Again, if you're in a quarry or in the fields, you won't have an open network to connect to.
You seem to be stuck thinking that broadcasting the UAS location using the control channel requires an "open network" to connect to. Sorry, that's just not a requirement. I've flown these things, and they fly just fine without an "open", or closed even, network. If they're flying, they have a location to transmit back to the controller, and that's what the Aero-thingy is picking up. No network is needed.
DJI drones are used by the military and other government departments for surveying etc. A few million is a drop in the ocean
I know what they are used for. Non-military operations. They aren't strapping hand grenades on them and taking out gun emplacements, for example.
That "few million" you claim is a "drop in the ocean" would be a large part of the USGS budget, or any other government agency, and it is unlikely any agency would try to get it past the funding sources given the existence of COTS solutions already available.
The main purpose is to make the community gravitate away from proprietary to open source.
The funding for USGS, USACE, etc, is not there to "make a community gravitate", it is to get a job done. "A few million dollars" is a very large expenditure, and it is just not going to happen.
No... I responded to this... which isn't even an AC post, so I'm not sure how you thought I was responding to myself.
Because the broken/. message display system (maybe the "classic" version, I don't know) when not showing a message that is below the mod cutoff indents the messages incorrectly to make it look like the reply was to something else. For example, I see two comments in a row from you, one that appears to be a reply to yourself.
And the broken/. display system doesn't clearly identify which is "parent" when the "read parent" link is selected. I've gotten entire threads displayed by doing that, and I have to still guess which is the parent being replied to.
That's why is it is good to quote some context from the parent so everyone knows.
I am saying that there needs to be proof that it *COULD* have been a weapon.... could plausibly be caused by some weapon that is known to factually exist.
You want proof of something that nobody it going to tell YOU about because it is probably classified. I've already presented a reasonable hypothesis of how such a weapon could operate even if I cannot prove that it exists. By demanding proof that the weapon exists you demand something you know cannot be provided to you, and so you will never accept anything by "natural causes", no matter how unlikely it is that a "natural cause" would impact only US and Canadian diplomats and nobody else.
Except of course for the fact that the tech you referred to couldn't cause this because if it could then they would know how the attack was done
Knowing one way of doing it is not proof that it was done that way.
No, until they find the actual source they won't know how it was done, but they can guess. That's sure a lot more productive than repeated denials that it was being done based on ignorance of technology.
I bet that the people who are looking into this have theories, but they aren't giving you a daily briefing because you don't have a need to know. Nor do I. The difference between you and me appears to be that I can think of ways that current technology can be used to cause harm to people and you can't.
until we can show some real world working weapon that could have actually done this in those exact circumstances.
Yes, nobody can point to a secret weapon, so it doesn't exist. Nobody could point you to the A-bomb until we dropped a couple of them, and even then there was nothing left to point at. Apparently A-bombs are "natural phenomenon" because I can't point at the ones that wiped out Hiroshima or Nagasaki as proof of how it was done. Since I don't have access to any of them, I can't even point at an existing atomic weapon as a potential cause.
Right.... show me the weapon, or even come up with some kind of explanation for what kind of weapon it actually might have been, and I might be inclined to believe you.
Megahertz-capable high-power ultrasonic transducers are commonly used in underwater applications. If you want to create a dangerous super-audible signal it is trivial. And phasing can deal with directionality. This is all a quite trivial extension of existing technology.
If you doubt that you can focus ultrasonic signals, think about what is now a nearly ubiquitous application of that. If you can't think of one, ask any pregnant woman to "see the pictures". If you can't imagine ultrasound being able to cause damage, ask any tree-hugger, I mean, whale-hugger, about US naval sonar -- another example of focused sound.
The mindset that there must have been some kind of intelligence behind it is entirely unsubstantiated superstition until you can at least *hypothesize* how it might actually happened.
Ok. Just did that. And since the damage was being done to US and Canadian citizens and not to a large number of Cubans, that makes a "natural process" very doubtful. Is there some genetic difference between US/Canadians and Cubans that would account for a difference in damage to someone's hearing?
There are more than DJI drones involved if ADS-B is required,
The models of drones that are being discussed here ALL fly at much lower altitudes than the flight levels, and at the altitudes they DO fly at, jets are limited to 200 knots.
and there's little to prevent a UAV operator from sending the UAV as high as it can go, possibly placing it in general airspace.
You mean nothing but the 400 foot limit, which I believe DJI, for one, tries to enforce.
