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FCC Approves BPL Despite Interference Concerns
goosman writes "The ARRL is reporting that the FCC has approved revised Part 15 (unlicensed services) rules to specifically regulate the deployment of broadband over power line (BPL) technology. The Commission adopted a Report and Order in ET Docket 04-37 when it met in open session today. At the same time, three members of the Commission, including Chairman Michael K. Powell, specifically mentioned the concerns of Amateur Radio operators at the open meeting and expressed either assurances or hope that the new BPL rules will adequately address interference to licensed services."
over the wishes of millions.
Amateur Radio... drowning out....
So long as it doesn't interfere with emergency freqs, it's a net gain.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
I think it has been said that BPL doesn't use "twisted lines" but during hurricane Ivan half of our neighborhoods' lines were downed, and I got a chance to get an up close and personal look at the lines, and they did look twisted to me (just like any wire that is twisted up for strength). Won't this twist help keep the signal from leaking so badly?
Just another ignorant AC...
It was the wishes of a few million people that the Native Americans be displaced, but that was still wrong, just as this is too.
The tyranny of the majority is still a tyranny. Hence the reason we have a Republic, not a pure Democracy.
I remember people were touting BPL as being an easy last mile solution before I had cable/DSL access available to me in the mid-90's . It sounds great, but BPL has been vaporware longer than Duke Nukem Forever. BPL could have been the number one provider, but now with DSL and cable so widely available it seems like it will never take off except in the most rural of areas.
time is a perception of a being's consciousness
time is your 6th sense, the wierd ones are 7+
Remember, there are still a half the connection out there still using dial up. Not everyone of them have cable or DSL, but pretty much everyone have power.
Better feign sickness and go home and operate on HF for one last time... I hope 20m band is open...
Not being in the US myself, I'm curious to know if this regulation now allows research and work on BPL to start, or if lots of trials and so forth are already under way. I know that a great deal of work is being done in Europe on it already, and even here in South Africa (with some of the Eurpoean deployment in Spain being done by an SA firm, which is basically what I know of the global BPL situation :) ). To the best of my knowledge, these implementations are still experimental work though.
Does this regulation now allow for commercial implementation of BPL by US power companies, or is this not the end of the story as far as regulation in the US goes?
Of course, I may be completely wrong and full scale commercial development is under way in other parts of the world already. Is it?
Daar is nie 'n lepel nie
Trials of this technology were abandoned in the UK in 1998/1999 (I seem to recall), due to the problem of street lights acting as transmitters, causing significant interference with emergency services transmissions.
It was accepted at the time that the cost of adding the necessary filters to each streetlight was too much to continue with the project.
Of course, technolgy has improved significantly in the last few years, maybe this has now been resolved. But it's quite possible that the system may be able to work in some areas and not in others simply because of the way your road's street lights are wired up.
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
With all the frustrations of DSL and sketchy availability of cable (i discovered that even in NYC, in 2004, it is still possible to move to an address not covered by a single broadband option) BPL can still very much find a market.
What I want is fiber optic, goddamnit! That would be the real last mile solution!
And it pi55es me off that so much fiber optic infrastructure is going unused for lack of investment!
Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so.
Wonder what the DoD think of this proposal as HF is still widely used by the military / emegerncy services in the US for both long distance and bouncing signals over mountains etc...
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
I have nothing to do with amateur radio, but for those of us who dont trust the government or big business, radio allows people to communicate without any cable or phone or power company or goverment direct control. It requires no significant infrastructure to work...in the case of a natural disaster or crackdown on free communications, its a way to "route" around the damage or block. The internet can be unplugged or blown up...AR just requires a guy, his radio and some off the grid power source...
It seems sad, and yet predictable the government would not care that the interference might be a big issue...
So you're comparing the loss of a hobby to the loss of a home and land?
We're going to build a road through your living room. Too bad, but millions have definitely said that they'd like this done so that a few large companies can make money.
When I first read about using power lines to provide broadband Internet access, I was very excited, especially since I lived in an area in which there was no real competition in broadband. It seemed like a great idea. At the time I didn't realize that the unshielded power lines would interfere with Amateur Radio.
Radio Amateurs, HAMs, have played critical roles in almost every large disaster that has happened in this country. They provided emergency communications when no other communications technologies were working. Groups of HAMs regularly set up disaster drills where they perfect their ability to get information in and out of a disaster torn area. HAMs have also helped advance radio technology. The very first wireless Internet connections were set up by HAMs using 2-meter rigs connected to their computers back in the days of the first IBM PC and Apple IIe.
There might be all kinds of rules that the power companies have to follow to prevent interference with HAM radio, but my guess is that they'll just ignore them. How many amateur radio operators are going to have the fiscal resources needed to take on a big power company?
My guess is that everyone will quickly forget about this debate until a disaster strikes. Then maybe people will wonder why the communications were so poor and count the lives that were lost because of it.
If the power companies are going to disrupt the ability of HAM radio operators to provide communications during disasters, they should bear the cost of setting up alternative communication networks that can supply the needed communications. It's a cost of doing business.
Another question springs to mind, why this particular frequency spectrum, is it dictated by the application, or was this spectrum selected because there was they figured that amateur radio operators couldn't organize real opposition to it?
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
{I'm not trolling here} It seems to me that on Bush's agenda buried deep away someplace was to ensure that high-speed internet was plentiful for his constituents. In general this is a good idea. I can't help but wonder about the timing of this announcement just so close to an election. As a long time computer geek and radio enthusiast, I'm torn between two wants/needs and ideals, the high-speed and the use of the radio spectrum. At the end of it all it is up to the FCC to regulate the use of the spectrum. I could be wrong but it seems to me that this is a rare decision where they KNOWINGLY put in a service that will cause interference to another service. As a radio amateur, I expect parts of the spectrum to be unclear at any time. I do not, however, expect a government body to purposely trash it at all times with interference in order to move forward an election agenda! 73 de VE6VPD
I shower often, brush my teeth, wear deodorant and don't live at home. Not to mention I'm under 30. (rimshot)
Seriously, folks: unless there is some way that the FCC and the BPL operators can guarantee with 100% success that interference won't occur, this is going to really wreak havoc on the hobby.
During the "great blackout", hams were actually really important in helping emergency services communicate after backup generators powering the Public Safety radio systems died. Introduce a technology that prevents hams from persuing their hobby recreationally, and eventually, they'll all go away.
Ergo, when the lights go out again, there's hardly anyone around to help.
But let's look at something else: how vindictive and brazen some of these older "1337" hams are.
You start to fuck with their only hobby, and I'll bet you dollars-to-donuts that they'll fight back.
Part of the thing with BPL is that while it interferes with Amateur Radio frequencies, Amateur Radio frequencies can interfere with them in turn.
It's going to be very hard (if impossible) to stop some stinky, angry ham operator from pulling up next to some power lines in his tricked out hamsexy truck and pump a couple hundred Watts of RF into the BPL lines.
A couple months of continual service outages would drive customers away.
Beware the wrath of a stinky ham.
According to Kevin Kushman (CEO of Current Communications), "This [ruling] will spur a national buildout of BPL."
I have a feeling that if there is an emergency and the power's out you won't have an interference problem!
http://www.uplc.utc.org/
Chris Williams clw7500nc@gmail.com
You know, there is a good reason why us Hams are allowed to dish out (literally) kilowatts of power.
Time to overpower those feeble, newfangled BPL internet users!
An article By UK Columnist Peter Cochrane last year give a nice list of why this technology won't work, even though it has been claimed as "Proven" many times:
- Power cables employ low-grade plastic that is unfriendly to high-frequency signals as the absorption per unit length is very high. This alone precludes transmission of high-speed data over significant distances.
- Power cables are not physically symmetrical and are therefore very effective antennas. They radiate energy from high-speed data signals which becomes a source of interference for wireless services including broadcast radio as well as emergency, maritime, aeronautical, military and navigation services. By reciprocity they also suck in energy from every local radio source which further degrades data signals.
- As signals propagate along cables they become weaker but the switching transients from washings machines, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, electric drills, light switches and other appliances are huge, do not decay at the same rate and swamp data signals.
