I worked for a fax manufacturer in Europe, in the mid 90s. The same story (the fax was - of course ;) - designed before my time).
We even had a customer who wrote a nice letter asking us how to change the stations. Another one had the fax machine in one corner of a single family house. The gutters and the downshpouts were metal, except for about 4'-5' section at the bottom of one downspout that was at the same corner - it was plastic.It was the same corner where the fax macine was. The fields of all AM stations around were concentrated right into the fax machine. A cap on the AGC pin of the phone chip fixed it. Once, on a totally unrelated and hard EMI issue, a marketing SOB asked in a meeting why it takes so long to resolve it, when he knew all it takes is a capacitor somewhere :). Neven From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, February 19, 2010 3:02:16 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Re: EMI/EMC stories EMC Problem: As fax machine goes active, it plays local radio station. In the southern Bay Area, there is a family Doctor's Office located adjacent to a local AM radio station's 10KW towers. The office fax machine is located in the room next to their patient's waiting room. Whenever a fax comes in, and the fax machine 'wakes up' to print the incoming fax, the speaker of the fax machine starts playing very loudly the audio from that radio station. The office personnel said they wouldn't mind so much, but in the afternoon, this radio station has a two hour call-in program regarding sexual dysfunctions. The callers would discuss the most personal of problems, in lurid details. Very embarrassing for the doctor's office, as the waiting patients squirm from being forced to listen. EMC fix: The phone line required a GOOD common mode choke in the form of a 12 inch in-line cable [terminated at each end with RJ-11 connectors and had the form of a cable-with-lump]. Even better, the Engineer of the Radio Station supplied the cable-choke as a courtesy free of charge. - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <[email protected]> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc Graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. can be posted to that URL. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <[email protected]> Mike Cantwell <[email protected]> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: <[email protected]> David Heald: <[email protected]> - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <[email protected]> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc Graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. can be posted to that URL. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <[email protected]> Mike Cantwell <[email protected]> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher <[email protected]> David Heald <[email protected]>