Even at 200 knots with a reduced-power ADS-B drone transmitter
Who says it will be "reduced power"? It's well within technical capability to meet the 7 watt minimum.
There is also signal blockage from ground clutter
Not if you are up high enough that the 200 knot speed limit no longer applies.
Ummm, what? What difference does it make to the antenna if the 7 watt ADSB signal comes from a UAV or a manned aircraft?
That statement is in relation to a low-powered ADS-B transmitter for small UAVs unable to reasonably accommodate a standard ADS-B-out package.
A 7 watt package is easily accommodated.
The engineering has already been done, and the only rule-making the FAA needs to do is to mandate it for UAV above a certain minimum weight.
I'm sorry, but as someone with decades of experience in the avionics field, I don't believe that is true.
Decades of avionics experience hasn't taught you that electronics systems shrink in size over time. And experience in avionics apparently means no experience in Google. I posted a link to one portable ADS-B out system already, pretty small, pretty light, but only prevented from being used by FAA regulations. Mandating ADS-B OUT for UAV would include, you realize I hope, a rescinding of the prohibition on their use. That's the rule making that needs to be done.
The location is transmitted using the same control link that is already used to control the UAS.
If you are talking about some ADS-B beacon to retransmit the data, well, then, the system that picks up the location (AeroStat or whatever it is called) would relay it to the ADS-B transmitter.
That is the 'Killer Joke' from Monty Python. It is just random German gibberish.
Of course. If they had used the actual joke they would have caused the deaths of tens, if not hundreds, of Monty Python fans, and probably would have been sued. They had to replace it with a non-functional variant to protect us.
An ADS-B transponder is a chunky, heavy (and expensive) unit.
It's not a transponder, it is a transmitter. The information is broadcast at a regular interval, not polled for by the ground station. The 1090ES system does use the existing radar transponder hardware to transmit the signals ("extended squitter"), but the 978UAT uses separate hardware. Yeah, people call it the wrong thing. Big surprise.
The size of the hardware is dropping rapidly, just like the size of GPS receivers has dropped significantly since the creation of that system.
Rather, the issue is the massive amounts of power loss while the signal propagates over the air,
The ADS-B signals lose power at no different rate than any other signals at those frequencies, and that path loss is factored into the design service volume and power levels.
requiring not only big batteries but decent-sized heatsinks to draw heat away from the power amplifiers.
The average current draw is miniscule (50mA), and thus the heat sinks need be no larger than what you have in a cellphone. A 7AH SLA would power it for, umm, 140 hours continuous use.
thus creating a much larger market for portable ADS-B transponders. But I don't see it happening.
The market already exists, and solutions exist. While it appears that the FAA has prohibited the use of portable ADS-B OUT devices for a number of logistical reasons (different altitude source than radar transponder, incorrect registration info, etc.) this shows that the technology is there when the legislation is ready to cover it. This specific device looks like it has a lot of internal empty space to create a sleek box on the outside -- it can probably be reduced by half in size. If you can't find a place in your basket to strap the current solution, then I'd say your basket isn't airworthy enough to be flying. "Sardines" is not a safe way to carry passengers.
By 2020, there will have to be movement on the laws or there will be a huge number of aircraft that won't be flyable.
Seems like it would be in their interest to toss a few million into open source projects
That's a few million tax dollars they don't need to spend. DJI drones are not military. The government uses them for non-critical activities, and putting a few million dollars into building special ones just for them would be a complete waste of money.
Disclaimer: I work with (not at) a government agency that uses a lot of DJI drones, and none of them are "most needed" (critical) uses. They're cheap research tools.
That may sound like a lot, but at jet-aircraft speeds, 20 miles goes by in a few seconds.
Jet aircraft are limited to 200 knots in the altitudes that a UAV will be flying, at least the DJI model UAV.
The other limitation is with other aircraft's antennas & ADS-B receivers being designed around receiving signals from 7-watt and above transmitters.
Ummm, what? What difference does it make to the antenna if the 7 watt ADSB signal comes from a UAV or a manned aircraft?
Suffice it to say there's a significant amount of engineering and research, not to mention FAA rule-making/standards-defining, to be done before it's ready for hobby-drone prime-time.
The engineering has already been done, and the only rule-making the FAA needs to do is to mandate it for UAV above a certain minimum weight.