- Switching transients on power grids with generators going on and off line, dynamic load sharing, fault and maintenance work, all induces massive transients that also swamp data signals.
- Cable joints, transformers, power meters, the on/off nature of electrical appliances and the topology of power grids create large load changes and multiple signal reflection points. This creates a dynamic echo environment where the transmitted signal is further corrupted.
- Real time communications of any kind - whether by telephone, radio or TV - are taken out by the huge voltage transients inherent to power lines and ultimately the data rates achievable for non-real time are also very low.
- Transformers and power meters require a workaround as they present an absolute block to any high frequency signals.
HAM radio has been very useful for diasters in the past. However if they cannot be used in areas that have BPL, then it looks like that is also a big win for commercial operators who sell public safety radio systems that can use sprectrum that won't have to worry about interference from BPL. Even though they are expensive, in the end they are probably more reliable anyway in the kinds of situations where radio communication is essential.
I just hope that the areas that deploy BPL do testing so they know ahead of time what areas will be impacted so that they can deal with it.
I wonder if the HWP is still using 6m. If so I wonder if anyone looked at that or cares?
Obviously the AARL is right in pushing for regulation that will reduce the possibility of interference of the radio spectrum. For this reason, the equipment does need to be certified and some guidelines are required on how it is implimented and the database can be used to identify and contact offenders. I have no problem with that stuff.
On the otherhand, certified equipment costs more, and meeting code requirements means that there are some things that a company may want to do that would be viable technologically, and be of a benefit to the customer, but can not be delivered because of the restrictions in the rules they are obliged to follow. The database may be required to be too thourough, requiring a great deal of administration from the company and this could be a major expense too. So, I can also see the company's side.
I hate nothing more than listening to the radio, or talking on my cel phone, or watching TV only to be victimized by radio frequency interference. For my wife, it is even worse, RFI can really mess up her hearing aids. This doesn't make us unique, it is a fact of modern life. To some extent or another, we are all annoyed (or worse) by some RFI. So I think we can all understand what the AARL is warning us about.
On the otherhand, BPL can deliver broadband to people who have not been able to get it before. BPL may be able to provide less expensive service than other methods, and just by having another player in the game, BPL may be able to spur competition and innovation in what is really a comodity service.
I have some reservations about the FCC regulating something that they have not regulated much in the past. As far as I know, the power company has not needed a license to broadcast their 60 hz signal before - yet we all recieve it and use it. They are laying this new service down on the old infrastructure and using the fiber that controls their automated substations to get the BPL "signal" into the neighborhood. So, I guess I don't see a whole lot of new broadcasting going on!
The FCC I think made a wise decision, allowing the service to go forward while requiring solid equipment. Given the FCC's (recent) friendly attitude to buisness and ability to quickly make adjustments to rules, I think that they have done the right thing. I think that there may be a few power companies out there who will decide to not offer the service because they disagree with this but I'll bet those companies that do that will be located somewhere that already had broadband providers. So, BPL will go a lonq ways to providing those who have been left behind in the broadband race!
Produce a poster showing the typical BPL box and tell the people in the inner city that this is a secret government listening device that will record every word you are saying for miles around. Tell them to shoot it.
"Hence the reason we have a Republic, not a pure Democracy."
_Had_ a republic. It's been dead for a century now, since mass democracy was introduced, the inevitable end result being the tyranny of the majority.
Me and my dad are Ham radio operators. I am only 16 and have much much more going on in my life than that so I dont do it much but I feel bad for my dad and all his friends because it has become a huge hobby for him. BPL=the death of the already dying activity...too bad.
I am extreemly upset at the FCC's decision to go ahead with BPL. Even though I am one of the people it will benefit. I don't have access to cable or DSL where I live. The only fast access I have is ISDN and at 64K, it's not real fast. I am going to write a letter to my power company telling them that if they decide to use BPL and interfere with my equipment they can expect complaints. ...--
And, yes, I even know code.
--...
Parnelli The master of bad jokes and ruler of the land of odd.
For more fluff, go to the website of the only public company doing BPL: http://www.ambientcorp.com Or you can just slashdot them if that is your preference....
BPL is great in concept. Give boradband to everyone who couldn't have it before by using a meduim that everyone has.
What I'd like to know is who is behind the hardware manufacture? Somebody has developed the hardware that VIOLATES FCC Part 15 rules. Did the FCC ask the comany to do something else? No, they bent over and took it up the tailpipe.
FUCK YOU FCC.
You guys should know better than this... just run your ham gear through a UPS... presto! no interference.
Sometime I think you guys want to argue just to argue.
They did some small scale testing here in Cincinnati, Ohio and the amateur radio community here did our best to watch for interference. There were two separate neighborhoods tested in and we were unable to find any interference so far but we're also not all convinced we were looking in the right places. So, on the plus side, there wasn't any blatant large scal interference from the small test but on the negative side it would have been nice if the utility company had been willing to tell us exactly where the test was being run so we could take a closer look at the lines involved. We'll just have to see. I'd wager that here in Cincinnati we'll see some quick adoption because the utility company here has already been hinting at cut-rate broadband prices to get into the market.
Michael
Parent poster is correct, and well explained. Here's another way to look at the twisted-pair concept.
Any electrical circuit forms a loop; you can trace the current going out from the power source, through the load, and back to the other side of the power source.
For an electric power transmission line, this "loop" is the wires on the left and right sides of the power-line crossbar (OK, not all lines look like that, but the principle is the same). You can trace an imaginary line down one side of the power line and back on the other, enclosing a loop 12 feet wide and many miles long, with enormous area. This is one reason power lines are a bad idea for carrying RF signals; they make a GREAT antenna.
For radio interference, the area enclosed by this loop is an important factor; reduce the loop area, and you reduce the radiated interference. The DIRECTION of the current in the loop also counts; a clockwise loop radiates with a phase opposite that of a counterclockwise loop and can cancel it out if the two are right next to one another.
Now imagine twisting the two wires around each other; you get many very tiny loops with alternating CW/CCW directions of current flow in the loop; their net radiating effects cancel out.
Interesting note: Cross-country power lines ARE in fact twisted pairs, to prevent another interference type. At every Nth tower, you'll see the lines cross over so the left-hand line goes to the right. This results in loops of a half-mile length or so; useless for shielding from RF, but VERY important for protecting the grid from geomagnetic storms, where the Earth's magnetic field is pushed around by solar wind. Making the net loop area zero prevents the transmission line from acting as a giant DC generator and blowing out the switchgear, causing major blackouts (this happened in Canada in the 1970s, IIRC).
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Conversely, I know roads that snake around areas where influential people live, instead of going straight through - and the result is more accidents and deaths than in the other stretchs of the same highway.
I'm a ham radio operator and I can assure you that we've got far more specturm than we need or use, and this BPL stuff has great potential for rural areas where even wimax isn't going to be a viable option.
.04 cents per minute for a 128K line. T1 lines are $800-$1,200 a month - if you can get them.
BPL is a really the only solution for some areas, even in this day of DSL/Cable/Wimax/3G and whatever.
To give you folks a bit of perspective, I live 1.5 hours away from New York and Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, a place called Bucks County, up in the north end. It's not exactly "rural" but it's still a place where people come to get out to "the country".
DSL service has only been offered in this area since April 2004. Cable internet access is still NOT an option and won't be anytime soon. Modem connections in many areas are - at best - 56K X2, with typical connections much slower. ISDN is charged by the minute - at
There's a guy running an point-to-point wireless ISP operation called "Airisen" here, but it does not work where there's too many trees (like my house). Satellite via Directway or Starband is expensive (over $100 a month), relatively slow and has high latency. There are plenty of parts of the county where there's no cell service at all, and where there is, it's not very reliable.
What matters most about BPL is that it rides on existing infrastructure - no new towers, no new wires, no digging, no aiming, no clearing trees to get line of sight. The hoo-hah that goes into getting a cell tower put up around here is amazing, I can't imagine a Wimax system providing anything like the coverage offered by BPL, even if they could use existing towers and so forth. So BPL makes sense.
