Raspberry Pi Passes EU Electromagnetic Compatibility Testing 137
A week ago, we posted news of the delay that the Raspberry Pi Foundation faced because of a requirement that their boards be tested to comply with EU regulations. Now, the word is in, and the Raspberry Pi passed those tests without needing any modifications. From their post describing the ordeal: "The Raspberry Pi had to pass radiated and conducted emissions and immunity tests in a variety of configurations (a single run can take hours), and was subjected to electrostatic discharge (ESD) testing to establish its robustness to being rubbed on a cat. It’s a long process, involving a scary padded room full of blue cones, turntables that rise and fall on demand, and a thing that looks a lot like a television aerial crossed with Cthulhu."
Cool for cats. (Score:5, Funny)
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Over here we rub cats on our electronic devices. You guys have it all backwards.
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So...you're doing a cat scan of all electronic devices?
Actually, it was a PET scan.
No, he's got it right (Score:2)
zeno's arrow (incremental progress) (Score:1, Flamebait)
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Be honest, how many cat hairs are on your main home workbench right now?
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I have always felt that in the interests of fairness and equal opportunity toward all phenomena of physics, that every facility that has antistatic workstations should also have prostatic workstations. Such a workstation could consist of a bench with the work surface covered with cat's fur and with a full set of hand tools made of glass.
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In fact, I'm pretty sure that he is now a major factor in semiconductor production: during the later stages of their diffusion, when the punk-ass new microprocessors think they know everything, the wise old 8086s tell them: "Now kids, if you exhibit any of the undocumented errata for your model number during your rated lifespan, Dr. Van de Graaff will come for you, and with him comes the Vcore transient from which their is
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Who needs cats when you have chinchillas?
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Re:Cool for cats. (Score:4, Funny)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRJlItzalJY [youtube.com]
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The vibe I get is that it's a quite understandable translation error.
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Thank goodness it passed the cat rubbing test. We Europeans love rubbing electronic devices on our cats.
Well my GF always wants me to rub devices on her pussy
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Well my GF always wants me to rub devices on her pussy
Sorry to hear your natural equipment doesn't do it for her.
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Sorry to hear you don't understand the pleasure multiplier that properly used toys can bring to the bedroom. I feel bad for you girlfriend.
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don't have a girlfriend, wife won't let me have one ;-)
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don't have a girlfriend, wife won't let me have one ;-)
Oh, you have a wife. I'm sorry.
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WHERE'S THE CAT
...
*CLAP*
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We'll send you the cat as soon as Farnell finishes v7 of their price matrix, assuming they've read any of the last 20 mins emails they've been sent about the requirement that they sell to end users.
Pics? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Pics? (Score:4, Funny)
The EU just want to be sure that the devices won't pick up any transmissions from the great old ones, what with the approach of may-eve and all.
Other little known tidbits: in addition to the cone shaped undulating turntables, and the chtulu antenna, the device has to withstand being in the same room with a drunken MP reading select passages from the necronomicon backwards, while rubbing on cats.
They are very thurough is the EU.
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The best picture I could find was http://www.emtest.com/service_support/Links_testinglabs.php [emtest.com] but it only hints at the strange geometries.
South Park did it. (Score:4, Funny)
Bad kitty! That's my Pot Pi! No! You're a bad kitty!
Scary padded room (Score:4, Funny)
Also, cats.
Scary???? (Score:1, Interesting)
Am I the only one scared by these guys?????
They think they can design a PCB yet are scared of some simple measuring equipment. (I have been involved with and designed several products which had to go through CE testing and that stuff is NOT scary if you known what they are doing).
I really hope the summary is just joking about the antennna.... if not: stay away from Raspberry Pi: it is designed by clueless idiots.
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It was written by the PR person, not the engineers.
Re:Scary???? (Score:5, Insightful)
I actually thought the comment was tongue-in-cheek, so, no I am not scared by them.
Re:Scary???? (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm terrified by people who use multiple punctuation marks. Mostly because it indicates that they're probably a 13-year-old girl, an incredibly dangerous group of people to be talking to on the internet.