I did a power budget a few months ago during a discussion of ADSB-OUT on UAVs, but I can't find it quickly. It's not hard to redo. Because it is a PULSE signal, you cannot just say "7W is 500mA at 12V, assume 50% efficiency so that's 1A current draw". You have to take into account the duty cycle of the pulse, which is at most 450 microseconds out of 1 second, or 0.045%. Call it 0.05% for round numbers. The average current draw will then be 50mA.
The battery in my DJI is 4.5AH and lasts about 20 minutes in flight. That means the aircraft itself is drawing, on average, more than 12A from that battery.
A 50mA draw will be undetectable, consuming only about 17mAH out of 4500mAH.
As for the fellow who doesn't want a "7W transmitter in his pocket", well, strap it to the side of your balloon and power it from some D cells. Or a small SLA, 7AH will be plenty for a day of use.
"Other drone manufacturers can easily configure their existing and future drones to transmit identification information in the same way."
I couldn't find any doc or protocol definition or public API or anything, so that's statement is dubious.
If/when it becomes a requirement, there will be documentation. If DJI patents it, then there will probably be a price to get the documentation, but since DJI is part of a consortium I doubt they will do that without granting free licenses.
It also means that the drone or the base station has an internet connection, which is not a given.
Uhh, no. Transmitting location/identification data in the control stream does not require either end to have internet. It will require having multiple-band receive capability in the monitor, but that's not hard.
Well, on the broadband side, the FCC says that theoretically there could be competition so it's a competitive market.
Well, on the broadband side, since there is no legal monopoly status for ANY ISP, the only reason there isn't competition in your area is because nobody has thought it would be profitable to try. They have in my area, so there is competition.
They probably feel the same way about cable.
They determine competition not by the physical medium being used for delivery, but for the service itself. Dish Network, DirecTV, and now things like Sling and other streaming video services count as competition because they provide the same service, just not using the same physical delivery system. Does it really matter what the medium is as long as the message can be bought from more than one provider? If you think the other media are not competing, then why do their ads always seem to target "cable" and present themselves as a better option?
They put up with this garbage from the sports associates then wonder why no one wants to buy their service...
Well, obviously it isn't true that nobody wants to buy their service. And they put up with it because they know the cost of covering all the games would be very high. Most people would not want to pay that amount. That's why they have special packages that do have them all. MLB and NFL networks. And NHL. A dozen channels each. You want them all, you can buy them. Be ready to pay through the nose, though.
And that is why I find Sling's TV ads to be downright misleading if not outright lies. I want to buy ONE CHANNEL from them. They say they offer this kind of pickiness. ("If you are that picky about your beer, why aren't you that picky about your TV?") The website says "customize your packages", but no, you only get to pick which of the pre-configured packages Sling wants to sell you.
Well, show me how I can get just Turner Classic Movies from Sling. When I actually try, I find that I have to buy a base package of all kinds of stuff I don't want for $20/month, and then another $5/month for a package of five channels, (34 total channels, 33 of which I don't want), just to get the one channel I do. This is different than how the evil cable company does it exactly how, again? (Cable charges more for more channels, is all. Still packages of things you don't want...)
And guess what you get with "Sling Orange"? ESPN, in multiple forms. But not a single major broadcast network. Oh, wait, I can add "Broadcast Extra" for $5/month -- and get ABC and two Spanish networks. To get NBC I have to pay more by getting 45 channels of "Sling Blue". To get CBS -- not.
I'm happy for people who get what they want with Sling, but don't tell me that it's "TV ala carte" and that I can be as picky as I want, because that's just a lie.
The cable companies could include an antenna and feed the signal into their set tops without violating any laws.
First, why would the cable companies want to show people that they don't need the cable companies? And second, how do you deal with the problem of not being able to get very much OTA anyway?
Wouldn't it be wonderful for my "cable company" to give the finger to the major broadcast networks by refusing to pay them their transmission fees, and then give me the finger by charging me for a device that cannot pick up CBS ever, has very marginal NBC when it does, reasonable Fox/CW and a couple of niche secondary channels, but not much else?
The problem is that it would require adding an additional tuner into the set top
No. The same tuner that manages ATSC via cable can do ClearQAM via antenna. It just needs to know where to tune. The cable system tells the settop box that info for cable; you do a local channel scan for OTA. That leaves just the switch.
You also would not be able to record these channels to a cloud based DVR system.
Uhhh, what? I don't know why "cloud" would matter; I have both an HDHomerun Prime and a Connect, and the same Windows Media Center can record from either one to disk. The only significant difference between the Prime and the Connect is that the Prime has a CableCARD slot so it can do cable decryption and the Connect does not.