To the point of Ham Radio interference. Yes, BPL is going to pretty much wipe out high-frequency (HF) communications where BPL is deployed. However, in addtion to being a ham radio operator, I'm also a firefighter, and I work in various emergency situations all the time, and the fact is that ham radio now plays an almost insignifigant role in emergency communications, despite ARRL claims to the contrary. Sure, in some places, jobs such as storm spotting is handy, but that's a local communication need - not HF, which is a long-distance communications tool. In fact, local communications are really where ham radio is most handy, not the long distance stuff, which tends to go satellite more often than not.
Ham radio is a hobby with some possible uses in emergencies, however, it is as relevant to modern emergency services as a muzzle-loading rifle is to current-day military operations. Sure, there's a lot of history, but the world keeps turning, and the day comes where you have to abandon old technologies for the advantages of newer ones. Clinging to HF in a day of FRS, GMRS, WiMax, 3G and 802.11g is silly.
The cellular phone network has been tweaked to the point where emergency services workers can rely on it in emergencies, deployment of portable cell sites is common, sattelite phones are commonplace at major emergency scenes. Civillians have FRS, GMRS, Cell, Internet and land-line communications options, and with BPL, there will be yet another way to communicate that's offered to people who don't have the time, inclination or money to learn morse code and spend $20,000 (or more) on radio and antenna equipment.
I like my hobby - it's fun to play with radios and all that, but I'd never expect my hobby to interfere with the timely deployment of utility-grade broadband service to people who don't have it. Broadband global communications is literally a society-changing, mind-expanding, paridigm changing technology. Ham radio is a hobby enjoyed by a decreasing number of aging people. I would not expect a bunch of Civil War re-enactors to be driving military policy any more than I'd expect a bunch of radio hobbyists to be driving spectrum use policy.
Anyone interested in buying some ham radio gear?
I wonder how this potentially impacts the various international treaties over RF? I thought that the various bands the FCC allocates for ametuer use are also agreed to by other countries (otherwise how could hams in different countries talk to each other if they couldn't use the same frequencies). Couldn't pressure come from other countries that the US isn't living up to its committments in using these bands?
This topic has come up several times on Slashdot -- and it contains a bit of flame war between the ham radio crowd and the live-on-the-Internet crowd. This misses the point that hams use a sliver of the total frequencies -- many of the others are allocated to public service of one kind of another or commercial use, and these will be impacted as well.
Additionally, the way the FCC has pushed this decision through dispite the overwhelming technical issues with RF interference should bother anyone concerned with good government. This is the federal equivalent of a property zoning change in your neighborhood that allows a huge factory to be plunked down next to residential property.
Sleep is for the Weak
Believe me, the main reason amateur radio operators perform as well as they do in providing emergency services is because they practice, practice, practice. Practicing this is so important that there is an international multi-day emergency communications simulation drill that is run every year called field day.
This year the International Space Station was involved in field day! My local Ham Club had the use of BOTH the county fire department's mobile operation center AND the sheriff's mobile operation center as well on site for field day this year! And this is a county with 1.2 million people in it! This goes to show you how important just PRACTICING emergency preparedness is.
In truth I'm not really that worried about BPL. It's interference properties goes both ways, amateur radio can interfere with BPL just like BPL can interfere with amateur radio. I've also heard that BPL can interfere HDTV reception as well but I'm having problems pulling up the articles. In other words, until they fix the interference problem, consumers won't accept internet service that gets interrupted everytime their local ham fires up their kilowatt amplifier to talk to someone in Russia.
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
You make some good points.
Ham radio is a hobby with some possible uses in emergencies, however, it is as relevant to modern emergency services as a muzzle-loading rifle is to current-day military operations. Sure, there's a lot of history, but the world keeps turning, and the day comes where you have to abandon old technologies for the advantages of newer ones. Clinging to HF in a day of FRS, GMRS, WiMax, 3G and 802.11g is silly.
I would suggest, however, you tell that to the folks who were hit by Hurricane Mitch. HF communications played a primary role in emergency and Health & Welfare traffic in the aftermath.
Ham radio might be old school here in the technotheistic US, but in other parts of the world that need to get information to the US in times of emergency, it might be the only way.
A Republic is a governmental structure. Democracy is a measure of accountability. "A Democracy" simply means a government that has passed a certain threshhold of accountability (notably, that in subjective terms, the effective legislature is answerable to the governed.) In practice, the US has been a democracy since the election of the first congress.
There are far too many too-clever-for-their-own-good people who'll jump on anyone describing the US as a democracy because they think, somehow (presumably from playing Civilization - damn you Sid Meier!) that democracy is a type of government and therefore incompatable with the concept of a republic. (Well, ok, there are also those who think that a democracy is "rule by plebicite", which it isn't, and then there are those who semi-legitimately argue that the Bill of Right's limitations on the legislature make the US "not a democracy", but the constitution is actually, at the moment, with current state constitutions and laws, changable for a sufficiently energized populice, so it's still a democracy. Oh, and there's the "It isn't in the constitution" argument too, but simply because the constitution doesn't require it doesn't mean it's not a democracy. Current laws and processes make it a democracy.)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
--you brought up an interestng point and something I'd like to see more research in, and that is using grids as passive electric generators.
I think we've been going about this backwards, we should be harvesting that electrical potential somehow.
Good God, the man's having an argument with himself!
*Tosses ARRL handbook over shoulder*
So much for entering THAT field of knowledge...
I have worked for the BBC on DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale - Digital Radio on AM Wavebands) technology. The interference caused by PLT (power line transmission) is shocking. It could cripple the technology. Keep power lines clean-ish...
What annoys me is that the FCC, in particular chairman Michael Powell (yes, son of Colin Powell), have ignored their own purpose and directive and have been entertaining agendas that are not central to their entire purpose. The FCC was created in the early 1900s (around 1912 I think) to regulate frequency usage to reduce interference by being a netrual party coordinating spectrum usage. This was to prevent the problem of several broadcast stations competing simply by increasing their transmitted power.
Now it appears the FCC doesn't give a rat's ass about those they are suppose to protect and work with (i.e. licensed spectrum users) and are giving a carte blanc to unlicensed intereference. The amendenments allows basiclly more freedom for utilties to create intereference. They have ignored both the amateur radio community (i.e. the ARRL) and the US Government's spectrum management agency, GTIA (I think).
Michael Powell has been considered a disappointment, naively believe that the "free market" can balance what are "natural monopolies."
The other annoyance is that BPL has faired poorly in the majority of trials, and globally most BPL trials have been shutdown with no plans on deployment. I believe numerous power companies are in fact merely trying to boost their stock value, not plan on actually delivering Internet services to rural users.
You can certainly thank the Republicans for this. Remember this when you go to the polls.
"I have some reservations about the FCC regulating something that they have not regulated much in the past. As far as I know, the power company has not needed a license to broadcast their 60 hz signal before... "
"BPL won't broadcast at 60Hz... there's tons of unused bandwidth in overhead transmission lines.
BPL will operate at higher freqs, typically the HF portion of the spectrum... and that'll interfere with Amateur Radio.
If they were transmitting BPL at 60 Hz, they wouldn't have enough bandwidth for it to be useable at all! Hell, a TV channel uses a whopping 6000 Hz itself!"
First of all BPL signals cover 80,000,000Hz+ (80Mhz) of spectrum, furthermore a standard TV signal is 6Mhz wide not 6Khz. The FCC is a mere shadow of what it once was, it was run by technically competent commissioners. Now it's run by technically incompetent we'll bend over for industry commissioners. Power lines were designed to do one thing, deliver power at 60Hz. When broadband RF is applied the act like antennas and radiate most of that energy as interference.
For example, if I took a bullhorn and mounted it atop of a pole and transmitted say, an MT63 signal to a dish microphone several blocks away, made sure I kept the dB level down as not to break some noise ordnance would you still like it? Probably not.
BPL is going to cause radio interference on a scale that hasn't been seen since the days of spark gap transmitters. It WILL violate the international agreement the US has with other countries to keep the spectrum clean for the reception of short wave broadcast. Despite what BPL providers and equipment manufactures say, it WILL cause interference, I worked my ass off to get my extra class ham license. I put up with enough "regular" interference from consumer electronics like TVs, computers, cracked insulators, etc.