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I'm terrified by people who use multiple punctuation marks. Mostly because it indicates that they're probably a 13-year-old girl, an incredibly dangerous group of people to be talking to on the internet.
That's not a troll, it's true (as well as being funny) because you never know when one of those thirteen-year-olds will turn out to be a 57-year-old FBI agent.
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Yeah, but they had already built 10000 of the things and their distributors were refusing to sell them until they passed CE. So if there was _one_ mistake that required hardware modification then the entire batch of 10000 had to be repaired (again, since they already had to replace the ethernet port) or scrapped. Not to mention the angry community members who have *already* paid for their pi.
So maybe you dont need to be a "clueless idiot" to feel a little nervous.
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Farnell in Norway does NOT sell to end users, only companys and developers, and as such the boards are not supposed to be forced to adhere to this testing.
It smells like some competitors have gotten their will here, and it's nice to see that they didn't win. Now the sales will be even better from the get-go.
I already know of several projects that may use the pi as a base-platform now that it passed the tests.
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Farnell in Norway does not sell devices other than the Raspberry Pi [raspberrypi.org] to end users. There was a big PR campaign by the Raspberry Pi Foundation to market the device to ordinary end users, then a big backlash when they changed their distribution plan and only businesses would be able to order it in many countries, so they managed to convince Farnell and RS Electronics to start selling to ordinary consumers in countries where they normally don't.
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Farnell in Norway does NOT sell to end users, only companys and developers
They are making an exception for the Pi. Anyway just because farnell refuse to sell to end users in your country doesn't mean they do that everywhere.
It smells like some competitors have gotten their will here
I find it far more likely that someone in legal simply got worried when the saw the massive volumes stacking up and realised that the vast majority of those sales were almost certainly going to people who were not going to use it as a development board.
OMG, this is news?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't every product, everywhere, pass this test?
So, this is worthy of the front page why?
Re:OMG, this is news?! (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sure that not every product passes this test, otherwise the test wouldn't be necessary :p
Most Consumer Products (Score:5, Informative)
All electronics that are going to be sold, as finished products, in the European economic area (EEA) have to be tested and comply with European standards. It's the short answer, and I'm skipping a lot of details.
The problem the Raspberry-foundation faced was that it was initially not a "finished" product, more of a DIY kit. Once it became clear it was more of a "consumer" product it had to comply and be tested.
The same applies in the US where the FCC has the same role, but labs do the actual testing in both jurisdictions.
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It's still a bogus requirement for this devices by any means. It's an open circuit board. The emitted radiation thus depends entirely on the end use. Many electronics wouldn't pass without a metal case surrounding them. Not to mention that none of the other development platforms which are sold in a similar way (Beagle board, Arduino, STK500 etc) require this certification.
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It's still a bogus requirement for this devices by any means. It's an open circuit board. The emitted radiation thus depends entirely on the end use. Many electronics wouldn't pass without a metal case surrounding them. Not to mention that none of the other development platforms which are sold in a similar way (Beagle board, Arduino, STK500 etc) require this certification.
I guess. but they're dodging taxes by it being a finished product? at least that's what was used as one reason for skipping production in eu. something about there being import tax on components but not on finished products. you can't exactly claim it's a finished product in one form and that it's an unfinished project board in another form...
One Size Fits All (Score:2)
No, actually, the Beagleboard is not a "finished" consumer product as far as I know. That's the major difference between the two. Finished products for sale to consumers are subject to taxes, whereas partially assembled products are not to the same degree.
The CE certification is not an evil conspiracy at all, every major country in the world has this type of legislation and testing!
The CE mark is just a one-size-fits-all procedure. If you have it tested in any [approved] European lab it will be accepted in
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The problem with the one-size-fits-all approach is that it has horrendously failed here.
Regardless of whether the Beagleboard is a "finished" product for taxation purposes or not, the fact is the Beaglebaord and the Raspberry Pi are very similar in purpose, use, and even packaging (exposed PCB with no case), yet one requires CE certification and the other doesn't.