Except you are forgetting, with cable you pay for the service and still have to watch the commercials.
That's because you are paying for the delivery, not the content. The producers still have to be paid, as well as the production companies.
Have you ever bought a newspaper? You are paying for the content there, and there are still ads. Hmmm.... seems like "paying for" and "not having ads" have never been synonyms.
But I'm somewhat offended by this entire pair of continents being named after an Italian cartographer.
Well, imagine being a call center employee who wakes up every morning in a country that is named after the natives of a continent in the opposite hemisphere. And you can't have a Big Mac for lunch because the cows are your dead Uncle Fred. That's got to suck, huh?
"People of Earth" is only used when beings like Klaatu come visit. Otherwise, both "Americans" and "Europeans" are nearly ubiquitous current references.
I think the larger point is, the fact that Columbus got it wrong doesn't make the name derogatory, only technically incorrect, just like calling a Nintendo cartridge a "tape".
I never claimed technological change doesn't happen, or that it does not, in the long run, destroy natural monopolies.
You claimed that it was a "bullshit argument", so that sure looks to me like you said it doesn't happen.
The profit motive coupled with the power of a monopoly always leads to abuse.
More hyperbole. But my response wasn't to that statement, it was to your claim that it was a "bullshit argument" that technological solutions would arise to counter the effects of a monopoly, and I gave several examples of that specific thing happening.
the simple fact remains that it's against Federal law for credit card companies to do business with casinos.
Citation required. I find a lot of online information saying that some casinos won't accept credit cards for chips, and that some credit card companies won't deal with casinos for the same thing, but no federal law that prohibits credit card companies from dealing with casinos. In fact, the local casino is quite happy to accept credit cards for various things other than gambling chips.
If you are referring to Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), then you need to consider that this act deals with "illegal internet gambling". While credit card companies may take the safe approach and just not deal with any online gambling operation, they are only legally prohibited, as far as the information I see about UIGEA, from dealing with the illegal sites. If this new site is legal, then UIGEA doesn't apply to them.
From here:
"To be clear, the UIGEA does not make Internet poker playing illegal," Pappas says. "It simply says that banks must block 'unlawful Internet gambling' transactions, and therein lies the rub."
Credit card companies care a lot more about pissing off the Feds than they do about doing business with what they admit is a shady, untested casino scheme.
Yep. Banks, too. In Oregon there is a significant issue with banks refusing to deal with pot dispensaries, which are legal under Oregon law but not under Federal. This has created a huge cash-only business system, and created a problem for the state when it collects the taxes. They're getting boxes of cash, and dispensaries are having to tote that cash to Salem to pay the taxes. They can't just write a check -- banks won't handle the account.
and get him to put a pet bill through a Republican-controlled Congress.
If Trump proposes a bill, neither Reps or Dems will want to deal with it. He's neither one, and neither side shows him any allegiance.
Government sanctioned gambling -- the ultimate tax on the poor,
Other than the fact that taxes are involuntary contributions and gambling is not, you're right. You have a hard time avoiding income taxes except by foregoing income. You can trivially avoid gambling losses. For the latter, you have lost essentially nothing by giving up gambling because you were losing anyway. If you are a winner then it isn't a tax, it's income.
The great thing about lotteries and casinos is that the government can capture significant revenue from the poor and lower middle class without having to raise taxes on the wealthy
The great thing about lotteries and casinos is that the government can capture significant revenue from people who want to give away their money instead of taking it from people who would rather hold onto it for their own use. Nobody forces anyone into a casino or to buy a lottery ticket, but gosh if there aren't people whose job it is to collect taxes from people who don't want to pay them.
Perhaps you have cause and effect swapped because you are relying on correlation to prove your point? Can it be that poor people are poor because they make poor money decisions, like "buy lottery tickets as a way of saving for retirement", and the rich are rich(er) because they don't?
while sucking the last ounce of blood like a vampire from those who can least afford to lose a drop.
When a government agent shows up at my door with a gun and a stack of lottery tickets telling me to give him my money, your analogy would be valid. As long as I can walk right past the places that sell lottery tickets (or have to drive 45 miles to the closest casino), then there is no "sucking", only poor choices made by free people.
Slashdot Mirror
Again, if you're in a quarry or in the fields, you won't have an open network to connect to.
