EMC Question of the Day: April 1, 2025
Which acronym below was commonly used to describe electromagnetic interference decades ago?
- RFI
- WTF
- LMFAO
- FUBAR
Answer
The best answer is “a.” While all of these acronyms are well-known to EMC engineers, only RFI was commonly used to describe electromagnetic interference. In the early days of radio, few people understood the mechanisms responsible for electromagnetic interference. They viewed this interference as a Really Frustrating Importunity (RFI). This acronym was originally associated with any radio malfunction but eventually came to be associated with electromagnetic interference at the frequencies that were most likely to impact radio transmissions.
WTF is an acronym for What's This For? EMC Engineers hear this a lot. For example, it's often the response from product managers when they learn their product will need to have a ferrite core on its power cable.
LMFAO is an acronym for Layout Mistakes, Foolish And Obvious. It's typically the reaction elicited at an EMC design review when a circuit board has three or more "grounds."
Of course, FUBAR is an acronym for Fields Undermining Battalions and Regiments. Long ago, this acronym was used in the military to describe radio frequency interference that disrupted military communications in battle. As time progressed, it was used to describe disruptions that had nothing to do with the military or radio frequencies. Ultimately, it came to be associated with the things that were disrupted rather than the source of the disruption. Today, that acronym is commonly used to describe the development schedules of products in their second or third round of EMC compliance testing.
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