Argue, flame, and goof on Creationists all you want, no one knows if a higher being (i.e. God) didn't setup the dominos that made evolution possible, if it did occur. If someone has a math formula to prove He didn't, I'm all ears.
Not to pan amateur radio (I wish I had my license) but why the excitement about hearing a signal from a couple hundred miles away? If that guy in Key West had a chat with another amateur in, say, Pensacola, that would be routine.
It's not all about distance in Amateur Radio. In this instance you're talking with a box in space and that's exciting for many. I have a commercial $2K HF radio, but I get more kicks out of operating a $300 kit radio and little flea-powered circuits I design and build.
The supposed "showdown" on Jay Leno was a highly unscientific and inaccurate test which pitted the world's fasted morse coder using very expensive morse equipment against a teenager using a cheap cell phone with a membrane keypad.
World's fastest morse coder? He was going about 28 WPM. The morse code team mentioned afterwards that they could have gone faster. There's many coders that can go over 40 WPM and legendary morse code senders can send and recieve 50 to 60 WPM. If anything, these were typical proficient morse operators.
Also, regarding your expensive equipment comment, they could have won this with a two $25 kit radios that you can purchase on the web, with a typical $100 morse code paddle (the input device). They happened to be using radios that were about $900 each. This is the beauty of morse code and Amateur Radio -- the expense of your equipment doesn't necessarily determine how well or fast you can communicate.
My "public interest" would be nicely served by actually being able to get broadband. And I have power lines.
You're also just as likely to have copper pairs to your home right now. Why don't you have DSL? The BPL business model is much more difficult to accomplish than DSL and the technical limitations with BPL are harder to overcome than DSL's. You're not going to get BPL anytime soon.
Former FCC Chairman Powell was led to believe BPL could be everywhere because everyone has powerlines. This is just not the case.
Most people also have a need for cheap disposal of their garbage, more so than a need to visit a national park. While more people need refuse services, the public interest would not be served by converting Yosemite National Park into a landfill. BPL does just than to wireless HF radio spectrum.
According to the section chief of the Ohio ARRL, problems are minimal.
(at the bottom of the article:) "Joe Phillips of Fairfield, the Ohio section chief for the American Radio Relay League, says that so far the Cinergy roll-out hasn't created the radio interference many ham radio operators had feared."
It's been rumored that the Cincinnati system is using only frequencies above 30 Mhz. This would preclude interference to most ham radio operators, however could interfere with other services. One system operating without interference doesn't mean the technology can always be made to work interference-free.
Why don't all BPL systems use spectrum above 30 Mhz? Good question. It's more difficult to get this spectrum to work in a BPL system. Another vendor, Amperion, can use spectrum above 30 Mhz but a recent report from Ofcom (The UK FCC equivalent) found emissions from an Amperion system above 30 Mhz that would violate even the liberal FCC emissions rules.
These BPL vendors could make a lot of their inteference problems go away if they stayed above 30 Mhz. Whether the systems would be Part 15 compliant, cost effective, and be able to provide enough bandwidth in this configuration is another story.
How is it not rooted in faith? A faith that isn't necessarily based on a literal interpretation of the Bible can support Intelligent Design. God's seven days may have been seven million years (arguably there wasn't the concept of an Earth day in the beginning). The Bible doesn't explain why there's dinosaur bones or how my car was assembled, but that doesn't mean God didn't architect what led to it. Evolution may piece together the puzzle, but it doesn't necessary tell you who made the puzzle in the first place.
If there was a faith with a significant following that believed in pink unicorns in the context of the origin of life, sure, teach that it exists and here's what they believe. If it's merely a group of people that believe pink unicorns with no context within the discussion of the origin of life, no.
I won't deny that religous zealots exist and attempt to censor venues and media they shouldn't. My position is that anyone claiming Creationism is silly or shouldn't be taught due to evolution is closed minded and not looking at the big pciture. Faith and evolution can coexist. Faith provides the path for something more than Evolution can support or explain.