You seem to be stuck thinking that broadcasting the UAS location using the control channel requires an "open network" to connect to. Sorry, that's just not a requirement. I've flown these things, and they fly just fine without an "open", or closed even, network. If they're flying, they have a location to transmit back to the controller, and that's what the Aero-thingy is picking up. No network is needed.
DJI drones are used by the military and other government departments for surveying etc. A few million is a drop in the ocean
I know what they are used for. Non-military operations. They aren't strapping hand grenades on them and taking out gun emplacements, for example.
That "few million" you claim is a "drop in the ocean" would be a large part of the USGS budget, or any other government agency, and it is unlikely any agency would try to get it past the funding sources given the existence of COTS solutions already available.
The main purpose is to make the community gravitate away from proprietary to open source.
The funding for USGS, USACE, etc, is not there to "make a community gravitate", it is to get a job done. "A few million dollars" is a very large expenditure, and it is just not going to happen.
No... I responded to this... which isn't even an AC post, so I'm not sure how you thought I was responding to myself.
Because the broken /. message display system (maybe the "classic" version, I don't know) when not showing a message that is below the mod cutoff indents the messages incorrectly to make it look like the reply was to something else. For example, I see two comments in a row from you, one that appears to be a reply to yourself.
And the broken /. display system doesn't clearly identify which is "parent" when the "read parent" link is selected. I've gotten entire threads displayed by doing that, and I have to still guess which is the parent being replied to.
That's why is it is good to quote some context from the parent so everyone knows.
I am saying that there needs to be proof that it *COULD* have been a weapon.... could plausibly be caused by some weapon that is known to factually exist.
You want proof of something that nobody it going to tell YOU about because it is probably classified. I've already presented a reasonable hypothesis of how such a weapon could operate even if I cannot prove that it exists. By demanding proof that the weapon exists you demand something you know cannot be provided to you, and so you will never accept anything by "natural causes", no matter how unlikely it is that a "natural cause" would impact only US and Canadian diplomats and nobody else.
Except of course for the fact that the tech you referred to couldn't cause this because if it could then they would know how the attack was done
Knowing one way of doing it is not proof that it was done that way. No, until they find the actual source they won't know how it was done, but they can guess. That's sure a lot more productive than repeated denials that it was being done based on ignorance of technology.
I bet that the people who are looking into this have theories, but they aren't giving you a daily briefing because you don't have a need to know. Nor do I. The difference between you and me appears to be that I can think of ways that current technology can be used to cause harm to people and you can't.
until we can show some real world working weapon that could have actually done this in those exact circumstances.
Yes, nobody can point to a secret weapon, so it doesn't exist. Nobody could point you to the A-bomb until we dropped a couple of them, and even then there was nothing left to point at. Apparently A-bombs are "natural phenomenon" because I can't point at the ones that wiped out Hiroshima or Nagasaki as proof of how it was done. Since I don't have access to any of them, I can't even point at an existing atomic weapon as a potential cause.
Right.... show me the weapon, or even come up with some kind of explanation for what kind of weapon it actually might have been, and I might be inclined to believe you.
Megahertz-capable high-power ultrasonic transducers are commonly used in underwater applications. If you want to create a dangerous super-audible signal it is trivial. And phasing can deal with directionality. This is all a quite trivial extension of existing technology.
If you doubt that you can focus ultrasonic signals, think about what is now a nearly ubiquitous application of that. If you can't think of one, ask any pregnant woman to "see the pictures". If you can't imagine ultrasound being able to cause damage, ask any tree-hugger, I mean, whale-hugger, about US naval sonar -- another example of focused sound.
The mindset that there must have been some kind of intelligence behind it is entirely unsubstantiated superstition until you can at least *hypothesize* how it might actually happened.
Ok. Just did that. And since the damage was being done to US and Canadian citizens and not to a large number of Cubans, that makes a "natural process" very doubtful. Is there some genetic difference between US/Canadians and Cubans that would account for a difference in damage to someone's hearing?
Occam's razor.
There are more than DJI drones involved if ADS-B is required,
The models of drones that are being discussed here ALL fly at much lower altitudes than the flight levels, and at the altitudes they DO fly at, jets are limited to 200 knots.
and there's little to prevent a UAV operator from sending the UAV as high as it can go, possibly placing it in general airspace.
You mean nothing but the 400 foot limit, which I believe DJI, for one, tries to enforce.
Even at 200 knots with a reduced-power ADS-B drone transmitter
Who says it will be "reduced power"? It's well within technical capability to meet the 7 watt minimum.
