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Mixed Conclusions About Powerline Networking vs. Ham Radio
Barence writes "Since writing about the success he's had with powerline networking, a number of readers emailed PC Pro's Paul Ockendon to castigate him for recommending these products, such as HomePlug. They were all amateur radio enthusiasts, claiming the products affect their hobby in much the same way that urban lighting affects amateur astronomers, but rather than causing light pollution they claim powerline networking causes radio pollution in the HF band (otherwise known as shortwave). Paul's follow-up feature, 'Does powerline networking nuke radio hams?' documents his investigation into these claims, which found evidence to support both sides of an intriguing debate."
It's a volunteer emergency communications organisation.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
It's not a debate. Doing this turns those power lines into big antennas. You can't debate the laws of physics.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The other is within-home networking like Homeplug. ARRL dealt with early interference issues and has not reported any recent ones as far as I'm aware. But the very earliest models allowed us to hear your phone call on shortwave! Fortunately, people who owned those were found and warned, for the most part.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
It's an elitist hobby for techno-geeks
Funny, I feel the same way about World of Warcraft.
Props to the egghead who called me after Katrina with a message from my sister saying she was okay.
I totally support the HAM radio community, there must be some sort of work around so that both technologies can work without interfering with each other.
Yeah, there's no better alternatives to using powerline networking. It's not like you can buy CAT6 at Home Depot, or anything.
Unlike the buggy whip people, Ham operators have constantly come up with new stuff, like figuring out how to make shortwaves go across an ocean. Powerline networking, OTOH, is a cheap stopgap solution that's better done by laying dedicated cable or setting aside radio frequencies for the task.
Not a typewriter
I prefer my hams honey glazed and baked rather than microwaved anyway.
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you are shorter of breath and one day closer to death
As much as I hate responding to flame-bait, I just have to mention that HF is still used for many real-world purposes. Here in Australia, it is used to educate kids in the outback, as well as for public safety communications. There are many more reasons to keep using HF, I can't see it dying any time soon.
Anonymous Coward
"keeping the HF bands clear for low signal communication is a bit like keeping the rail tracks clear of fast express trains so that nostalgists can run steam trains over them."
The author's analogy belies the fatal flaw in his though process: HF communications may be older and slower than the internet, but the internet is highly unreliable and fails when communications are most critical. HF always works. HF is the ONLY completely reliable means of long-distance communication that humans have. To destroy mankind's sole means of completely reliable communication in favor of a system which fails when needed most is simply foolish. This isn't about amateur radio. It's merely incidental that most HF communications these days are by hams, and that hams handle disaster comms when the networks go down. These communications could be handled by any group of people, and the result would be the same: without a reliable HF infrastructure, humans screw themselves doubly when nature screws us.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
Power lines were never meant to carry RF energy. When they are, they radiate. Cable TV doesn't radiate. It doesn't radiate because it uses a proper transmission medium (Coax). If the power line folks want to distribute DATA, they should string the poles with fiber optic. Better yet, we the people should string it, and sell access to the content providers.. ala municipal fiber networks. They can work folks!
-=[ place
I doubt any EM leaked out of that house.
Except out the power lines that are good at radiating RF outside the house just like they are good at carrying RF inside the house. At least until they reach a transformer.
Wake up. BPL is a crappy technology. It guarantees improper radiation because the power lines aren't shielded at the physical layer. Kill BPL now and demand what we all want: Fiber Optic.
-=[ place
HAM radio. It's an obsolete elitist hobby for techno-geeks. Let it die.
/. ? Lots of HAM radio operators are here, they tend to have an excellent karma and lots of mod bullets in their magazine.
You dare to say this on
Frequency planning is an area you would need to study further before you could make sensible statements about it. Sorry, and good luck if you do decide to look into it.
Bruce Perens.