And the biggie, EVERYONE keeps overlooking the fact that BPL can be interfered with something as simple as a CB. I could drive into an area, key a transmitter and DOS entire neighborhoods. I could use a software defined radio and just drive into a BPL serviced area and conduct surveillance, sniff packets with no physical wire connection.
I'm all for broadband but deploying it on the HF band is a bad (in the extreme) idea that will eventually cost you money when it fails. Even Japan tried it and then banned it from their country because it caused so much interference.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
It won't work that way. If BPL interferes with ham radio, the number of operators will decrease below the crticical mass necessary to provide emergency communications, worldwide.
Here's why:
BPL produces interference across the entire spectrum of "high frequency" (3-30Mhz) radio, and a little above and below in fact. The HF frequencies have special properties (on this planet, at least) of being reflected around the world by the ionosphere. A tiny sliver of these frequencies are used by amateur radio operators, but there are litterally thousands of other kinds of licensees worldwide.
BPL power lines radiate this interference, and when the ionosphere is highly reflective, the interference will be sent around the world. Since the FCC denied the request to have the BPL systems transmit identification, there won't be any way for anyone to identify which BPL installation is causig interference, since it might be halfway around the country, or halfway around the world.
There are BPL systems that don't use HF radio waves, but in all the rush to "Step 3: Profit" these technical issues have been ignored, and the comlpanies with the best lobbiests have won.
While I agree with the parent that ham radio has almost completely lost its role in emergency communication, at least on shortwave as we are discussing here, then ham radio as a whole still holds a vital role as a teaching tool.
... ? What?
/dev/null.
The availability of the shortwave bands (1-30MHz) is crucial to anyone, who would like to learn about the analog part of electronics, there is more to sine waves than audio. From more than 20 years of DIY and professional experience I can safely say, that it is virtually impossible to experiment with radio above 30MHz 'on the kitchen desktop' without access to some very expensive testing equipment (unless you build a kit, which doesn't count). On the other hand it is quite possible to start out small with only a single transistor and get something interesting, say a receiver or a transmitter, going below 30MHz, then building up from there.
In my view it is nearly impossible to learn the trade of analog electronics, the dark and all-important twin to the digital technology, by studying a few years at university level. All of those electronics wizards I have met, have started out as teenagers, hams more often than not, and their official papers is just part of their continuing learning experience. It feels quite funny to have some egghead, who started 'building' electronics for the first time as a freshman, barge into the (virtual) room and start 'teaching' all of us ignorant pagans how things should be. The level of ignorance out there about circuits of complexities beyond a few components is utterly staggering, and everything needs to be done to allow interested people every opportunity to learn more.
While the parent is having fun 'playing' with his (factory built?) radios, some of us are busy learning and teaching electronics to anyone, who is interested. The parent poster seems ignorant about BPL actually making whole sections of the shortwave bands unusable. We are talking wideband noise here, not single channel interference. Wipe out reception of the HF spectrum, and you pretty much wipe out RF DIYing, whether ham radio or not. Then we are left with building stereo Hi-Fi amps and
Note: I'm 36 years of age, has been DIYing RF gear since I was 12 and have held a ham license in my country since age 14. English is not my language of birth, so comments about grammar and spelling should be piped to
BPL, meet Eimac...
...the rest of the thread. Every place it's been tried causes massive ancilliary interference, and it's expensive and clunky. It's a tech that doesn't work very well, and also causes problems.
It's anti-smart, it's pro-stupid. It is not a "last mile solution", it's an "all the miles problem generator".
I live rural, would love to have some sort of broadband option, but this scheme ain't it. I also enjoy my radios, and yes, they are quite valuable, even if most folks don't realise what the value of having a truly independent of any big corporation two way communications system really is. It's a commercial scam and I suspect some high level bribes have been paid in order to get it approved, because it certainly didn't come about from any sane engineering advantages.
Here's a clue, I live in the south, the southern company(locally georgia power) does the bulk of everyones electrical delivery. Do you realise what THEY use for communications? Radios, they have their own relay networks setup, and last I looked you could get a subscription from them for two way radio and integrated telephony, it's called Southern Linc, and it appears from that page I just relooked at they are looking for developers to help them expand what sort of features they can provide, including mobile internet, which could be a precursor to a lot more "last mile" solutions. The reason WHY they do this is because they KNOW that THEIR powerlines are *NOT* a good way to stay connected.
a.) I told you but nobody would listen.
b.) Wayne Green and Art Bell are going to be really pissed off.
c.) Think of how dumb-down the next generation of children are going to be who wish to tinker with RX/TX and learn electronics.
d.) I predict in areas of bleedover (in either direction) destruction of property, lawsuits, jamming, jail, and death, etc. Hams are not going to give up as easilly as you think. And CB'ers? Don't even think they won't "pump it up."
e.) We are loosing all our rights in the US now. Interesting times. I'm already pissed.
Power lines were designed for transmitting low frequencies [50Hz] with maximum power throughput -- delays and distortion be damned. A big motor driving a hefty flywheel isn't going to care about THD or SWR, just kilowatts. Furthermore, at that kind of frequency, unshielded cables won't radiate much -- 50Hz mains has a wavelength of 6 megametres. [The Earth's circumference is only 40 megametres.]
Broadband internet uses a high-frequency carrier and expects a transmission line designed for low distortion, and delays that don't vary too much with frequency. It's less critical how much of the energy you put in actually comes out the other end; a scope trace that looks the same shape is what's important. High frequencies need special precautions to avoid losing the signal to radiation; either a shielding braid around the conductor {co-ax, like TV cable}, or a second conductor carrying an antiphase signal in intimate proximity {twisted-pair, like a phone cable}.
Using power lines to carry broadband internet just sounds like using the wrong tool for the job. The scary part is how "almost right" it looks. But, if you use a Phillips screwdriver in a Prodrive recess, you'll end up knackering the screw and the screwdriver.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Wanna buy a nice Kenwood TS-570D? Will make an interesting conversation piece, museum exhibit or hold a small vessel in place in calm waters. Selling due to forced obsolescence by the Federal Communications Commission, a moron president who personally endorsed BPL and the greedy corporations who will bluster their way past any degree of responsibility for the spectrum pollution they will inevitably cause.
Election day is coming!
Cheers, Peter, W2IRT
I'm a ham radio operator and I can assure you that we've got far more specturm than we need or use, and this BPL stuff has great potential for rural areas where even wimax isn't going to be a viable option.
.04 cents per minute for a 128K line. T1 lines are $800-$1,200 a month - if you can get them.
And what level license do you hold? Not that it makes that much a difference, a HAM is a HAM is a HAM, but if your name is any indication, you are a technician licensee, and probably have little experience using HF bands in any case. I could be wrong, but since you fail to provide a call, I can do little more than assume that you have limited if no HF experience. And to keep things fair, my call is W4KDH, and I hold a General class license.
BPL is a really the only solution for some areas, even in this day of DSL/Cable/Wimax/3G and whatever.
NO it is not. WiMax, and in some cases even Satellite are better solutions, cheaper to implement and ultimately cheaper to maintain. Not to mention the direct benefit of no incidental RF radiation from miles and miles of antenna(power lines).
To give you folks a bit of perspective, I live 1.5 hours away from New York and Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, a place called Bucks County, up in the north end. It's not exactly "rural" but it's still a place where people come to get out to "the country".
And again, to be fair, I live in a little place called Bear Creek, NC, in Chatham county which IS a rural area, not just a "Could be considered rural for this excercise" area. I commute an hour to work and an hour home each day due to the distance between my house and my office.
DSL service has only been offered in this area since April 2004. Cable internet access is still NOT an option and won't be anytime soon. Modem connections in many areas are - at best - 56K X2, with typical connections much slower. ISDN is charged by the minute - at
DSL service is NOT offered here. Sprint does not care for the expense of setting it up. I get dialup, and 56K X2 is a standard, not a connection speed. Typically, even in the best of circumstances, a "56K" connection will get you 52K realized speeds... I typically get 28.8 max. ISDN is not an option, as again, sprint deems it too expensive to set up the existing infrastructure for ISDN. And you can get T-1. Its just a matter of cost. Any provider will gladly provide you a T1, no matter where you are, so long as you make it worth their while to run the lines, etc.
