60m amateur band because the government insisted that those HF channels were strategically indispensable for national security. As with paranoia over the health effects of rf, "national security" is another hot-button issue that would likely resonate with politicians and the public.

Don k4kyv