Here in Westchester, NY one of our local utilites tried a system in Briarcliff Manor, NY. It totally wiped out any HF reception within 3 tenths of a mile. Your normal background static was replaced by a 30/+9 digital hash. (For you non radio folks, and wi-fi does NOT count, that means the meter is pinned and you can't hear sh#&.) A broad rollout of BPL would mean that for the vast majority of radio amateurs, model railroading would be a better idea-sell you equipment to the illegal CB ops. The systems cannot coexist. I'd be very afraid of BPL when the sunspot numbers are high, as you'd then get interference from BPL somewhere in the world-making all of HF useless. While HF is not where your magik cell phone or Blackberry live, and it is not currently in style, does not mean that it is the toxic waste dump of the RF spectrum. Wi-Max, if the intere$ted partie$ involved could ever get their act together, would be a much better idea. BPL also wipes out CB, which is meaningless unless you are a trucker...or use anything trucks deliver.
Bullshit, the asshole down the street with the big fugly antenna that screwed up my TV every Sunday didn't give me the time of day, just ordered me off his property when I went to tell him to knock it off. He claimed that since he had a license for his toys and I didn't have a license for my TV he got to screw me up all he wanted. I paid good money for that TV, I should be able to use it whenever I want, not when some ass with an overpowered bug zapper decides he's had enough fun for the weekend. Anyway we wrote letters to the government but they just ignored them. This went on for months. Finally my brother suggested we take a pair of bolt cutters to his antenna wire and that solved things nicely. We cut all the wires going up his antenna tower every time he reconnected them until a storm blew the damn ugly thing into his garage and he never bothered putting it up again. Peace and television for everyone. Everyone on the street knew we did it and NOT ONE person cared to tell the police, even when he offered a reward. Nobody liked him or his damn radio.
You don't even know what is being talked about. "Homeplug" style LAN around your home via powerline. Unequivocally NOT Broadband over Power Line, internet access.
Funny, for those of us who are old, ham radio was the entry point into technology. Are you aware that there was a world before computers ? Indeed, my first real job had a realtime voice recognition system which could convert to text with few errors. You went to lunch and an hour later, when you returned (no calls during lunch..no cell phones) your letter was typed and ready for signature. We called it a secretary who could take shorthand. In this era, technology was made up of discrete components, instead of "all in one chips". Some of us wondered what those components did. We learned that they all had a job and you could easily figure it out. Better yet, people often tossed items full of these components away. We called those "dead TV's" and they were full of FREE components, which re-jiggered, would allow you to talk to Europe with a wire in the backyard. Back when the per minute cost of an international phone call was more than the hourly wage, this was big stuff. OK, today hams use four or five digital modes on HF, using little power and less bandwidth. Ham radios are smaller than a deck of cards. A 12 volt power source and small HF rig will fit in a small tool box, and can work the world on a 135 foot bit of wire. As much as I love technology, I was there on 9-11 and the entire cell net in lower manhattan just crashed. Period. The internet is tissue paper-and the current web of communications is not very hard or resilient. The old guy cranking 1500 watts in the basement with tubes is an old stereotype, and except for a few guys "keeping the AM flame alive" on 3885 mhz, gone. The knowledge you obtain hamming does translate to computers-take it apart, try to make it work, modify it. I wonder if the TFA author can discuss frequency hopping spread spectrum digital communicators....er, cell phones.
You have nothing to complain about. You allowed that to happen to you by not reporting it to the FCC. He could lose his license for whatever he was doing to cause that much interference. Your tactics were illegal. I would have installed surveillance and busted your ass for vandalism.
At any rate, I don't believe a word you're saying, because HAM operators value their licenses, and unless they're pretty dumb, they abide by the rules.
Health Freedom is almost as popular as Freedom itself.
If there's any question about HAM operators on the Internet, just check any of the wikipedia articles on radios. You'll easily find lots of (well cited from multiple sources per sentence) stories about how HAM operators invented modern electronics and have saved the world multiple times from disaster. In fact, you'll wonder how any country could get along without them!
I would make the arguement that homeplug intereference is a bad thing, not becuse of EMCOM, but because people should be able to enjoy a hobby without intereference from their neighbor.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Like it or not, the "asshole with the fugly antenna" had it right.