There's a guy running an point-to-point wireless ISP operation called "Airisen" here, but it does not work where there's too many trees (like my house).
Then the reasonable solution would be to put an antenna higher than the trees. As a Ham, you should at least have SOME grasp of the basics of RF principles, and especially the idea of Line of Sight. You dont think that WiMax or 3G would be any different do you?
What matters most about BPL is that it rides on existing infrastructure - no new towers, no new wires, no digging, no aiming, no clearing trees to get line of sight.
Here you mention line of sight, but seem to overlook that WRT the aforementioned PTP wireless provider. What the problem with BPL is is that that existing infrastructure is ancient, by most standards, unshielded, and NOT MADE to carry signals at the frequencies needed for PLC. Think about it... the areas that proponents argue will be best served are the EXACT areas that those power companies have yet to actually test in.
Of course BPL works in major metropolitan areas... but no real studies have been done in the US, that I am aware of at least, involving a BPL rollout to a truely rural area (meaning an area where there is VERY limited infrastructure to begin with). Hell, my power company cant even keep the power on when we have someting like a simple rain, how can I possibly expect them to provide adequate broadband? And the same goes for most similar areas
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
If your a ham why are you afraid to sign your message without your name not to mention your call?
And he's all about reducing regulations, which I see as a good thing. The FCC didn't even "crack down on indecency" until it was pressured by a bunch of reactionaries on the hill (if you want to blame somebody for "FCC censorship then you need to call your congressperson or senator, because they're the ones leading that charge). And the harping going on here is no different than everyone screaming bloody murder when he lowered regulations on corporate station ownership - it's all just fine and dandy until someone steps in your backyard, huh?
The internet is a revolution in communications that can easily offset that station ownership nonsense - but not unless it's as ubiquitous as TV signals. We have cheap "receivers" (walmart computers) and with one of those "receivers" each of us has an equal opportunity to produce "content" for those receivers - but to do this the internet needs as many chances to grow (under its own energy) as possible. BPL opens the door for small, disconnected communities to take up that "last mile" buildout themselves. Combine BPL with local wifi (or wimax if it ever gets here) and you open the door to community "radio" and "tv" stations that are off the internet at large but can provide regional programming essentially "free" on the back of community wireless WANS. Many communities don't have this now because there's nowhere to go once the WAN is built - it's still isolated, or is facing a bill of hundreds of dollars a month for a gateway faster than a pool of dialup connections - so the local buildout never happens.
Wideband, BPL, wimax - all this stuff needs its fair share. Opening up the TV band to spread spectrum is one of the first truly logical progressions I've seen in years, especially being one who lives in a heavily forested rural area where we get all of THREE tv stations, no cable, no dsl, and even the phone lines suck. BPL would be very welcome here, and would likely spur further development in other areas. The tradeoff is a bit more background noise on some parts of the spectrum. As licensed and trained amateur radio engineers you're supposed o know how to deal with a little RFI; let's all work together and build a bridge... so you can get over it.
The thing that bothers me about these arguements is the "people living in rural areas have a right to inexpensive broadband".
Thats a load of crap. They pay a fraction of what those of us who choose to live near cities pay for basic cost of living. We pay more for the convenience of stores nearby, modern information infrastructure and things like that.
$100 a month for satellite isn't a lot of money when you're not paying $350,000 for a small condo.
I get internet for half that, but my house payment is four times what a house in a rural location is.
$100 internet? Boo frickin hoo.
All throughout middle school and early into high school, my science and chemistry teachers taught me about the Niels Bohr model of the atom. I learned all about electrons orbiting in nice circles around the nucleus and how with the appropriate impetus, electrons would shift from one shell to the other.
I then took my first chemistry course and learned that it was all crap...serious crap...fantacrap. The teachers new it was crap...they'd known for some time, but they still taught it because it was a useful teaching model for the concepts in question. That's all fine and dandy, but we moved on to orbitals and that darn undead cat....
Ham radio for fun: I can talk to some guy in Outer Slobovia on my HF set...it's a bit of a challenge at times, takes some planning, and is fun. If the power goes out, I switch to a battery and can carry on.
I can also talk to the Slobovian via instant messenging. There's no challenge, doesn't take much planning, and is fun...heck...I may even have a more involved conversation. If the power goes out, I'm likely buggered for a bit (the laptop doesn't care, but Comcast is generally quite put out), but what do I need to talk to a Slobovian at this hour for, anyway.
One method of entertainment is, like so much in this society, instant gratification. The other method requires some learning, thought and planning. Which would I prefer my child direct her time to?
Ham radio for teaching:
Forget about all that social learning crap, and skip straight to the tech stuff.
I can teach my daughter to build and install a computer. It's pretty darn simple, and if you've done it once, you've done it once, you can do it again. I'm not likely to teach her how to build a better processor in her garage, but who knows...she's a clever girl.
I can teach my daughter how to build a radio from a kit. I can then teach her about constructing antennas (resonant and otherwise). I can then teach her to build a radio from scratch. I can then teach her radio (and instrument) design. I can then get her to do all the hard work for me so that I can get back to talking to my friend Mort in Slobovia.
What's the point?
Designing, building and operating a SSB, CW, CCW, PSK, or whatever transceiver may not be state of the art (plenty of hams are defining state of the art, but I'm just trying to address an average ham), but it is a valuable learning experience in the realm of tech skills. I've certainly learned more in radio and cytometer design efforts than in building my various cpus.
Bohr was full of crap, but we still teach it because it has value. The average ham may not be providing vital emergency communication every time they flip on the radio, but they are all technically compentent and, generally, making best efforts to spread their knowledge.
I'll avoid addressing the ham's role in emergency communications. Others have covered it well enough already.
Dave
"only to be f*cked over by the FCC"
Consumers are f*cked over when the FCC mandates the broadcast flag.
Howard Stern and CBS are f*cked over when the FCC mandates what you can say on the air.
The America Taxpayer is f*cked over when the FCC gives away frequency to broadcasters as a favor
So why did the Amateur Radio guys think they were except.
I'm not flaming, I just don't understand how people think the "FCC is just trying to do the right thing".
They're not. They're f*cking over everybody.
Oh, it could be, but the local telco's refuse to invest in it, so we have a solution that has to have perfect lines in perfect conditions or it won't work.
Hey, I think the cable companies are satantic, but they were willing to invest to make a solution work anywhere.
Meanwhile, the telco's are looking for a regulatory bailout to make DSL work except in very specific instances.
That's why DSL is great in theory, but in practice in the US, it sucks as a national solution.
Perhaps BPL will give the cable company some competition. I see that as a good thing.
So, basically in a nutshell:
You don't use HF, don't need it, and don't know any service that does, so screw them.
Pretty shortsighted and impressively incomplete view of this problem. Not all communications are local, which is what every VHF/UHF method you mentioned is. HF is in ONLY radio-based communication system that provides global coverage without needing substantial infrastructure such as satellites, etc.
"ut I have to say that my last four years of service with DSL have been great"
Sure, when you have it, its great.
But the telco's have put in a technology that needs what I consider perfect conditions... 18K feet from the switch, it can't go through analog boosters, it can't be multiplexed blah blah blah.
That means they can cover some suburban areas under specific conditions. There are technical solutions, but the telco's refuse to consider them, because they can't get payback in 1 year.
That's why I hate DSL.
Have a nice, NICE day, idiots.
I am a Ham too, but BPL seems to already be obsolete. As soon as WiMax is available, it will beat out all BPL systems both in quality, cost and speed. See WiMax Home and compare it to the problems with BPL as stated by the ARRL .
Any AM broadcast listeners out there?
Well, if BPL affects amateurs, it will certainly affect the person listening to their AM radios at home. So, if it proves to affect amateurs...AM radio is doomed too! Forget about listening to ESPN, or AM talk-radio at home! No more listening to games for you!!
Best requards,
N9WX
Heh, no offense, but why should we listen to someone who drives an hour to work every day, for advice and for their opinion? You've already made it clear you're in this life for yourself and no one else.
The FCC's sole justification is to prevent signals from interfering in American media. Quite a clear mission, actually. Creating radio interference from unregulated BPL is a classic Bush administration favor to power companies at the expense of the people. Just another de rigeur outrage.