"Which pink unicorns you worship is your business. When you try to force those unicorns onto others, it becomes a problem."
I'll ignore your insult, but address your underlying point. You're confusing religion with Creationism. Teaching that Creationism exists and is one theory or belief isn't necessarily forcing religion on others. Forcing prayer on others, not teaching Creationsim, would be "forcing unicorns onto others" as you say.
No one forces you to go to Sunday School, but going to public school to get an education is pretty much a legal requirement and a necessity for most people. To shut out Creationism in favor of only teaching evolution is short changing students.
"Most creationists (and you appear to one of them) are hellbent on 'disproving' evolution and 'proving' 'Intelligent Design' (newspeak for Creation) using nothing more than the bible (itself a text of debatable origin)."
From my vantage point it appears that evolutionists are often hellbent on wrecking people's faith. Regardless of the origins of the Bible, there's nothing that can prove or disprove that God wasn't the architect of life and the mechanism that unfolded fits into the framework of evolution. Those who are content with the notion that they are worm food at the end of life can stick to evolution, I'll place my bet on Intelligent Design with a sprinkling of evolution:-)
Except BPL isn't wireless and will go down when the power infrastructure goes.
I remember trying to get information from the Internet the morning of 9/11 while I was at work. Nearly every major news outlet web server pissed all over itself due to the traffic. I ended up using an AM radio I had stashed in my desk and got everything I needed to know. Legacy technology means that it works.
Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs
on
Field Day 2004
·
· Score: 1
BSD is dying as well:-)
Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs
on
Field Day 2004
·
· Score: 1
Try out QRP and building equipment (homebrewing) and you'll find out the service is alive and well. I'm president of a small local club; we just got two new members this month. One is 14.:-)
The interfering Iowa system is using Amperion BPL equipment. This uses HF BPL on the lines for a backbone, and then WiFi (802.11) for the "last hundred feet" from the pole to the home.
Destroying a large portion of wireless spectrum is not justifiable because it benefits more people. There are many examples of this in society where reallocation of a resource would benefit more people, but it would be detrimental long term to the people and the resource itself. Right now, amateur frequency allocations belong to the people internationally. You can enjoy them by simply passing a test and getting licensed. Once they are given to a business interest, they cease to be yours and you can only use them as a customer of that business. BPL impacts other groups including government, military, shortwave, aviation, maritime communications, and CBers, so this would have national security and international implications as well. BPL has been linked in some rhetoric with increasing "homeland security". BPL in fact takes spectrum away from government agencies directly tasked with protecting the country. So in summary, allowing BPL will ultimately benefit a few utility companies, not the people.
Users of the affected spectrum cannot be relocated, or at least not economically or in a timely manner, so this is not an option either. It would be cheaper for the government to subsidize cable and DSL deployment. Plus, all of the services that use HF bands require the characteristics that only HF bands exhibit. There would also be huge international treaty implications with any relocation. Changes in international communications treaties are measured in decades, not months or even years. Relocating government and military services alone would take years as the FCC would have to structure a migration plan. Chances are it would be ten years before this could be completed and it's likely that power companies will have run fiber to the home or DSL and cable will finally be ubiquitous. Perhaps the largest issue to tackle, though, is where to move these services in what is an already overcrowded spectrum.
If it was determined that relocation was the way to go, this would be very irresponsible as HF radio bands are a unique natural resource. No other radio spectrum can provide worldwide communications without any supporting infrastructure (i.e. satellites).
The FCC has indeed "followed the money" with this NPRM, that's for sure. They ignored computer models, field measurements, and around 5000 comments filed against BPL, and took the claims of one BPL equipment vendor, hook, line and sinker.
Some people in previous/. stories on this topic pointed out that the receiving end might still have power. Sorry, but no, that doesn't cut it... Unless we have a disaster on a scale of hundreds of miles in diameter, no one will go running off to find a ham to get help, they'd just use their cell phone, or failing that, drive to the next town. And, assuming help exists, a disaster of that scale would send FEMA scurrying anyway, so no need to bother making contact.
