[RFI] Solar Panel RFI Awareness At Dayton

Fri May 27 08:40:01 EDT 2022

Watch what you wish for, agreed! 
Those scenarios are very familiar to me. And there are many additional stories to support what it is saying.

Imagine being diagnosed with 50 interference sources in the FCC demanding they be fixed. Only to discover that not one of those 50 sources were a contributor to the noise level the ham was experiencing. 

Sometimes the paper tiger is best left undisturbed!

⁣Michael Martin
RFI Services
240-508-3760
www.rfiservices.com is under construction and will be up and running soon.

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On May 27, 2022, 7:10 AM, at 7:10 AM, "Hare, Ed, W1RFI" <w1rfi at arrl.org> wrote:
>As amateurs, we should very much prefer it the way it is rather than
>having the FCC be 100% responsible for "enforcing its own rules."  We
>can be assured that if FCC were to 100% take on that task, the first
>thing it do is to make a clear definition of harmful interference that
>I can assure you we would not like.
>
>Be careful what you ask for because you just might get it and then have
>to live with the aftermath.  The League staff are very much aware of
>what they are choosing to do and why they undertake what the FCC will
>not.  We, in fact, work at not demanding the FCC field investigations
>that some hams think will make their case. It probably will not.
>
>Let me tell you a Tale of Two RFI Cases.
>
>In one case, a ham had S9 interference.  The utility screwed around
>endlessly and the FCC finally was able to have a team going there for
>other reasons look at the noise. It could not determine the source, so
>it told the amateur that because he could hear some signals on the
>band, it was not harmful interference, so the FCC was going to close
>the case and take no action.  You would not believe the difficulty in
>getting that decision overturned.
>
>In another instance involving S9 noise, and FCC field investigation
>identified over 50 noise sources and told the utility to fix them all.
>
>It's a crap shoot, then, right?  No, it's worse!  Both of those were
>the same case in Texas, with two different FCC investigators.  Do you
>REALLY want to see the FCC enforcing the RFI rules? If so, without
>ARRL's staff getting and staying involved, it would have been game over
>after the first investigation.
>
>If FCC enforces, this will ultimately be turned over to multiple field
>offices, with investigators for which RFI is a sideline at best, and a
>mystery at worst. We are MUCH better off having 1.5 staff in the ARRL
>Lab with literally world-class expertise and experience managing these
>cases, with help from local volunteers, doing all of the legwork and
>turning cases over to the FCC when necessary.  What ARRL has put
>together here, in collaboration with FCC and the involved industries,
>is as good as we are going to get in principle, always improvable in
>the details.  IMHO, it is a model of consumer/industry/regulator
>collaboration that will ultimately be adopted in other ways.
>
>Ed Hare, W1RFI
>ARRL Lab
>
>________________________________
>From: RFI <rfi-bounces+w1rfi=arrl.org at contesting.com> on behalf of
>David Eckhardt <davearea51a at gmail.com>
>Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2022 12:20 PM
>To: Dave (NK7Z) <dave at nk7z.net>
>Cc: Rfi List <rfi at contesting.com>
>Subject: Re: [RFI] Solar Panel RFI Awareness At Dayton
>
>Dave, NK7Z, you hit the nails squarely on the heads in your last email.
>
>Further, those of us who are members of ARRL are paying in our dues (or
>life memberships) what FCC was originally tasked to do, among other
>tasks
>within CFR47.  ARRL and the amateurs are now the RFI sleuths,
>especially
>when it comes to home solar power installations.  So, our dues and life
>memberships to ARRL should be tax deductible??
>
>All have read my past rants on FCC shirking the responsibilities
>spelled
>out in CFR47.  Now we amateurs and ARRL are tasked with some of those
>responsibilities originally defined in  CFR47.  And all for free.......
>Something is wrong with this picture!
>
>Sure, FCC is severely short of funds.  And.,...... maybe ARRL has been
>working with FCC for 20 years on.  But this is no excuse for handing
>their
>own responsibilities, at no cost, off to a volunteer paid organization
>of
>members.
>
>Dave - W0LEV
>
>On Wed, May 25, 2022 at 11:24 PM Dave (NK7Z) <dave at nk7z.net> wrote:
>
>> If only the FCC enforced their own rules, I would agree with you...
>>
>> There is very little proactive enforcement happening up in this area,
>> and I suspect elsewhere...
>>
>> RFI is rampant, and getting worse, not better.  It is a mindlessly
>> simple task to locate a grow operations in most cases.  Yet the
>Amateur
>> is the person on the front lines in location, and in first contact
>with
>> the offender, exposing the Amateur to possible liability, and
>possible
>> assault.
>>
>> The grow ops up here are far too big to be selling in state, which
>means
>> they are selling out of state, which means they are illegal.  So the
>FCC
>> is placing the Amateur in the position of possibly dealing with a
>drug
>> offender...  The real issue is the RFI, not what is being grown, or
>> warmed, or lit...  Just the RFI, but it is still the Amateur that has
>to
>> knock on the door, and explain what is happening to whoever
>answers...
>>
>> The FCC is ham stringed by not enough funding, so we are the front
>> line...  RFI enforcement has switched from proactive to reactive as a
>> result of lack of funding-- unless you are a cell provider...  Then
>one
>> call gets instant action, and-- god forbid you even think about
>starting
>> a pirate FM station...
>>
>> In a perfect world, I would report RFI to the FCC, and they would
>send
>> down a field engineer in a timely manner, locate the RFI, and fine,
>or
>> warn the perpetrator, then followup with the operator of the device a
>> few weeks later, to ascertain compliance levels.  This would force an
>> overall reduction in the amount RFI, over time as consumers went
>after
>> the installers, and the manufacturers.
>>
>> That is just not happening.  Thus the problem gets worse, not better.
>>
>> This is why I say, there is some reasonable level of RFI that the
>> amateur is going to have to accept.  Be it right or wrong, that is
>the
>> way it is working, and for the foreseeable future going to work. 
>This
>> is very unfortunate.
>>
>> 73,
>> Dave,
>> https://www.nk7z.net
>> On 5/25/22 11:26, Jim Brown wrote:
>> > On 5/25/2022 1:38 AM, Dave (NK7Z) wrote:
>> >> Respectfully I am saying that at some point there is a level at
>which
>> >> the FCC will say too bad, live with it.  That level will be above
>what
>> >> things were before the solar installation arrived.
>> >
>> > FCC Rules say that if a product interferes with licensed radio
>operation
>> > that use of it must be discontinued.
>> >
>> > 73, Jim K9YC
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > RFI mailing list
>> > RFI at contesting.com
>> > http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/rfi
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
>--
>*Dave - WØLEV*
>*Just Let Darwin Work*
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