Associate Editor for Inter-Society Activities
Dave Case, NCE, mans the NARTE booth
during the Seattle Symposium.
It seems ages ago that this year’s EMC symposium ended but in reality it was just a few weeks ago. At one of the committee meetings, I understood that someone suggested adding another day to the week to allow time to attend all committee meetings and avoid conflict. We decided that until we have an additional seven new committees, adding an extra day to the week (most likely between Tuesday and Wednesday) was impractical.
This year the Representative Advisory Committee was involved in hosting a special session on Type Approval and EMC Requirements for Wireless Devices. There were four speakers in this session, each dealing with various aspects of wireless devices.
Issues that were covered included FCC and Industry Canada test requirements for spread spectrum and PCS devices which was presented by Bill Graff of M. Flom Associates. Steve Dillingham of RFI Labs located in the UK presented an overview of the implementation of the proposed European Radio and Telecommunication Terminal Equipment (R&TTE) directive. Art Wall of the FCC presented requirements for Telecom Certification Bodies (TCBs) accreditation. Yours truly spoke on Asia Pacific Requirements for Spread Spectrum Devices.
Incidentally, since this invited RAC session was geared towards wireless devices, Murphy (Patron Saint of RFI) paid a visit and gave a real world demonstration of wireless interference issues even though we did not have any lab experiments scheduled for this session. As the program started, my voice was not being transmitted in the room. However, two other voices of the neighboring technical sessions came booming in across the PA system. We could not have had a better lab demonstration showing the interference of wireless devices if we had tried!
The overall session was well attended and RAC hopes to be able to present something similar at next year’s EMC Symposium as well as at other symposia geared toward Wireless Devices.
On Monday August 2nd, RAC also held a joint luncheon with the Standards Advisory Committee, chaired by Bob Hofmann. The joint meeting helped establish the groundwork for relaying information between both groups.
As with previous years, NARTE held both a pre-exam workshop as well as offered the actual exam at the symposium. Unfortunately, this year the passing curve was slightly below average. We did have one member who had grandfathered in years ago take the exam along with several of his employees. We’re pleased to advise he passed the exam!
The various groups that make up the membership of RAC have also been busy. Following are some interesting reports from a few of these groups.
COMAR has a Web Page where you can check membership of the committee and status of
their activities. See https://homepage.seas.upenn.edu/~kfoster/members.htm
(members)
https://homepage.seas.upenn.edu/~kfoster/comar.htm
(homepage)
A COMAR meeting was held on June 19, 1999 in Long Beach, California. A number of subcommittees reported on the status of their activities. A Technical Information Statement on 60 Hz power line frequency issues was approved for publication by the Executive Committee of the IEEE’s Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society as of July 10, 1999. Two new DRAFT Technical Information Statements have been developed; one on base stations and one on handsets. Dan Hoolihan sent COMAR information on the latest IEC proposal to add a new subcommittee under TC77 to look at “Assessment of Human Exposure to EMF.” Also, additional information was sent on the European Council recommendation of 12 July 1999 on “The limitation of the general public to electromagnetic fields (0 Hz to 300 GHz).” The next COMAR meeting is scheduled for October 16, 1999.
The last meeting of the EMC Laboratory Accreditation Working Group was held on July 27, 1999 in Washington, DC. It was reported that the EU had formally confirmed the list of proposed US EMC Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs) and the CABs for transmitters and telecom. This information is available on the NIST web site located at https://ts.nist.gov.gsp.http.
At the last APEC meeting in Singapore it was reported that there are presently (8) APEC economies that are ready to move to forward with the APEC Mutual Recognition Agreement. Phase I refers to the mutual acceptance of test data and Phase II refers to mutual acceptance of product certification. The economies indicating that they are ready to proceed are: Australia, Chinese Taipei, Singapore, Korea, Japan, Canada, Hong Kong and the U.S.
Mr. Gladhill stated that NIST sent a list of (79) labs to the BSMI (Taiwan) and they in return had sent NIST a list of (23) labs. A2LA, NVLAP or BSMI may accredit these labs.
Richard Reitz is leading a group that is working on a document titled: “Technical Criteria for the Accreditation of Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Testing Laboratories.” This document is intended to be used as a guide by accreditation bodies.
Mr. Unger discussed the pilot Automotive EMC Laboratory Accreditation Program (AEMCLAP). Presently three labs have completed their assessments and there are two remaining labs to yet complete theirs. Once the results have been reviewed, tweaked and accepted by the Big Three automakers, the program will be open to other laboratories that may wish to become accredited. It is expected that this might take place as early as September, but more likely it would be in December 1999. The automotive standard under review can be downloaded from the ACIL web site (https://www.acil.org) .
The next ELAWG meeting is scheduled for November 2, 1999.
NARTE presented a “Preparing for the NARTE Exam” as part of the Monday Workshop Sessions held during the EMC Symposium. There were about 75 plus attendees for this session. The NARTE exam was given on the Friday session with 38 people taking the test. The overall pass percentage this year was 67%; however, the last 5 years the average has remained above 75% total.
Currently under the new NARTE Lab Grade EMC program, we have some 100 people who are either certified or who have received endorsements. Official kick off of this program was August 1, 1999.
NARTE hopes to be able to offer a certification for those installing unlicensed wireless systems beginning early next year.
The next Board of Directors meeting will be held on October 9, 1999.
Contact NARTE via the web at www.narte.org.
USCEL held its annual membership meeting on August 2nd at the IEEE EMC Symposium.
To date USCEL has completed a total of 19 technical opinions available to members at no charge or $10 each to non-members.
Mr. Sweeney and Mr. Gubisch reviewed the status of the pending Round Robin Testing Program within USCEL. The test artifact is due back from calibration on August 15, 1999. The testing will begin in September and will include (20) laboratories.
Their next meeting is scheduled for early February 2000. For additional information, contact ACIL at phone 202-887-5872 or e-mail acil@ix.netcom.com.