If you look in the manual that came with your TV, you will see a little bit of small print talking about "FCC part 15 regulations". These essentially say that your TV cannot unintentionally radiate a signal that will disrupt any licensed radio service, and, more importantly, that your TV viewing IS NOT PROTECTED against interference by licensed radio services, as long as said stations are operating within their legal requirements (power output, spectral purity, etc.).
In short, you don't have a license to watch TV, but the ham DOES have a license to transmit up to 1500W of RF on various frequencies, whether it screws up your TV or not. If you don't like this, you are free to buy a better quality TV receiver, that incorporates all those "frivolous" features like proper shielding and filtering, that usually get "value engineered" out in order to sell the set for fewer bucks at WalMart.
A good summary of FCC Part 15 available here:
http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/part15.html
BTW, you could be subject to FEDERAL charges for damaging a federally licensed radio transmitting station, , if your "asshole" neighbor wanted to press things. Generally, hams are more than willing to work with their neighbors to resolve interference issues (even if not legally required to), but when said complaints become abusive or threatening, we are fully within our rights to tell you to take your cheap Chinese TV set and stick it where the sun don't shine. And the FCC will back us up, every time.
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It is appalling to see the dishonest arguments used by the proponents of BPL.
Sure Hams would be affected, but what about the hundreds of other essential services which cram into the H.F. bands?
Everything from Military, to Ambulance, Fire, Police, Aircraft, Marine, etc. rely on H.F. for reliable remote communications.
Ham Radio is an easy target ("just a bunch of nerds, who needs them?"), but whenever the spin is limited to Ham Radio, you know you are listening to a bunch of lying scumbags.
As a professional Communications Engineer, I can tell you that we must kill BPL!
Did you mean incandescent?
Indecision is the key to flexibility.
Unless we are talking about some sort of RS-232C converter that transmits over a house's power lines, it is broadband. And it is being carried over power lines. Equivocally.
Had you posted this on a more proper forum (say freerepublic), you would have been moderated "+5 insightful" for telling the "truth". It is a scary world when instead of people laughing at what you wrote, they say "right on" or "preach it brother!". And trust me, they exist. I've meet people in real life who if you spoke this with the right tone would have taken you 100% serious.
Scary scary world. No wonder Obama keeps hiding the documents proving the "Moon Landing" was a hoax because 1) the "moon" is really just a window into heaven 2) the world is flat and 3) anybody who disagrees doesn't live in Real America (tm).
There are other services in the HF band between 1.8 MHz and 50 MHz than just Ham operators and shortwave radio stations.
The spectrum is also used for aviation, particularly when commercial aircraft are over the ocean and out of line-of-sight to a shore station. Most ships at sea use HF radio for communications from ship to ship and for ship to shore communications. The military still uses HF communications for a great many systems, including the broadcast of EAM (emergency action messages).
Someone will say "so what, they are way up in the air or in the middle of the ocean" but they fail to realize that the shore based stations are subject to interference while trying to receive signals from aircraft and ships.
There are still radio navigation systems that operate in the HF bands, weather bouys in the ocean sending back data by HF and many other overlooked systems of lesser renown.
Having spent a significant amount of my professional life hunting down interference sources to communications systems I can say it is NOT a good idea to put a thousand low powerline network extenders across a city. There WILL be harmonic interference, intermodulation and an overall decrease in performance. Look at how badly screwed up the 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth and ZigBee are? The 2.4 and 5.8 GHz devices at least have the decency of being line-of-sight and range is limited by buildings. As soon as you attach something to the wiring system of your home you create something that is impossible to manage (resolving interference issues).
Give this one to the Hams and to those of us who still own and use shortwave radios.
Tisha Hayes
You are aware that this will radiate out on to the power line, right? Your AC power line is not a one way wire, and you will be pushing signal out. In fact, I'll wager this crap doesn't even have encryption like WiFi does, so if you're using it, a sufficiently skilled guy could easily intercept your data.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You sound like an uneducated asshole. Then again, so does the radio operator, but you sound worse. Good job.
Most literature I had said mentioned it not really leaking out past your main circuit breaker that even communication inside the house between different circuits could be flaky. Maybe that was first generation...
