This international standard relates to the immunity requirements of equipment, only under operational conditions, to magnetic disturbances at power frequency related to:

- residential and commercial locations;

- industrial installations and power plants;

- medium voltage and high voltage sub-stations.

The applicability of this standard to equipment installed in different locations is determined by the presence of the phenomenon, as specified in clause 3.

This standard does not consider disturbances due to capacitive or inductive coupling in cables or other parts of the field installation.

Other IEC standards dealing with conducted disturbances cover these aspects.

The object of this standard is to establish a common and reproducible basis for evaluating the performance of electrical and electronic equipment for household, commercial and industrial applications when subjected to magnetic fields at power frequency (continuous and short duration field).

The standard defines:

- recommended test levels;

- test equipment;

- test set-up;

- test procedure.

Other kinds of magnetic fields would be object of standardization:

- fields at other power frequencies (16 2/3 - 20 or 30 - 400 Hz);

- fields of harmonic currents (100 Hz to 2 000 Hz);

- fields of higher frequencies (up to 150 kHz, e.g. for mains signalling systems);

- D.C. fields.