It's not a conspiracy, it's simply inconsistency of application where a product does not fit into the clearly defined rules on what requires CE ce
Legal Cover (Score:2)
I disagree. The fact that you can have it certified by one lab and have it accepted everywhere in Europe is not the issue. I don't really see why you object to that? That's a different matter from when and what products need to be certified. I fully understand your complaint in that regard.
I would hazard a guess at "we're covering our backs" is the real reason for the certification. Farnell and others probably didn't wan
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Sorry I wasn't talking about the one lab - accepted everywhere bit, that's actually quite good when it works, but rather the basic vague guidelines that are supposed to apply to everything from a toaster to a building elevator. The CE certification covers a wide yet quite specific array of products, and being a "finished product" as a lot of people are arguing over is not one of the criteria.
Ah, I see (Score:2)
I see :) I suppose there will always be problems with this kind of legal framework, it's hard to create laws that are both capable and flexible.
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You sir do not understand the state.
I most certainly DO understand the state. What I don't understand, however, is what you're talking about.
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This slashdot posting is part of the 'Raspberry Pi Trainwreck-Launch' series. Collect 'em all!
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Doesn't every product, everywhere, pass this test?
Not always, unless you design a PCB with the test in mind there's a good chance that it will emit or be sensitive to RF noise. Most electronics simply deal with it by ignoring RF in the design and sticking offending electronics in a shielded enclosure, which isn't an option for a bare-bones PCB.
A good experiment is to put AM radio set next some of your cheaper electronics and see if you can 'hear' them while powered up.
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Doesn't every product, everywhere, pass this test?
So, this is worthy of the front page why?
No, they don't. A buddy worked for the Norwegian testing agency NEMKO (he mostly tested phones and monitors), and prototypes frequently fail this kind of testing. These products are from the largest electronics manufacturers in the world. Manufacturers would frequently fly in technicians who were able to modify the prototypes onsite with a pretty basic toolkit. Some are rejected anyway, others pass after modifications, but even some of the best engineers in the world apparently can't get it right on the fir
Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to (Score:2)
Pictures of the cat or it didn't happen.
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There you go http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/mooncakehelpsout.jpg [raspberrypi.org]
(from a forum thread 'Pi's and small fuzzy animals. How will you keep them apart? ')
Your welcome.
Serious Question... (Score:2)
Devices that don't die when you pick them up on a non-humid day certainly are nice; but(outside of safety-critical medical and controls applications) dropping dead if handled without ESD precautions doesn't seem like a safety risk, or a greater RF emissions violation than the spark doing the killing, or otherwise troublesome in a regulatory sort of way. Likely to annoy customers, quite possibly; but not likely to do much harm in
CE mark requirements (Score:2)
To quote a source on the web:
"If a product is not susceptible to ESD and fast transients, for instance, it will not fail as readily during normal use. This is not only important from a performance standpoint, but from a safety and legal liability standpoint as well. Therefore, it is useful to use interference generators in the product design and development stage, as well as in the CE mark certification process. "
http://www.conformity.com/artman/publish/printer_166.shtml [conformity.com]
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Basically some useless bureaucratic hoops that the EU, but almost no one else in the world, sees fit to make manufacturers large and small jump through.
I don't understand why this board needed certification at all, frankly. Since it's sold as a PC board, why don't they just market and sell it as a component, rather than a system? Then it would only be subject to RoHS and WEEE legislation, not EMC.
Re:Serious Question... (Score:4, Informative)
The issue is with the distributors, not the RaspPi people.
Farnell and RS got nervous when they realized how many of the boards they would be shipping. There is not the same requirement for low volume eval boards they sell as engineering prototypes.
The Foundation always planned on obtaining the CE mark for the Raspberry Pi boards during the main launch, which will come in the future when schools have their curricula worked out and huge numbers of the finished devices (in enclosures mostly) will be going out to schoolchildren. Right now the boards are seen as a preliminary release. The Foundation had CE certification on the schedule. Just not this soon.
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I'd wish I could file a bug or a feature request.
