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I grew up in the 90s in a small town in West Virginia. Everybody knew each other, everybody knew each other’s kids, and all of the kids spent time at each other’s houses in the summertime.
When the heat and humidity turned oppressive, we’d spend the middle of the day inside, playing video games, listening to music, reading comic books, or trading baseball cards. And sometimes we’d just talk.
We’d talk about everything from the newest games coming out to what movies were rumored (think Nicholas Cage as Superman, etc.), or new gadgets. Portable CD players, what to put on a mix tape, what time we were going fishing the next morning — pretty typical 14-yearold stuff in 1994.
If we could step back in time, I could take you to the little breezeway at my friends’ house on East Adams Street in Paden City, WV. There was a sliding glass door that faced the back yard and I used to sit there while we watched TV or played board games or listened to their mom yell at them for whatever reason.
I remember sitting there, talking about the Nintendo Game Boy and the Game Gear (a handheld game console from Sega). We fantasized about how cool it would be to watch movies, listen to music, still play games, and send messages on the device, dismissing it all since there was NO WAY we could fit all of that information in a tiny box.
We were ahead of our time. Now, technology has advanced to the point where we, as a society, do not normally function without one of these devices that I just described.
As time went on, we started to slowly see these things in the movies and on TV. Starting with cellular phones and PDAs becoming commonplace in our everyday lives, then digital music players, then combining them together with games, calendars, messages, photos, etc., etc., etc.
The concept is really nothing new, and we can trace back original ideas to Star Trek and other science fiction shows from the 60s and 70s (and to Adams Street in Paden City).
What is new, however, is our industry keeping up with the technological advancements in the world of compliance so that everybody plays nicely with each other.
The world of EMI/EMC has a daily monumental task of ensuring that the spectrum functions as it should, with no interference from devices operating within the spectrum itself.
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This task really calls upon all of us, whether we are technicians performing the testing, engineers deciding on how a device or system should be tested, specification writers who write the requirements for specific products, and the regulatory authorities who ensure peaceful operation of all things electromagnetic.
We used to think of this as science fiction — as devices we’d never see but would certainly be ‘cool’ to see in the future.
Now, the advancements are made and we just have to make sure our industry either keeps up with the advancements, in certain cases, or implements new strategies for upcoming advancements.
EMI/EMC is typically thought of last in the development cycle. Usually the final testing, the last thing right before market. It comes as no surprise that it happens the same way as things progress and the compliance industry is left holding an empty bag of new strategies and specifications.
Without the EMC Directive, FCC Part 15, MIL-STD-461, RTCA/DO-160, and many other paths to compliance for electromagnetic products, we’d be living in chaos with devices malfunctioning, emergency operations failing, planes unable to communicate with ground personnel, weapons firing at the wrong targets, and, for the love of all things holy and held dear, an Instagram reel not loading.
If I could go back to that kid sitting near that sliding glass door on Adams Street, I’d be certain to explain to him that what he would see in the future would blow his mind, and also let him know that he’d be an important part of it.
Because, without people like him, none of this would work. Our job is to help manage the chaos in an ever-changing environment and ensure the world’s electromagnetic devices work in seamless harmony.