Most of the traffic carried on Amateur Radio after a disaster is simple "I'm OK" messages to families outside of the area. While these messages may seem insignificant to you, they mean a lot to the people receiving them. Ham Radio may not save the world, but it still serves a purpose and always will.
Cellular networks fall on their ass these days during a disaster as they depend heavily on telco landline facilties. People have gotten a false sense of security. Network reliablity and survivablity has gone out the window with cellular networks, in favor of shiny phones and stupid features.
And by the way, FEMA uses HF frequencies as well. They could potentially experience interference just like Amateur Radio. Do some research.
Just like with the mass media ownership rule changes in which the FCC ignored the facts and the public, clueless Powell did the same with BPL.
The FCC cited adaptive technolgies as being able to mitigate interference. The truth is, adaptive technologies can't protect receive only stations because they don't transmit and can't assert their need for a clear frequency. It's likely that adaptive technologies will also be unable to recognize lower powered transmit stations.
It's rather ironic the FCC met with a BPL equipment vendor in late January to discuss adaptive technology.
One of the Commisioners stated that interference concerns were unproven. There has been models proving the interference potential and field measurements showing interference filed with the FCC. There's been no proof that adaptive technologies in BPL will mitigate interference.
So the FCC doesn't stop BPL due to proven interference issues, and justifies continued deployment on a technology that hasn't been proven to work in the field or using common sense engineering. They essentially ignored 5000 comments filed against BPL and showcased unproven "interference mitigation" technology hyped by an equipment vendor.
It's time that the boobs at the FCC are exposed, not at the Superbowl.
Slashdot Mirror
Argue, flame, and goof on Creationists all you want, no one knows if a higher being (i.e. God) didn't setup the dominos that made evolution possible, if it did occur. If someone has a math formula to prove He didn't, I'm all ears.
Not to pan amateur radio (I wish I had my license) but why the excitement about hearing a signal from a couple hundred miles away? If that guy in Key West had a chat with another amateur in, say, Pensacola, that would be routine.
It's not all about distance in Amateur Radio. In this instance you're talking with a box in space and that's exciting for many. I have a commercial $2K HF radio, but I get more kicks out of operating a $300 kit radio and little flea-powered circuits I design and build.
What is the point of amateur radio when the Internet has connected most of the globe?
:-)
What is the point of Linux, when Windows does everything anyone would want and you don't have to compile a kernel or use a command line?
The supposed "showdown" on Jay Leno was a highly unscientific and inaccurate test which pitted the world's fasted morse coder using very expensive morse equipment against a teenager using a cheap cell phone with a membrane keypad.
World's fastest morse coder? He was going about 28 WPM. The morse code team mentioned afterwards that they could have gone faster. There's many coders that can go over 40 WPM and legendary morse code senders can send and recieve 50 to 60 WPM. If anything, these were typical proficient morse operators. Also, regarding your expensive equipment comment, they could have won this with a two $25 kit radios that you can purchase on the web, with a typical $100 morse code paddle (the input device). They happened to be using radios that were about $900 each. This is the beauty of morse code and Amateur Radio -- the expense of your equipment doesn't necessarily determine how well or fast you can communicate.
...wait five minutes and Fedora Core 5 will be out.
My "public interest" would be nicely served by actually being able to get broadband. And I have power lines.
You're also just as likely to have copper pairs to your home right now. Why don't you have DSL? The BPL business model is much more difficult to accomplish than DSL and the technical limitations with BPL are harder to overcome than DSL's. You're not going to get BPL anytime soon.
Former FCC Chairman Powell was led to believe BPL could be everywhere because everyone has powerlines. This is just not the case.
Most people also have a need for cheap disposal of their garbage, more so than a need to visit a national park. While more people need refuse services, the public interest would not be served by converting Yosemite National Park into a landfill. BPL does just than to wireless HF radio spectrum.