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All of the first 10,000 Rpi's were just PCB's intended for developers fo
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Basically some useless bureaucratic hoops that the EU, but almost no one else in the world, sees fit to make manufacturers large and small jump through.
Really? Try selling an electronic product in the USA without complying with FCC regs about EM interference.
Back in the "good old days" of the 80s, before the CE requirements were imposed in the UK, you could forget listening to FM radio within 100' of your BBC Micro or Sinclair ZX81. Those products had to have their cases re-designed with extra shielding before they could pass FCC regs and be sold in the USA. Seemed silly at the time, but with the number of computing devices present in the modern home or
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Really? Try selling an electronic product in the USA without complying with FCC regs about EM interference.
The topic is ESD immunity, not EMI; do try to keep up.
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Is it not a worthwhile effort to save consumers from losing money on devices that drop dead under normal use? I can see the argument about whether the Raspberry Pi counts as a "finished product", but if we were talking about, say, a television remote, it would be unacceptable to have to take ESD precautions just to change the channel.
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Gee, if only there were a way for consumers to make quality- and fitness-for-purpose decisions on their own. We could call it... oh, wait, I know -- a market!
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Yeah, because once the nanny state gives up and lets the free market handle aspects of product quality that don't impact anyone other than the purchaser, we might as well all pack up and move to Somalia.
Seriously. Were you people shaken as infants?
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(Shrug) You seem to have your own little argument going with someone only you can hear. All I'm saying is, when government sets up needless and costly bureaucratic roadblocks, the less choice we all have as consumers, and the more we pay. I don't recall any widespread consumer demand for ESD immunity standards, do you?
Here's an idea. How about if the government worries less about ESD immunity of consumer products, and more about fraud prosecution and banking oversight? Because it seems that they canno
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Its sort of a cabal arrangement. The big established device manufacturers collude with the regulatory bureaucrats. They do so to insure there is always a substantial barrier to entry to protect themselves from those meddlesome low budget startups with their market-disturbing innovations.
Big companies have whole departments dedicated to "handling" the compliance/regulatory stuff. Its just good (borderline monopolistic) practice to operate that way, and defend the regulatory requirements in a bellicos
Test chambers (Score:3, Funny)
After the testing you will be baked and then there will be cake.
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Is that from huffing the kittens?
CE certifications..... (Score:5, Interesting)
From TFA:
A cute story. Radiated immunity testing involves hitting the Raspberry Pi hard with narrow-band EM radiation, while checking (amongst many other things) that the device is still able to send Ethernet frames to a hub. The first time the team did this, the light on the hub stopped blinking: no frames were making it through. They did it again: still nothing. Finally, they discovered that the hub (which, I should point out, gave every appearance of being CE marked, so it should have been able to get through these tests itself) was being knocked out every time somebody pressed the button. Jimmy used a longer cable, put the hub outside the field, and found that the Raspberry Pi got through its immunity tests with no problems at all.
Too bad their CE certified ethernet hub failed the CE testing.... remember kids, this is what you get when you buy cheap stuff from cheap manufacturing countries.... oh wait!
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CE stands for China Export doesn't it?
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sometimes the CE is fake and its thought to be, instead, 'china export'.
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Placing a CE mark on something that doesn't pass CE tests can be done, but it makes you liable for any damage it might cause. With the CE mark you say "I swear it passes CE tests", if it doesn't, and people find out, you can get into serious trouble.
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A computer with all its accessories connected will typically not pass the CE / FCC tests even if each part individually would pass. Even more, not all possible configurations are tested.
In a test session the manufacturer will usually connect a non-standalone device to a product known to have best EMI immunity and low emissions. T
Thank goodness it passed the test (Score:1)
I'm going to use these to make internet connected disposable pirate radio base stations. :D
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If you're suggesting FM broadcast, you're dealing with a step phase shift every tenth of a second. Yes, you can "time it right" for one point (say, equidistant from all ten) but at other points it will vary considerably. I'd have to run the math (which I can't be arsed to do) to put numbers to it, but I'm pretty sure you'd get audible buzz at some multiple of 10 Hz on some receivers.