--
make install -not war
I hear this arguement made a lot by people who live in high population densities and I always cringe at your ignorance.
Since most rural areas tend to be populated by people working in either agriculture or extractive industries how about if we turn this around?
Since you have no "right" to inexpensive food, or material goods the following now apply:
$100 a pound for tin foil? Boo hoo.
$100 a ton for low sulphur coal? (The same coal that fires your powerplants I might add)Boo hoo.
$15 a pound for chicken, beef, & pork? Boo hoo.
$100 a bushel for corn, wheat, & rice? Boo hoo.
$20 for a dozen eggs? Boo hoo.
$15 for a gallon of milk? Boo hoo.
$10/therm for natural gas. Boo hoo.
We all support EACH OTHER, and if you want to undo the deal then get ready to watch the prices on many of the things you take for granted blow through the roof...if you can obtain them at all.
People who feel somehow superior because they live "In The City" really get on my nerves.
If you want to ignore the rural areas of the United States and leave them to rot like some third world backwater that's fine, just don't be shocked when you have no food, no fuel, and housing prices in your precious city suddenly skyrocket by a factor of 10 as all us poor ignorant rural folks try and move in.
Ordinarily, I refrain from replying to AC posts, but what the hell...
Heh, no offense, but why should we listen to someone who drives an hour to work every day, for advice and for their opinion? You've already made it clear you're in this life for yourself and no one else.
Heh, really. But believe me, the hour drive is not necessarily by choice. Its more that I couldnt find anything closer that pays what I get paid. I live "in the middle of nowhere" so my only local employment options are, chicken processing plant, farmer, or retail.
And if I were truely in this only for myself, I would not be an amateur radio operatior (I got into this mainly to assist people in emergencies) and I would not have spent 6 years as a volunteer Medic/Firefighter (only left because I had a bad back injury on a call).
If I could live closer to work, then I would be all for it, but I could not find the home and land I have anywhere closer to work without paying at least twice what we paid for our current home.
And that is supposing you COULD find 10 acres available near RDU.
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
Amateur radio provides a vital fallback position in emergency situations where normal communications are wiped out. If amateur radio is splattered with broadband interference to the point were people are forced to drop the hobby, then our emergency preparedness will greatly suffer.
This is a real bad idea.
When all else fails, run.
I live in Philadelphia, and have PECO as my power company. When I signed up, they told me they do all their meter reading automatically with a computer through the power lines. so isn't BPL already being used by electric companies to monitor and config their own equipment?
Um, lemme see here.
Bucks County Rescue Squad:
45.96
46.0
47.46
Third District Volunteer Hose Company:
46.06
46.1
46.12
46.14
46.20
46.24
46.30
Quakertown Fire Department
46.1
I could go on. This was a ULS search of a few towns in Bucks County with licensed emergency services in the 40-49 MHz range. I'm sure there are hundreds of others in that same range. THEY would all get clobbered by BPL just as HF amateur operations would.
BPL will affect EVERY licensed service between 2 and 80 MHz, including thousands of public safety radio systems in rural regions of the country -- just where BPL is being touted as the Best Thing Since Sliced Bread. These are the areas where BPL will wreak havoc on radio systems belonging to sheriff's offices, rescue squads, fire departments, the electric companies operations themselves, school bus operators, construction firms etc, etc.
Does YOUR county have the budget to replace their trusted and working radio system with some POS trunked 800 MHz "solution" that won't work over long distances? Multiply that by every rural county in the country.
BPL will kill ham radio, yes, but it will literally kill PEOPLE once police, fire and rescue radio systems are rendered useless.
Please, PLEASE may I be wrong!
Cheers, Peter, W2IRT
The biggest problem with BPL for Amateur Radio is that it basically adds so much noise to the radio spectrum that receiving signals becomes a problem. BPL causes the same problem with law enforcement radios, military radios and even (I've heard) HDTV reception.
:P
Second to that, ham radio operators would prefer NOT to interfere with other peoples' telecommunications, BPL or not, so the fact that ham radio CAN interfere with BPL is also a problem for both BPL users and hams. Course the FCC says BPL users have to accept interference as they should
Then again, it will never get "fixed" until its first "allowed to be deployed" so perhaps this will put the impetus on the power companies to get their act together on this, though I'm sure its no easy task. I'm all for alternative broadband delivery vehicles, so I hope they fix it.
Till then, BPL will be dead in the water.
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
We do all support each other. But broadband internet access is not a right, its not even a privlidge. Its a service you can easily live without.
Not one of those prices you listed is remotely accurate. Long before they reached that level, foreign sources would become more economical, and supplies would even out.
The majority of the US lives in places where access to these sort of services is easy. Most of the remainder live in places where there are other alternatives and trade-offs that can be made.
The people who do not fall into those groups have to live with the consquences of the choices they made.
And being a homeowner, I'd be perfectly happy if prices in my precious city suddenly skyrocket. In fact, thats pretty much what they've been doing.
AMA=Academy of Model Aeronautics http://www.modelaircraft.org/Comp/Competition.htm AMA is watching this as model aircraft uses 72 MHz for most modelers. There are some HAM modelers, but obviously you have to have a license.
There no right to subsidized telecom, and there is no right to cheap food or fuel. There is only the right to be left alone.
Your choices of where and how to live do not enable you to pick my pocket. Pay your own way, and I'll pay mine.
I'm a ham radio operator and I can assure you that we've got far more specturm than we need or use
Translation: "I've had a Tech license for a month and my shack consists of a 2 meter HT on my belt. Why do I need HF? Screw all y'all and give me broadband."
They are doing other bad things, it's OK, dont complain about this one?
The FCC *should* be trying to do the right thing.
emt 377 emt 4
Anybody who's ever tried to use "wireless" household intercom units that operate over the power wiring must be completely baffled about why this bogus concept just won't die.
The level of noise on the average power circuit is far higher than that of ambient radio. Simply plugging a surge suppressor into another leg of the same circuit will knock the intercoms out.
Nearly everybody who has any valuable electronic equipment protects it with at least a surge supressor. Anybody who's serious uses a line conditioning UPS. This is because of the noise, spikes, and other variables on power lines - not a good candidate for data transmission!
Is anybody listening? Why won't this die?
I read the article, but didn't pick up on what kind of "power line" they're talking about.
There are cross-country transmission lines (the "twisted" lines in the parent postings) and there are neighborhood distribution lines, and there are the 120+120V lines that go from the house to the transformer on the pole.
I'm wondering if the cross-country transmission lines are different lines than are being addressed by the FCC.
Anyone have knowledge of which lines are BPL?
This has potential for gamers, local Internet radio, and local businesses.
...for the rest of us.
Let's not forget that there's a sound reasonsing in the interest of the public and public policy why Amateur Radio exists (at least in the US, and I suspect in the rest of the world) (quotes from Part 97):
I suspect many Amateur (especially newers ones) forget this point...one of the primary reasons the Amateur Radio Service was created was to provide a secondary emergency communication network for the country in times of disaster. Many of us still train on a regular basis for emergency communications and work closely with various groups (including the aforementioned Red Cross, Military, etc) to ensure we can provide vital, orderly emergency communication. Our work at public events is typically in support of this mission. And if you think that we're useless, some recent instances of the usefulness of Amateur Radio:
- During 9/11, a large volunteer Amateur network was used to facilitate communications between the Red Cross and other emergency agencies. There were several stories of where an operator's expertise with antennas or such allowed them to get signals where others couldn't.
- During the recent Hurricanes - especially in smaller islands with unsophisticated power and communication systems used various worldwide amateur capabilities to coordinate aid, welfare and other traffic
- Someone already mentioned use of amateur radio during the recent blackout in the NE US.
- Esp in the midwest (but throughout), groups like SKYWARN (amateur radio weather warning nets) are a vital part of the NWS's ability to track tornadoes/storms and other weather data.
In all these cases, Amateur Radio was useful because it's what we exist for - emergency communications. Heck, once a year, we have essentially a contest where we make as many contacts as possible without the use of an established power infrastructure. We pride ourselves on making contact (even via CW) in extremely difficult radio conditions. Commericial systems rarely cover those situations that occur.This is true even today...many modern radio designs and systems are the result of earlier work in the amateur field. And while we may think the pool is small...a large number of those who make these systems (even those who build systems like SIRIUS and XM Satelitte radio) are Amateur Radio operators who's expertise and interest in radio and related theory is what fueled their abilities and interests in commercial systems.
