I encounter sayings like this everywhere:
RFI interference is unintentional radiation from sources such as
electric power transmission lines.
My confusion comes from my following thinking:
1-) First of all, power transmission lines work with 50/60Hz which is not radio frequency.
2-) Electric power transmission lines produce electromagnetic fields not radiation like antennas, so calling it radiofrequency interference doesn't make sense to me. It should be called electromagnetic field interference?
I'm sure I have lack of knowledge somewhere but couldn't figure out.
Best Answer
Power lines get RF injected onto them
The power lines are a wonderful antenna, actually -- they get RF noises injected onto them by gadgets all the time via said gadgets' power cords (this is why we have conducted interference tests), and then proceed to happily radiate these noises out.
You are right that calling interference at the power-line frequency "radio frequency interference" isn't all that sensible, though -- most power-line coupling is closer to a near-field scenario than the far-field stuff we deal with when dealing with other sorts of RFI problems. The catch-all term you're after is simply "electromagnetic interference", or EMI for short, as EM fields encompass both the near-field (either magnetically dominated or electrostatically dominated) and the far-field (both fields converge into a unified EM field) case.