According to the section chief of the Ohio ARRL, problems are minimal. (at the bottom of the article:) "Joe Phillips of Fairfield, the Ohio section chief for the American Radio Relay League, says that so far the Cinergy roll-out hasn't created the radio interference many ham radio operators had feared."
It's been rumored that the Cincinnati system is using only frequencies above 30 Mhz. This would preclude interference to most ham radio operators, however could interfere with other services. One system operating without interference doesn't mean the technology can always be made to work interference-free.
Why don't all BPL systems use spectrum above 30 Mhz? Good question. It's more difficult to get this spectrum to work in a BPL system. Another vendor, Amperion, can use spectrum above 30 Mhz but a recent report from Ofcom (The UK FCC equivalent) found emissions from an Amperion system above 30 Mhz that would violate even the liberal FCC emissions rules.
These BPL vendors could make a lot of their inteference problems go away if they stayed above 30 Mhz. Whether the systems would be Part 15 compliant, cost effective, and be able to provide enough bandwidth in this configuration is another story.
BPL FAQ for those wanting a primer on the technology, the issues, and the locations where it's operating.
Of course in most place in the world you'd be allowed to have sex if you were 15
And in several of those places it would probably be legal for the father to string the guy up by his nads.
How is it not rooted in faith? A faith that isn't necessarily based on a literal interpretation of the Bible can support Intelligent Design. God's seven days may have been seven million years (arguably there wasn't the concept of an Earth day in the beginning). The Bible doesn't explain why there's dinosaur bones or how my car was assembled, but that doesn't mean God didn't architect what led to it. Evolution may piece together the puzzle, but it doesn't necessary tell you who made the puzzle in the first place.
If there was a faith with a significant following that believed in pink unicorns in the context of the origin of life, sure, teach that it exists and here's what they believe. If it's merely a group of people that believe pink unicorns with no context within the discussion of the origin of life, no.
I won't deny that religous zealots exist and attempt to censor venues and media they shouldn't. My position is that anyone claiming Creationism is silly or shouldn't be taught due to evolution is closed minded and not looking at the big pciture. Faith and evolution can coexist. Faith provides the path for something more than Evolution can support or explain.
"Which pink unicorns you worship is your business. When you try to force those unicorns onto others, it becomes a problem."
I'll ignore your insult, but address your underlying point. You're confusing religion with Creationism. Teaching that Creationism exists and is one theory or belief isn't necessarily forcing religion on others. Forcing prayer on others, not teaching Creationsim, would be "forcing unicorns onto others" as you say. No one forces you to go to Sunday School, but going to public school to get an education is pretty much a legal requirement and a necessity for most people. To shut out Creationism in favor of only teaching evolution is short changing students.
"Most creationists (and you appear to one of them) are hellbent on 'disproving' evolution and 'proving' 'Intelligent Design' (newspeak for Creation) using nothing more than the bible (itself a text of debatable origin)."
:-)
From my vantage point it appears that evolutionists are often hellbent on wrecking people's faith. Regardless of the origins of the Bible, there's nothing that can prove or disprove that God wasn't the architect of life and the mechanism that unfolded fits into the framework of evolution. Those who are content with the notion that they are worm food at the end of life can stick to evolution, I'll place my bet on Intelligent Design with a sprinkling of evolution
Except BPL isn't wireless and will go down when the power infrastructure goes.
I remember trying to get information from the Internet the morning of 9/11 while I was at work. Nearly every major news outlet web server pissed all over itself due to the traffic. I ended up using an AM radio I had stashed in my desk and got everything I needed to know. Legacy technology means that it works.
BSD is dying as well :-)
Try out QRP and building equipment (homebrewing) and you'll find out the service is alive and well. I'm president of a small local club; we just got two new members this month. One is 14. :-)
For more information on the problems with BPL than you'd ever want, read the NTIA Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Comments and the Phase One Study.
The interfering Iowa system is using Amperion BPL equipment. This uses HF BPL on the lines for a backbone, and then WiFi (802.11) for the "last hundred feet" from the pole to the home.