More importantly, note that a lot of cheap FM receivers have pretty poor AM rejection, thus the volume will "throb" through te
Spiky chamber photos (Score:3, Interesting)
R-Pi question (Score:2)
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It contains a bootloader. Usually "u-boot".
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U-boot is the typical bootloader found on many ARM devices and the code that is first executed when the CPU starts up from power-up. However, in the case of the Raspberry Pi, the GPU contains proprietary code that loads the Linux kernel into memory from a FAT partition on the SD card and boots the ARM device. U-boot could be made a secondary bootloader, but the RPi is capable of booting Linux up from a properly configured SD card without a bootloader running on the ARM device first.
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The details vary but ultimately there does have to be some firmware located in a place that is non-volatile and directly accessible to kick off the boot process.
Older devices used paralell flash directly on the data bus. The bootloader was then executed directly from this flash and went on to load the kernel.
Most recent arm devices have a very small boot program on the chip itself. This chip then reads a bootloader from somewhere (usually NAND flash or SD card) which in turn loads the kernel.
The Pi is a bit
Re:R-Pi question (Score:4, Informative)
Generally there is a small ROM embedded in CPU that loads another bootloader from NAND, SD card, SPI Flash, etc. On Atmel ARM chips that bootloader must be small enough to fit into embedded SRAM. Than bootloader initializes SDRAM and fetches U-Boot into it. U-Boot in turn may initialize wider range of devices and then load Linux kernel.
All boot process is very SoC- and board-specific. Bootloaders must be compiled for selected CPU and board components, and Linux kernel should also have board description down to what types of chips are installed as autodetection is usually very limited.
who? (Score:1, Insightful)
cares? wft is up with all these 'Raspberry Pi' stories?
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You, obviously. We put them up to annoy you. I vote we have a Raspberry Pi week to annoy all the haters!
Can you actually buy these things? (Score:1)
Their site http://www.raspberrypi.com/ [raspberrypi.com] has had the same "Down for Maintenance" message for at least a month. Is it actually possible to purchase one of these (in the US)?
Changing hands... (Score:2)
They do have about 2000 in their hands now.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/945 [raspberrypi.org]
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They do have about 2000 in their hands now.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/945 [raspberrypi.org]
So they "have" 2000 boards 2 months after "official launch", during which they claimed they already gave 10000 boards to distributors? Nice.
Re:Changing hands... (Score:5, Informative)
"they claimed they already gave 10000 boards to distributors"
Errr.... NO.
The first batch of 10000 was produced. When these arrived in the UK, the Foundation performed full functional testing on samples from the batch (as compared to electrical tests carried out at the factory) and discovered that the manufacturers had substituted a certain component between the first manufacturing samples and batch production. All the production was returned to the manufacturer for rework, which has taken some time. Reworked stock is now in the UK and going into distribution. Delivery is now contingent on RS and Farnell receiving copies of the test results so they are satisfied in their own minds that the Raspberry Pi can be sent out. Neither RS Components or Farnell have had "a 10k batch" to hand. Ever.
Its all on the Raspberry Pi forum you know. Whats "nice" is your complete lack of knowledge and comprehension. :-)
ASAP? (Score:3)
I'm sorry, I only know what I read on their website. As far as I can tell they're shipping them out as soon as possible subject to their certification papers being "approved" by the distributors in question. The CE certification itself is official and valid so there really is no reason for further delays.
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This is a charity and this is the first time they have gone through this process. There are bigger companies still have this issue. With pi they are just being more transparent about it.
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Third? We're just one step below second. That's... blue, right?
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Not when one of the FCC regulations is "must accept interference". No seriously, that's actually a requirement.
I don't think that pacemakers would qualify as Part 15 devices; but Part 95 [gpo.gov] ones. Those have a much shorter list of things they aren't allowed to interfere with; but they are still required to deal with interference(that and, obviously, building life-critical systems that can't handle a little RF would be a Bad Thing even if it were legal.)
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They also did FCC (US), Canadian and Australian (don't know the acronyms) testing at the same time.