Truth. Not only that but there are people still coming into this. I'm working towards my amateur here in Canada, and I'll be glad to get it. For those of us who live in the middle of no where, this stuff is our only lifeline when everything else fails(see ice storms, blizzards, and other natural disasters like floods).
Om, nomnomnom...
Funny, WoW is about as far away from elitist as a computer game can get - it's one of the things people QQ about, pandering to the casuals.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
Ham's are pretty much self policing. The people that you get the most problem from are CB operators who have poorly tuned boosters.
I totally agree 1000%. I recall one person who lived across the street from me had a CB in his house. We could always tell when he talked on the radio because our toaster would start talking. We never had problems with hams, who also lived near us, though.
Back then I wanted to get my license but I had trouble with Morse Code.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
it is truly frightening that the FCC has no one at a high level, or anyone listened to at high levels, who has ANY knowledge of how RF signals behave.
No, what's truly frightening is that the FCC exists. It was created for large broadcasting businesses.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
By law, the max you have to pay for the test to get a license is about $10, but it's supposed to be limited to cost of materials for the VEs, so it should be far less than that under normal circumstances.
Beyond that, you can get on HF with a radio you designed yourself to fit in a sardine tin, and work the world using morse code. As long as it doesn't give off out-of-band emissions, you can build it out of things you find after gently applying a hammer to a cheap drugstore radio.
You can also get plans or pre-built radios for a range of prices from $5 to $5k (and up, I suppose, but you're going to be hard pressed to get much additional value for the dollars over $5k.)
With a UHF handie and a hand-held yagi (total cost new well under $1k), you can talk to people using satellite repeaters. Add in a modem and you can download and share files (which might be images the satellite itself recorded).
For such a low price, and no real requirement of understanding (beyond knowing just enough to avoid violating regulations put in place for safety and interference reasons), I hardly think amateur radio can be considered an elitist hobby. The whole point is to chit chat with new and interesting people from as many places near and far as possible.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Are there any rigorous studies demonstrating that power line networking doesn't create radio interference to other devices?
Years ago, I was part of a team that created a software package that calculated the potential for interference from commercial FM transmitters to aircraft navigation signals, primarily the ILS. This came about because one of my coworkers was collecting data during a flight and noticed some odd interference. A subsequent flight was made with an ILS receiver with some taps made at certain points in the circuitry and they were able to record a portion of a broadcast from a radio station in Ohio that someone in the plane recognized. It surprised the hell out of a lot of people. (The sick joke around the lab was that it might be handy to pick up the Indians game while in the plane; if they won you could at least die happy). And the software package pissed off a lot of folks with a lot of money that wanted to erect transmitters wherever they damn well pleased who found out that the land they'd purchased couldn't be used for a tower. Or at least they wouldn't be allowed to broadcast at the power that they wanted. (Less power and the signal reaches fewer listeners and you can't charge as much for ads. Hence their anger.) Their thinking was that the two spectrums didn't overlap so what trouble could possibly occur?
Personally, I'd much rather see power line networking die a quiet death if there's a chance, however remote, of it causing an aircraft to auger in because it interfered with the landing system. (I'm of a similar mind of the bozos who think they need to be on their cell phones and laptops while the aircraft is on final approach. Having to squeeze that much work into a flight brings new meaning to the word "deadline".)
http://www.google.com/search?q=ARRL+powerline
Problem was our FCC was giving the noisy interfering tech a free pass until the ARRL took them to court and won.
Other companies with different approaches were and are acceptable to hams.
Compact flourescent lighting is much more damaging to ham radio transmissions. Those eco-friendly tubes are poorly shielded and generate tremendous amounts of radio frequency interference in the form of electromagnetic radiation. Ask any ham - they will tell you that this is a much bigger problem than powerline networking.
Ask Me About... The 80's!
Minor nitpick: just tested for my ticket last week, and they were charging $15, so I think your $10 figure is old. But I fully agree on the non-elitism; you can't usually get a netbook for less than $200, and anyone can get a license (even at $15 for the VEs) and a 2m or 440 HT for $85, and get started for less than half that.