My point is - for all those who are thinking the "death" of the service is not important - there are many things that wouldn't exist today if it weren't for amateur radio - and many situations which we would still be recovering from if we didn't have the ability of amateur's emergecy communications. In today's instant gratification, commercial oriented society, we have seen the canabilization of our service and endured decreased recognition of our usefulness....but that really is just ignorance than anything else. BPL may be important, but not at the expense of a still useful thing such as the ARS. I hope the FCC continues to strive to strike a balance in the needs of all parties.
I hate to rain on the amateur radio operator's parade, but there are only a few 100,000 radio amateurs in the U.S., while BPL has the potential of bring high-speed Internet access to millions.
This is a question of who will receive more benefit, and I believe it will be the general public rather than the radio hams, which is the way it should be whenever new technologies come along.
You're obviously a ham without access to hf frequencies. There's nothing more magical, or scarce than hf - it is a natural phenomenon not at all unlike the so called 7 wonders of world. Would you destroy a natural monument to put up a shopping mall? You might, but I certianly wouldn't want to sacrifice such a thing.
Nothing can replace HF - no frequency on the electro-megnetic spectrum has the same propagation properities.
Also HF is crowded - there isn't a whole lot of bandwidth there to begin with.
Clinging to HF in a day of FRS, GMRS, WiMax, 3G and 802.11g is silly.
When I talk to someone in Japan or Russia or South America on my HF transciever I didn't have to rely on some corperation to connect me up, I don't have to make sure my bill is paid and I not have to make sure I'm in range with the nearest access point or cell repeater. It was just me, the hf band and my radio - nothing else. When I'm passing traffic for an operator in South America you have to remember they don't have telephones at all - never mind cell phones, 802.11 or gmrs. The reason they need a message relayed, or a phone call made is because they don't have these things.
You're not going to provide world wide communications with 802.11, frs and gmrs. There are parts of the state I live in (Oregon)that cell phones don't even work (never mind 802.11) because the company that provides the service didn't deam it necessary. All one has to do is drive off the I-5 corridor to find this out - GSM phones for instance don't work at all in most costal towns, and CDMA coverage is spotty at best.
Ham radio is a hobby enjoyed by a decreasing number of aging people. I would not expect a bunch of Civil War re-enactors to be driving military policy any more than I'd expect a bunch of radio hobbyists to be driving spectrum use policy.
Sounds like you have an axe to grind more than anything - if I had mod points I would have modded this flamebait. I'm 27 and I still enjoy amateur radio. I'm always doing my best to get others my age interested - I agree its an uphill battle. But having a defeatist attitude like yours won't help.
that dang soviet woodpeckers... but more so :-(
Hey! 3d realms have announced a week or so ago that they have chosen a middleware supplier, so I guess work should start on that game quite soon! :-)
BPL won't give anyone service. It's much more expensive and time consuming to install than DSL from the provider standpoint, making it more expensive. It's just a way for power companies to become the covad of the BPL industry.
Look, to go DSL you put a small dslam box in the SLC hut and frankly you're done.
To go BPL you have to put HV certified bidirectional repeaters across every transformer in the whole power network, and filter out all the noise present on the lines. It's staggeringly expensive. Then some CBer keys up under the power pole and knocks out a whole neighborhood.
So, after Enron, what power company has the money to waste on a guaranteed money loser?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
1. The modern world encountered an entire continent of stone age people. What do you expect. 2. Read the book The Wild Frontier by William Osborn and you'll never look at the Indian question in the same light again.
Actually, the Chairman and one of the other commisioners were appointed by Clinton. Not Bush.
This is an IQ test for the country.
Shot..
eVoting
CounterShot..
eVoting boxes hacked and proven exploitable
Shot..
eVoting Fixed
CounterShot..
eVoting broken again
Shot..
Dan Rather (who I didn't really like) discredited.
CounterShot..
Bill Oreiley (who I didn't really like, Career now shot, could have potentially replaced Dan Rather (discredited), or Jennings (who I don't really like)
Shot..
Indymedia (alternative media silenced, not that i liked it either, nevertheless media!) Who done it? Why? (Gag order)
Shooting yet more..
Government Media Complex
Shot..
and now BPL (Effectively kills off more free information channels, "completely rolled out by 2007 across all of the USA?!" -- BUSH )
Anyone even know who is doing the shooting anymore? I know I've nearly lost track.
Anyone REALLY WANT a flu shot?
Michael Powell, Powell's Brother?! Why?
Halliburton.
Enron.
911
Fires in So. Cal, No. Cal.
Saudi Bush Connection?
Debt from this war.
Social Security.
Do we really want to go where we are going?
Gun Control
Don your tin-foil hats, Say I am a psycho, whatever you want you god damn piece of shit spinsters. But this is fucking bullshit.
We are all pussys now (sheeple if you will) and literally too scared to even speak out. (they go after you now! wtf!)
When does the Civil War begin?
Anyone have a link to information regarding the frequency(s) that are used vs. "Notched" out? There's a lot more than just HAM to be worried about...
If your a ham radio operator, whats your callsign?
your full of shit!
Yeah seriously, I know plenty of hams who have long commutes to work, all of them say they would be able to make the trip if it weren't for ham radio.
73' de KB1GHC
Since they won't put up with this BY EITHER SIDE!
Not only it create interferences, it also opens floodgates to virus writers trying to knockout power grids by transmitting carefully crafted data streams! WHAT KIND OF IDIOTS APPROVE THIS TECHNOLOGY?! If you don't want to face another billion user blackout, BOYCOTT BPL NOW!!!
about 1 in 400 americans is a ham radio operator.
That area that the Native Americans were displaced from now produces more food than any other area in the world, which would not have been possible if they remained. I'm not saying they were justified, but they were sure as hell vindicated.
Let's see, three RF caps placed hot to hot, and each hot leg to ground/neutral. Although it won't address the radiated interference, it will remove the interference on the power lines at your house. And will create standing waves on the power lines. If enough people in the town "filter interference" from their lines, it should help reduce the problem; and the demand for such a wretched "service". Perhaps a technical solution can eliminate this busi^H^H^H^H problem.
Guess we'll all need kilowatts now to cut through the interference; too bad BPL modems will suffer as a result.
73, wa2rkn
Heisenberg may have been here.
Don't listen to him, DC (Deep Chatham) is the place to be. Just remember spending an hour to go 50 miles is much more satisfying than spending an hour going 6 miles. I wish you the best and hope you are learning much from your 10 acres.
what would happen to your Internet connection when they key this transmitter up?
You forgot about HF NVIS (Near Vertical Incidence). If you use the right antenna (one that has a gain at high angles), and the right frequency (3-10 mhz typical) you can provide REGIONAL communications with only a few watts of power. Regional being 300 miles or so.
Let's see your FRS, GMRS, WiMax, 3G and 802.11g/whatever trunked VHF/UHF system your fire unit uses talk to someone in a canyon 150 miles away on the other side of the mountain range.
Or a ship 300 miles offshore.
I guess those scenarios are irrelevant to our day and age.
I guess you can tell the family that their kid died in a forest fire because he couldn't raise help from base camp on the other side of the mountain, because little Johnny was playing Doom III on his BPL line.
We can all talk about legal implications and interference issues of "BPL" like there was no tommorow, it might even be very interesting and entertaining, but it all makes no sense whatsoever without a proper context and understanding of the underlying technology. A very important yet often overlooked thing to keep in mind while thinking about "broadband over power lines," as I have already written countless times with little effect only to be completely ignored every time I've rised this issue, is the very fact that it all has started as a scam. That's right, folks. The idea has been introduced by certain Luke Stewart, a well known scam artist who has promised more than billion gigabits per second (sic) with his "Media Fusion" snake oil.
This scam and those billions gigabits per second was the only reason why "broadband over power lines" has been ever considered in the first place! See these links for sources and much more informative details and background.
