[RFI] Solar Panel RFI Awareness At Dayton

[Hare, Ed, W1RFI]

There are a lot of reasons, Tony, and which ones mean what to which manufacturer is speculation.

Here are some possibilities, in no particular order:

o They want their company to have a good reputation, and with amateur complaints, this would not be the case.
o The ghost of BPL Past still haunts then, and they do have relationships with utilities to fill them in on what happens when there is controversy.
o They want to be good corporate citizens.
o They do not want the FCC to start adjudiucating cases. I told them the Texas story and they don't want to be on the wrong side of bad FCC decisions.
o They do not want stricter emissions limits, so they want to be able to say that the existing rules are wortoldking.
o They do want to reduce emissions enough that there are few, if any, interference complaints.
o They know that ARRL can be a great friend to those companies that go above and beyond.  We did that with Good Guys in the BPL wars and their "above and beyond" made it into the international standards for BPL.
o They know that ARRL can be a formidable enemy.  The publicity of what the Bad Guys in the BPL wars prevented that industry from getting a foothold.  Utilities stayed away in droves because the word was out that if the systems were operated legally, they didn't work well, and it they were operated "hot," "Ed" would show up and there'd be bad publicity for the utility and involvement with the FCC.

It's is amazing, though, to see how many companies respond appropriately.  When Phonex made "wireless modem jacks" that operated on 3.53 MHz, there was interference. When contacted, they redesigned the product to not use the ham bands.  They had been  told that amateur radio was a "dying breed." They learned quickly to the contrary.  AT&T has bought them by the 10s of thousands and rather than trying to squash us like a bug, they did a system-wide  recall of installed devices, actually sending trucks out with spectrum analyzers and a whip antenna to find the devices when they didn't have good records by contract installers.  It was industry that contacted ARRL, wanting to testing of the developing HomePlug standard that was in-premise BPL before it was even called that.  They ended up choosing to notch the ham bands, creating an industry spec that did not cause harmful interference to amateur radio.  When RFI was getting into Eaton AFCI breakers, when we reported this to them, they sent two engineers from CA to witness our findings and had a redesigned model available within 6 weeks, replacing them in the field in response to complaints, even paying the electricians.

Yes, there are uncooperative companies, but most are made up of engineers that want to do the right thing.  I keep myself less cynical so I can help ensure that when those engineers do the right thing, it pays off for them in good publicity and avoidance of trouble.

Ed




________________________________
From: RFI <rfi-bounces+w1rfi=arrl.org at contesting.com> on behalf of Tony <73guddx at gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2022 5:33 PM
To: Rfi List <rfi at contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [RFI] Solar Panel RFI Awareness At Dayton

On 5/28/2022 4:54 AM, Hare, Ed, W1RFI wrote:
> so far, most manufacturers ARE offering considerable cooperation to try to resolve harmful interference. Solar Edge has replaced over 500 systems in the field, completely removing panels, wiring, optimizers and inverters in houses and replacing them with improved models.  Generac has done the same on a much smaller scale and has indicated to ARRL that it wants to have its products operate way below the FCC emissions limits.

Ed:

Can you speculate why these manufacturers are willing to go above and
beyond what's required by the FCC? Could it be a fear of stricter
regulations and the need to hire lawyers to combat those regulations?

It's all good news, but there must be an incentive for that level of
cooperation. Or am I being cynical?

Tony -K2MO

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