My motto is: "Ham radio: No infrastructure required."
73 de w7com
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Fiber Optic.
While I'd like fiber to the home, if not inside it, I'd prefer mobile wireless broadband with a range of at least a couple hundred miles. Without interefence.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
elitist hobby for techno-geeks? This comment alone is one of the reason that the world is the way it is today. People are ignorant of what they don't know or understand. Maybe you don't care about ham radio. Maybe or thing is prostitutes... personally who cares about prostitutes? If you have a personality that can attract a real woman to have real relationship with, then you don't need prostitutes. A second point, ham radio has and will be as long as it is around, a stating point for many that grow up (unlike the poster) to become such things as engineers... For those people that are ignorant (like the poster) engineers design things that you might use. Ham radio is not only used for a hobby and for enjoyment, but also as emergency backup communications for many facilities, include hospitals. As an emergency coordinator i have seen/been involved first hand in these situations. Just because you (said poster again) don't like or understand something doesn't mean its useless. Ignorance is one or the sadist things i know of, right next to the words "I don't know how, do it for me!" 73, N3NQ
I am a ham radio operator and I can tell you first hand that it creates a vast amount of noise. Sure it's super annoying but what worries me more is that HF frequencies used by the various coast guard organizations and by trans-oceanic flights are also affected. That scares the crap out of me.
I've never really paid much attention to the TV manual. However, don't you need a license to broadcast television signals? Wouldn't the interference be disrupting a licensed signal? While part 15 might cover any RF that comes out of the TV, I'm fairly sure it doesn't cover what comes out of the television station.
Request a Linux Shockwave player here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/
I doubt any EM leaked out of that house.
Except out the power lines that are good at radiating RF outside the house just like they are good at carrying RF inside the house. At least until they reach a transformer.
You mean like the one in the meter at the perimeter of the house? My understanding is that the meter blocks the RF. I can understand the hating against long-distance BPL, but the little home devices are -very- convenient.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I'll wager this crap doesn't even have encryption like WiFi does, so if you're using it, a sufficiently skilled guy could easily intercept your data.
The ones I have used (Devolo) do have encryption, and the RF is blocked at the meter. I would wager that the RF leakage of one of these units is no worse than WiFi.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
It's not just Ham/CB radio it affects. It also affects baby monitors and, for the Slashdot crowd, wireless mice and keyboard sets.
I have a long story but basically, someone who lived 100 yards away from me had a BT Vision PVR box. These come supplied with Comtrend PLT adapters. They wiped out pretty much everything I used, giving a constant +7 - +9dB of rapid pulse noise to my TRx, thus rendering it useless except for local contacts which, when you live in a town of 11,000 people, isn't a lot.
Basically, I reported it to Ofcom. They sent out a field engineer who confirmed the source and then forced the installer, BT, to remove and replace them. This has happened two weeks ago. Only problem is there's another in the opposite direction that's started recently but at the moment, it's low level so I'm letting it be until it gets worse.
They are a big problem in the UK. Ofcom has set up a dedicated investigation team because of the level of complaints. BT has spent so much time and money replacing them, as a result of being ordered to by Ofcom because of a complaint, that they're trialling a Wifi version of the BT Vision boxes.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
You mean like the one in the meter at the perimeter of the house? My understanding is that the meter blocks the RF. I can understand the hating against long-distance BPL, but the little home devices are -very- convenient.
Thankyou for demonstrating you know fuck all about RF. Yes, it stops at the meter but that means that it doesn't use the mains wiring in the street as an antenna. It still uses the ring mains in your house, moron.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Bravo to this. I am becoming more disenchanted with modern technology that allows participation merely through "buy in." Even tho I'm not a ham I've always had copies of ham techie books because they are great references. (And since I'm getting more concerned that crumbling infrastructure and a failing economy is on the horizon I'm planning on getting my license this year!)
Ham radio was the entry point to technology for me too, but I am probably younger than you (I am 47), and I soon realized that, after a few years with ham radio, there was nothing new to learn.