So I ask you: do we seriously need to be fooled over and over again? Are we doomed to repeat the history of people who have lost a lot of money invested in this completely pointless technology? I really believe we can do better than that. Of course, the question is: why? Why are we lied to? The answer is actually quite simple.
Of course the only problem with BPL is the wire, which severely limits broadband throughput, acts like an antenna, disrupting other services, reduces the range between repeaters, killing economy of the service, acts like an open door, letting interference into BPL, etc.--I don't have to talk about it because it is obvious. But the question is, why not do it without the wire then? Why not use twisted-pair or fiber instead? Simple: because the only justification the power companies have for joining the Internet services market is that they have those wires going everywhere, so it is not surprising that they keep telling us that this wire is better than Cat5, no matter what they and we all know about it.
So instead of talking about the effects of BPL deployment, please just once let's stop to think about it causes.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Quoting my post I forgot the link. It's The Electric Kool-Aid Bandwidth Test by Evan Ratliff, Wired, November 2001. Everyone who is interested in this story should read the whole article. I quoted only few very short fragments.
The most important point about Broadband Over Power Lines is why anyone started to even think about building it. We have to ask that question before we start to talk about interference and other obvious details. Was it because most of potential Internet users don't have telephone lines? No. It was because we cannot have billion gigabits per second using copper, while according to Luke Stewart with power lines we somehow can.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
There have been lots of trials since 1998 when Edwin Blair invested in Luke Stewart's Media Fusion LLC. All of them failed, but actually for reasons much more fascinating than what you wrote about. Please read the Dallas Business Journal article from March, Media Fusion founders named in suit by Jeff Bounds:
Please read the entire article and more importantly my other comment to this story where I include much more details about the whole BPL scam. Very interesting read.
"Luke Stewart -- self-proclaimed national treasure -- carries on. Chances are, we haven't heard the last of him, because Stewart sold his vision best to the one person who will never pull the plug: himself. Once you become a man with a Big Idea, the mundane details of the scientific method can never match the thrill of changing the world with a sweep of your hand."
Anyone knows what happened to Luke Stewart since then?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
It's more like "Scam Artists vs. Common Sense." Seriously, you don't have to worry about HAM because BPL is only a scam. From the technical standpoint it is an absolutely terrible and utterly stupid idea. Lots of people keep and will keep investing in it but it will never be actually implemented. Don't worry.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Let's face it. Broadband over Power Lines is a terrible idea. From any possible standpoint it is utterly idiotic. The only reason anyone has ever started to think about investing in that idea was billion gigabits per second (sic) promised by Luke Stewart with his Media Fusion scam. Wouldn't you agree that all of those disadvantages you write about wouldn't matter so much if that would give us million Tbps (yes, that's million terabits per second) broadband in every home? Wouldn't you agree that million Tbps must have sounded even better in 1998? That is the real reason why people started to look into BPL. They was trying to build it not because they didn't know about the issues you write about, but becuase they wanted to use those very interferences for data transmitted on the magnetic field created by electric currents running through power line wires, not the electricity itself. This is very important to properly understand the BPL phenomenon. It is pointless to talk about the differences between power lines and standard cabling used for data transmission like copper twisted pair as their disadvantage because those very differences were supposed to make BPL much better than any other meduim known before. I think it makes no sense to start another discussion not even mentioning about it. But I don't want to repeat myself. Please read my other posts. What is sad is that I can shout as loud as I can every time people start to talk about yet another try to deploy BPL and still no one cares. Sad. Very sad. But what else can I do...
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Bucks county went to a 500 Mhz, all digital system, based on a Motorola Astro platform five years ago.
The frequencies you cited are obsolete. NO emergency services company in Bucks County is operating on low-band/analog anymore.
The old analog channels, which are used for dispatch and to allow the use of analog scanners are being phased out next year in favor of a 154 Mhz dispatch channel, which is well up and above the BPL hash.
Originally licensed in 2002, Mr. Jefferey Lane lives at 518 Rosser RD, Bear Creek NC 27207
A map to his home address is here:
http://hamcall.net/cgi-bin/usamap.pl
You can see pictures of him here:
http://www.jefflane.com/
and send him email via sundowner225@gmail.com and possibly W4KDH@arrl.net
If you get my meaning.
Radio Amateurs, HAMs, have played critical roles in almost every large disaster that has happened in this country.
Really? What role did Amateur Radio play in the Bush administration??
(We narrowly diverted another potential Amateur Radio disaster, you know. Barry Goldwater is to date the only licensed radio amateur to run for the Presidency.)
Someone you trust is one of us.
THere are just way too many naysayers here, and way too much money at stake here for there not to be a LOT of astroturfers here on this slashdot thread and on other forums on the Net.
I am no Broadcast Engineer, but I do know a little about this subject, having once worked as an Electronics Tech and having had an FCC General Radiotelephone license.
My take on this BPL situation is that it has a LOT of promise. Noise, interference, etc CAN be dealt with in the next couple of years by development of more sensitive and sophisticated recievers.
And most importantly, BPL may be our best hope of driving down prices for Broadband here in AMerica.
All other frequencies, bands, etc should be subordinated to the development of BPL, with the possible exception of some necessary military frequencies. This is just too important.
I really suspect that we are seeing some astroturfing going on here. If BPL does make it, then some HUGE corporations are going to lose megabucks, and that threat is probably driving this astroturfing campaign, if there is one....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Sorry Charlie. Your're wrong. Flat wrong.
Your attachment of importance to BPL over all HF circuits is, franky, ludicrous. For instance, how does an commercial aircraft coming in from overseas receive permission to enter US airspace? SSB (single side-band) HF radio. How does a small ship, like a sailboat call for help? HF SSB radio. I can keep on citing cases for the preservation of the HF spectum, but you would only accuse me of astroturfing for the cable and phone company.
I too have a FCC General Class license (earned as a First Radiotelephone back in 1973), I have an Extra Class Amateur Radio license, and I am also a senior engineer designing advanced 32 bit embedded systems. I deal with having to get designs through certification for Pt 15 A & B.
Here's the facts: BPL is a broad spectrum technology which uses an unbalanced transmission medium (power lines) that are not properly terminated, vary wildly in impedance, and are inherently noisy themselves. Just punch up AM on your car radio and drive around. You will hear noise nearly everytime you pass under a transmission line. That doesnt bode well for the BPL signal itself. Not to mention, how about all the licensed AM, HF, VHF Low band operators whose signals will be mixed in with the BPL signal.
IMHO, BPL is a nice lab curiosity, but is impractical. The transmission medium is poor, the S/N is horrible, and the complaints from interference both outgoing and incoming will kill it.
And, believe me, the military is not going to stand for a minute having their HF circuits jammed.
Oh, BTW, better receivers arent going to do anything for in-band interference. Add more sensitivity and you have louder noise.
Fiber to the curb is the answer. Light does not interfere, nor can be interfered with.
As far as the high price of broadband, remember that the phone company jumped on ADSL to save their frame switches from meltdown due to so many simultaneous dialup connections. The switches were designed to statistically handle the load, but never to guarantee that everyone on the switch could pick up their phones and dial. So, ADSL was the answer to both make them a lot of money, and save their mostly atequated equipment.
I suggest petitioning to get rid of the rediculous taxes and fees you see on your phone bill tacked onto your internet service.
Well, such hybrid powerlines won't help anyone when they get cut by a tree, ice, whatever. Just what the entire community needs is for the extra time required to resplice the optical fiber.
I just got done putting in about a hundred fiber terminiations. It takes about 3 minutes per end if you're being very careful. This is with gel, not the old-school heat method.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
First. we are getting BPL because the power companies are too cheap, or stupid to start installing power lines that contain fiber optic strands. These are non conductors so they can share space with the electric distribution system.
Many power companies do exactly this, to find outages quickly via the fiber optic data line. For a while that's what they were going to sell, extra capacity on the fiber, before someone got the idea to try to run it on the mains.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Heh... at least SOMEONE knows how to do a basic search...
;-)
Hrmmm... wonder if my pathetic site got slashdotted yet... prolly not, but what the hell
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
I am just thinking, future antenna farm, provided that XYL can be convinced that the large metal towers in the back yard are a necessity... :-)
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne