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Broadband Over Power Lines vs. Radio Relayers
amaiman writes "Recently, broadband Internet access has been increasing around the country. These broadband signals, while providing Internet access to remote communities that would normally not be able to receive broadband, are causing enormous interference to the radio spectrum. This article details some of the problems, and a video available on the American Radio Relay League's (ARRL) site shows exactly how much interference the broadband power lines can cause. Detailed information is also available on the ARRL site."
I guess that the portable equipment which they use isn't as sensitive as a permanent radio shack with directional yagis. BPL would make QRP (low power operating) impossible because of the increased noise level. More noise causes the need for stronger signal and that causes greater power levels thus causing more interference to BPL. Don't forget that HF waves (3-30MHz) can travel thousands of miles, so the effect isn't local.
de OH6GFR
>And if very many hams do what you suggest the laws will be changed and those hams will lose their licenses and have to pay fines.
Yeah. Good luck. The minute that happens, Mexico and Canada will start running high power at those frequencies.
Radio waves don't care about political borders. And it took Canada 20 years before we even got laws banning pirate US satellite equipment. It'll be another 100 before we get laws to protect US powerline broadband.
I suppose if you live in the center of the US, you'll be ok. Quickly! Everyone! Move to Kansas and get away from those other pesky countries!
>It may not be right, but that is what will happen. BPL will get more votes than hams.
Just about everything does, but HAMs still have their frequencies. Partly because if Americans lose them to commercial interests, nobody else cares, and the bands become useless anyways, except for short range communications.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Yeah, if it just were the hams who are against BPL.
There are far more users on the HF-band than just the hams. There are "small" communities like military and air traffic who are opposing BPL as well because it would also ruin their ways to communicate over a long distance without dragging cables with them or to have many radio relay stations along their routes.
Of course then there is satellite communications, but I don't think we will see gear suitable for, lets say, spec-op -troops to carry with them all the time to provide them reliable enough way to communicate with others like they can do with their small HF-radios.
And what about emergency situations? All communications and power is cut out for large areas. How would you call for help? Via radio, of course. But because of BPL nobody can hear your scream. "But hey", you would say, "then there will be no BPL around to mess with the communications". Yes, but there where the power and communcations, and the help of course, is, there might also be BPL so it would be hard for them to receive your message and your critical help might not arrive in time.
No, don't think me as an enemy of technology even after this. BPL is good technology, but at the moment I can't keep BPL mature enough yet to be used for what many are willing to use it now. It may be great technology for a last mile or to be used inside the building, but over airlines (or what ever you call telephone wires hanging on poles) for long distance not. Some European countries (e.g. Germany, IIRC) have banned BPL because of its interferencies and on many more countries it hasn't started to become popular because there has been more problems than success with current BPL technology.
There is only a fairly small frequency band in existence that can be used for inexpensive worldwide communication, and that is HF. The reason are more or less predictable Ionosphere layers that reflect radiowaves.
Under good conditions, you can transmit halfway across the world, with just 1-5 Watts of transmission power. The Amateur Radio community knows this as "QRP" operation, and it is quite popular. So, yes, even small amounts of HF noise will go a long way to interfere with shortwave communication.
20 years ago a sizable amount of communication was still being done by shortwave (HF) radio, and anybody thinking about poisioning large chunks of HF spectrum would've been declared a raving lunatic. Every kHz of HF spectrum was (and still is) a prized posession. Look up any frequency book from the 80's and you'll see that there wasn't a Hertz of HF spectrum unallocated, and it was (and still is) tightly controlled by international agreements. For large Radio stations (BBC, VOA), it is still the only way to connect to people in dictatorships and less advanced countries.
Today, most commercial and military communication in the US has moved to satellite; Only smaller services (in the west), third world countries, radio stations and HAM radio operators use HF. Of course, why would large power companies care about other countries or the BBC news ?
The HF spectrum is still the most valuable piece of electromagentic real estate there is in the World. Purposefully injecting additional noise into the band for no other reason than to save a few bucks is a terrible mistake and shows ignorance and recklessness on a staggering level.
Except those bands are assigned under International treaty. I know the current administration does't give a damn about treaties but there is reasons to continue honoring them. I remember the 250Kw station in Mexico XERA that could black out half the other stations in the Southweat when it was on the air.
Most of the HF bands are used for commercial purposes, some slots are allocated for limited private use (eg CB, remote control toys, 49Mhz walkie-talkies), and lots of it is used for emergency and longer ranger services where VHF/UHF simply won't do the job. This includes people like emergency services.
Amateur radio is probably more relevant now than since the 1940's. Its real reason for existance beyond the first uregulated days of "gee isnt this neat" was to provide a steady supply of wireless operators to draft in the event of a war. Its not the only reason but its a major reason it survived.
Alan
...for now, and I live out in the stix and don't have broadband,and I have certainly whined about it enough, but I STILL don't want anything that will mess up the radios. No SUH. I look at my radios as my ultimate backup communications tool. The telcos can go down, the internet can go down, the TV stations off air, cells can be jammed up-and I still have communication, and it's both ways commo if I want it. And you can get information in real time, from a variety of places all over the planet, with any normal multiband receiver and a chunk of scrap wire for an antenna, Under 50$ and you're in. And it costs zero but some minimal electric power, you don't even need grid power, run it off your car battery in an emergency. Free as in beer and free as in speech, short range down the block to around the world range- what's not to like? Let them study it some more in places that are using it, I read about in scotland I think they tried it, but don't just dump it out there and "see what happens". I'll wait for my broadband with low powered wifi and a directional antenna or if someone decides to run some better cablez down the road. We don't need to trade one form of electronic human communication for another, we can have BOTH if we are smart.
I only disagree with one of your statements. BPL as it's implemented today is not "good technology".
It's shoddy engineering that will cause interference to all HF users. These users are not the intended recipients of the signal in the slightest, therefore, it's an application of a technology to power lines that doesn't belong there.
I'd love to see my power lines bring broadband to my home faster and cheaper than my DSL or Cable connections. But not at the cost of trashing the radio spectrum. Find another way. Wireless ISP's using much higher frequencies and Part 15 devices are doing a much better job of engineering. 2.4 GHz, 5.3 GHz, and 5.8 GHz are all bands where a lot less people are inconvenienced by additional usage, and the use of spread-spectrum technology and the need at those frequencies for directional antennas alleviates many of the problems that plague BPL.
+++OK ATH
There's still a fair amount of military and civil HF traffic.
A quick scan of the HF bands reveals quite a lot of RTTY and FAX still, as well as VOLMET and the HF civil aviation frequencies (which are still quite active, choose the right frequency and its almost continuously active over the Atlantic). I heard an RAF SSB frequency the other day, it was still active (although the traffic was mostly asking for updates on the football).
Then there's the US Government with its 'Radio Free $(region)' which is still active as well as all those US religious/evangelical stations.
The HF bands are still very active, and may even become moreso again if DRM (Digital Radio Mondial) takes off.
And the powerlines will probably not cause just HF interference. They could also cause interference on other bands, and may even affect medical equipment in hospitals as well as interference to emergency services.
It is a monumentally stupid idea...
(and if you want more broadband, well, BT is looking into running fibre optic cable to every house in the UK...)
Well if the internet is out the interference will be too won't it?
While I agree that ham radio would be the best way of doing comms, there are other alternatives like satellite links, although they aren't very efficient for local communications.
The attack that you speak of seems to shout out NUKE to me, so I will just point out that your radio on the giant antenna probably won't survive the emp from the blast.
I do agree with you though, in any non-nuclear scenario, HF radio is the best way to do things, otherwise you need to depend on fiber.
OK, I'm not a HAM but I'm at least familiar with it. If I'm off on what I say, hopefully someone who IS a HAM will step in and coorect me.
From what I understand, once this goes out in mass, THAT'S when the problem will show, and THAT'S when it will be impossible to pull back. Once a good chuck of the powerlines are using this stuff, the damage is done. Even if there's a disaster that takes out power for a large part of the US, the interference is already floating out there in the areas that aren't out. The concerns I've heard is that the interference hit large areas due to cummulative affects.
Unless a power outage takes out ALL power then we still have the problem. And, that just for our country. If we use it, you know either other countries will use it or find some way of dealing with the leakage that is just as harmful. The concerns being brought up are for long term and for wide area problems which could be caused by this tech. The studies and counter-arguments are not covering this at all. They are all basing it on short term and simple one-installation tests that don't answer the other conerns. THAT'S the frustration. At least that's the impression I've gotten...
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
fixk has some of it right. But also, if I can't use HF for my hobby I am not going to keep my gear around. On to ebay it goes. So when the local BPL interference is gone there will not be any Hams with the equipment to operate.
What you may not realize is that I am a emergenct coordinator for my town. We Hams run monthly drills and participate in events like the NYC Marathon, Special Olympics and other large scale events. This is always done at our own expense as we can not accept any money. If we can't enjoy our hobby there is NO incentive to continue to provide the public service we do. So when something happens don't look for us to pull your ass out of the fire.