Radio amateurs here in my city were too interested into buying technology, rather than learning about it, so it was time to say goodbye. My job offered me much more opportunities to learn about new technologies (and, most important, to have an active part in them), and so I sold all my ham radio equipment.
Sometimes I think if I should go back to ham radio when I retire, but I always answer to myself a big "NO": things like digital photography and internet are cheaper, technologically more challenging, and much more socially shareable with other people than ham radio, so my choice is done.
I do not back up the idea of dropping ham radio for BPL, but I believe that the importance of this hobby as a way of self-learning should be quite reconsidered. Just my 0.02 USD...
Thankyou for demonstrating you know fuck all about RF. Yes, it stops at the meter but that means that it doesn't use the mains wiring in the street as an antenna. It still uses the ring mains in your house, moron.
My point wasn't that it isn't radiating, my point was that the "oh noes, some wise guy is going to read your email" BS was wrong. Your neighbor isn't going to be able to plug in one of these devices and sniff your traffic, because it is encrypted -and- blocked at the meter.
But now that you bring it up, it isn't like BPL broadcasting at high power over a large area, it is low-power RF broadcasting over a limited area. Like, you know, WiFi...
What's with the "moron" shit, BTW? I didn't attack you, I just disagreed with you. Your response shows a lack of civility and, might I add, a lack of maturity. Argue the facts, but don't call me names.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Whoops, had my posts mixed up, the reference to encryption is in a later thread. But I would still wager that these little devices are no worse than the average wifi...
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
It's a real pity that they even had to do this. The FCC regulations require (or at least used to) that anyone causing interference had to modify their equipment to eliminate the interference. It shouldn't have taken a court order to get the FCC to enforce their own regulations. (Just a wild guess, mind you: the incident occurred during the Bush administration, right?)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Fuck you dipshit.
Troll, flamebait, unnecessarily abusive: Call it what you will, but how I see it a post has to be much more insightful and original to get away with an opening line like that.
I am sorry to hear that in your city they were not as interested in learning about the technologies in so much as buying it.
I am 21, so I am much younger than you, I got into HAM radio because of a project (http://nearspace.0x58.com) I did at school, having a license helped communicate between the teams while on the ground looking for the device, and helped us keep track of the APRS as it was being sent from the balloon.
HAM radio has been really interesting, I have met really great people at various different companies, and recently a hacker space (http://heatsynclabs.org/) has been starting up in Phoenix and there were quite a few HAM radio people there! You just need to find the group that is still willing to learn and find new innovative projects to work on.
cat
OR:
As a ham radio operator (17 years), an ARRL Emergency Coordinator (8 years) and a liason to State and County emergency management departments for 12 years, you will be glad we're here when the rest is down
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:32(King James Version)
Yes and No. Some of the 'home network over power line' systems do have the ability to encrypt data between trancievers. of course it isnt enabled by default.
This Belkin product page shows the encryption ability.
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=495008
(i dont buy their stuff, it was just the first one i found that DID support encryption)
license, so that a EE can pass with flying colors without studying.
Do they still require the person to be able to build their own transceiver? Or is it just a bunch of regulations entry level licenses require? If it's just regulations I wonder why they even bother. I'd need to review or study but I want to relearn, because of an accident my memory was damaged, how to build radios. I picked up an electronics learning lab for this, unfortunately all I could find was a digital lab, I didn't see any analogue labs. However I only went to local shops, if I look online such as at Jameco I probably would find analogue labs, but I'd rather be able to return it locally if it doesn't work. I used to like going to Skycraft in Orlando, FL, but I moved away and don't know of any places like it locally.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
> You just need to find the group that is still willing to learn and find new innovative projects to work on.
Before quitting ham radio years ago I was developing by myself an innovative DSP device for radio work (it was a high performance RTX IF strip, partly hardware and partly software). It was something very different from what you see around now, since I used some methods that at that time were probably unknown to the ham radio community (although some work was being done about radio and DSP, but my approach was different). It suffices to say that some of the algorithms I developed at that time have been "rediscovered" by a major chip vendor last year: so I guess that what I was designing qualified as innovative.
