[TriLUG] Television & RF interference -- yes computer related -- I think

[Joseph Mack NA3T]

On Thu, 7 Mar 2013, R Radford wrote:

> I guess I am confused. You stated the bill was to save the 
> consumer industry money, yet the ARRL's own website stated 
> they lobbied for this action for almost 10 years (starting 
> in 1973), pushing it out to the hams to lobby on their 
> behalf to push this through - it certainly sounds like the 
> ARRL was a driver in this and not just an unintended 
> consequence.  Can you point me to a source where this was 
> something pushed upon us by the consumer industry during 
> the Reagan administration?

I didn't know (or had forgotten) that removing the RFI 
filters on consumer electronics was in the same bill as 
removing the onus from the ham to solve RFI problems that 
weren't the ham's fault.

The ARRL touts ham radio as a community service and uses 
this to justify requests for bandspace etc. ie ham radio is 
good for society.

It would appear that the ARRL pushed for 10yrs to relieve 
hams from fixing RFI from properly functioning transmitters 
(a reasonable thing to do) at the cost of making every piece 
of consumer electronics suseptible to RFI. This was not a 
good thing to do and I expect the ARRL doesn't shout loudly 
that it spent 10yrs getting that approved. Society is worse 
of because of this bill. Now you can't operate your cell 
phone anywhere that wireless mikes are being used because 
they interfere. The consumer should not have to deal with 
this. The govt should handle this. I don't regard the ARRL 
as having helped society here or having acted well on behalf 
of ham radio.

Joe

-- 
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant map
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