I dunno if you can find a HAM ISP though.
Hams (not HAM) cannot be WISPs as Amateur Radio is a non-comercial service.
Is bloated, closed source, evil empire produced Word a good or bad thing ?
Isn't Mandrake the name of a human duck superhero creature ?
Destroying a large portion of wireless spectrum is not justifiable because it benefits more people. There are many examples of this in society where reallocation of a resource would benefit more people, but it would be detrimental long term to the people and the resource itself. Right now, amateur frequency allocations belong to the people internationally. You can enjoy them by simply passing a test and getting licensed. Once they are given to a business interest, they cease to be yours and you can only use them as a customer of that business. BPL impacts other groups including government, military, shortwave, aviation, maritime communications, and CBers, so this would have national security and international implications as well. BPL has been linked in some rhetoric with increasing "homeland security". BPL in fact takes spectrum away from government agencies directly tasked with protecting the country. So in summary, allowing BPL will ultimately benefit a few utility companies, not the people.
Users of the affected spectrum cannot be relocated, or at least not economically or in a timely manner, so this is not an option either. It would be cheaper for the government to subsidize cable and DSL deployment. Plus, all of the services that use HF bands require the characteristics that only HF bands exhibit. There would also be huge international treaty implications with any relocation. Changes in international communications treaties are measured in decades, not months or even years. Relocating government and military services alone would take years as the FCC would have to structure a migration plan. Chances are it would be ten years before this could be completed and it's likely that power companies will have run fiber to the home or DSL and cable will finally be ubiquitous. Perhaps the largest issue to tackle, though, is where to move these services in what is an already overcrowded spectrum.
If it was determined that relocation was the way to go, this would be very irresponsible as HF radio bands are a unique natural resource. No other radio spectrum can provide worldwide communications without any supporting infrastructure (i.e. satellites).
The FCC has indeed "followed the money" with this NPRM, that's for sure. They ignored computer models, field measurements, and around 5000 comments filed against BPL, and took the claims of one BPL equipment vendor, hook, line and sinker.
Some people in previous /. stories on this topic pointed out that the receiving end might still have power. Sorry, but no, that doesn't cut it... Unless we have a disaster on a scale of hundreds of miles in diameter, no one will go running off to find a ham to get help, they'd just use their cell phone, or failing that, drive to the next town. And, assuming help exists, a disaster of that scale would send FEMA scurrying anyway, so no need to bother making contact.
Most of the traffic carried on Amateur Radio after a disaster is simple "I'm OK" messages to families outside of the area. While these messages may seem insignificant to you, they mean a lot to the people receiving them. Ham Radio may not save the world, but it still serves a purpose and always will.
Cellular networks fall on their ass these days during a disaster as they depend heavily on telco landline facilties. People have gotten a false sense of security. Network reliablity and survivablity has gone out the window with cellular networks, in favor of shiny phones and stupid features.
And by the way, FEMA uses HF frequencies as well. They could potentially experience interference just like Amateur Radio. Do some research.
Just like with the mass media ownership rule changes in which the FCC ignored the facts and the public, clueless Powell did the same with BPL.
The FCC cited adaptive technolgies as being able to mitigate interference. The truth is, adaptive technologies can't protect receive only stations because they don't transmit and can't assert their need for a clear frequency. It's likely that adaptive technologies will also be unable to recognize lower powered transmit stations.
It's rather ironic the FCC met with a BPL equipment vendor in late January to discuss adaptive technology.
One of the Commisioners stated that interference concerns were unproven. There has been models proving the interference potential and field measurements showing interference filed with the FCC. There's been no proof that adaptive technologies in BPL will mitigate interference.
So the FCC doesn't stop BPL due to proven interference issues, and justifies continued deployment on a technology that hasn't been proven to work in the field or using common sense engineering. They essentially ignored 5000 comments filed against BPL and showcased unproven "interference mitigation" technology hyped by an equipment vendor.
It's time that the boobs at the FCC are exposed, not at the Superbowl.