My plans was to give around the plans for building it, as well as the executables: after all I was designing it for fun, and I hoped that somebody else could have fun playing with it and learning how it worked. Well, when the rumours about what I was developing started spreading around, I started receiving endless requests for a kit, possibly with all solder work done in advance (and no, I wasn't using SMD technology, so it was quite viable to everybody). Some Linux zaelots had nothing better to do that to scream that everything I did had to be put in the public domain (needless to say, they gave nil contribution to my work), and two people who were asked to do some beta-testing never had the time (or interest ?!?) to do it. I soon realized that nobody at all showed interest into learning what there was "under the hood", so I decided that it was better to give up. All I wanted was simply to have around people interested into learning and experimenting, (hoping as well to learn something from them and from their questions): for sure I did not want to start a Heathkit-like company.
Part of what I designed ended its life into an application for my employer: this gave me in return plenty of appreciation, a small career advancement, and no complaints at all. Then I started thinking about the meaning of "hobby"...and I quitted!
No morse code required for any level of licensing anymore
Yea, I heard about that.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Do you know Morse code?
Making sure enough people are trained in Morse is important because it can be used almost anywhere, not just the HF band.
Morse code isn't even needed for a license anymore. At least not in the US. So I doubt many new Hams learn it.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
If the ham station is putting out an interfering signal (spurious emission) ON THE TV STATION'S FREQUENCY, you would be correct. But the vast majority of TV interference complaints involve TV sets that cannot handle strong signals OUTSIDE the TV frequency assignmants. This type of interference is termed "fundamental overload", and is caused by a receiver which cannot sufficiently reject unwanted signals. In these cases, the ham station has no legal requirement to curtail their operations, to compensate for a design deficiency in your TV set.
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See, the FCC doesn't really _want_ people using amateur radios. They love taking licenses and equipment away. It's like the DEA's obsession with marijuana.
Uh, then why does the FCC continue issuing/renewing ham radio licenses? And how many license suspensions and equipment seizures have actually involved licensed hams (as opposed to outlaw CBers, pirate broadcasters, etc.)?
Or are you telling me that the DEA will issue me a license to smoke pot?
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I use one of those powerline Ethernet bridges and I decided to get out my old SW radio to see if I was generating any interference. Well, all I get when I set my radio to SW is a buzzsaw sound on all bands, whether or not my powerline adapter is connected. So, is it safe to assume that someone else in my condominium unit is also using powerline Ethernet?
That figures, as the reason I started to use powerline Ethernet in the first place was that WiFi interference around here was so bad it was virtually unusable.
It's not just HomePlug devices that cause interference with shortwave and similar styles of radio communication, it's just about any household electronics these days. Here's my anecdote.
My dad recently gave me an rather old battery-powered shortwave receiver. We tested it out at his place and it still worked great. When I brought it home, I couldn't use it. In my upstairs office, in the middle of the night, I couldn't pick up a single station. Not even a high-powered religious broadcast or timekeeping station. Instead, all I heard across the entire band was harsh-sounding static with extremely short bleeps and blips thrown in. I started turning things off to see if that would help, and it did. Massively. The biggest offenders were the CFL bulb lighting the room, my desktop computer, and a few switching power supplies, in that order.
So in my home, the only way to listen to shortwave radio is to go upstairs and sit in the dark with almost everything in the house unplugged. Which of course means I can't look up, document, or record any stations that I come across. Unless I go retro and use a candle, notebook, and battery-powered tape recorder. An outdoor antenna is impossible since I live in the city and a rooftop antenna probably wouldn't be far enough away from the interference.
Kinda sucks since I'm a softy for old tech.
I am not saying ham radio is needed just because I am a licensed operator, but because every time a disaster or communications failure occurs, ham radio is most often the only people that can communicate for emergenency services/coordination and the general public to pass traffic (such as wellness) and other important information. Even just to let a family member know another member or group are ok (or vice versa). Remember the cable cuts in California ealier this year? Disabled a lot of communications, even emergency services groups (police, 911, etc). ARES (amateur radio emergency servicess) was called out in full effect to provide comm for the entire length of the comm outage.