There is also signal blockage from ground clutter
Not if you are up high enough that the 200 knot speed limit no longer applies.
Ummm, what? What difference does it make to the antenna if the 7 watt ADSB signal comes from a UAV or a manned aircraft?
That statement is in relation to a low-powered ADS-B transmitter for small UAVs unable to reasonably accommodate a standard ADS-B-out package.
A 7 watt package is easily accommodated.
The engineering has already been done, and the only rule-making the FAA needs to do is to mandate it for UAV above a certain minimum weight.
I'm sorry, but as someone with decades of experience in the avionics field, I don't believe that is true.
Decades of avionics experience hasn't taught you that electronics systems shrink in size over time. And experience in avionics apparently means no experience in Google. I posted a link to one portable ADS-B out system already, pretty small, pretty light, but only prevented from being used by FAA regulations. Mandating ADS-B OUT for UAV would include, you realize I hope, a rescinding of the prohibition on their use. That's the rule making that needs to be done.
If you are talking about some ADS-B beacon to retransmit the data, well, then, the system that picks up the location (AeroStat or whatever it is called) would relay it to the ADS-B transmitter.
That is the 'Killer Joke' from Monty Python. It is just random German gibberish.
Of course. If they had used the actual joke they would have caused the deaths of tens, if not hundreds, of Monty Python fans, and probably would have been sued. They had to replace it with a non-functional variant to protect us.
An ADS-B transponder is a chunky, heavy (and expensive) unit.
It's not a transponder, it is a transmitter. The information is broadcast at a regular interval, not polled for by the ground station. The 1090ES system does use the existing radar transponder hardware to transmit the signals ("extended squitter"), but the 978UAT uses separate hardware. Yeah, people call it the wrong thing. Big surprise.
The size of the hardware is dropping rapidly, just like the size of GPS receivers has dropped significantly since the creation of that system.
Rather, the issue is the massive amounts of power loss while the signal propagates over the air,
The ADS-B signals lose power at no different rate than any other signals at those frequencies, and that path loss is factored into the design service volume and power levels.
requiring not only big batteries but decent-sized heatsinks to draw heat away from the power amplifiers.
The average current draw is miniscule (50mA), and thus the heat sinks need be no larger than what you have in a cellphone. A 7AH SLA would power it for, umm, 140 hours continuous use.
thus creating a much larger market for portable ADS-B transponders. But I don't see it happening.
The market already exists, and solutions exist. While it appears that the FAA has prohibited the use of portable ADS-B OUT devices for a number of logistical reasons (different altitude source than radar transponder, incorrect registration info, etc.) this shows that the technology is there when the legislation is ready to cover it. This specific device looks like it has a lot of internal empty space to create a sleek box on the outside -- it can probably be reduced by half in size. If you can't find a place in your basket to strap the current solution, then I'd say your basket isn't airworthy enough to be flying. "Sardines" is not a safe way to carry passengers.
By 2020, there will have to be movement on the laws or there will be a huge number of aircraft that won't be flyable.
Seems like it would be in their interest to toss a few million into open source projects
That's a few million tax dollars they don't need to spend. DJI drones are not military. The government uses them for non-critical activities, and putting a few million dollars into building special ones just for them would be a complete waste of money.
Disclaimer: I work with (not at) a government agency that uses a lot of DJI drones, and none of them are "most needed" (critical) uses. They're cheap research tools.
That may sound like a lot, but at jet-aircraft speeds, 20 miles goes by in a few seconds.
Jet aircraft are limited to 200 knots in the altitudes that a UAV will be flying, at least the DJI model UAV.
The other limitation is with other aircraft's antennas & ADS-B receivers being designed around receiving signals from 7-watt and above transmitters.
Ummm, what? What difference does it make to the antenna if the 7 watt ADSB signal comes from a UAV or a manned aircraft?
Suffice it to say there's a significant amount of engineering and research, not to mention FAA rule-making/standards-defining, to be done before it's ready for hobby-drone prime-time.
The engineering has already been done, and the only rule-making the FAA needs to do is to mandate it for UAV above a certain minimum weight.
The battery in my DJI is 4.5AH and lasts about 20 minutes in flight. That means the aircraft itself is drawing, on average, more than 12A from that battery. A 50mA draw will be undetectable, consuming only about 17mAH out of 4500mAH.
As for the fellow who doesn't want a "7W transmitter in his pocket", well, strap it to the side of your balloon and power it from some D cells. Or a small SLA, 7AH will be plenty for a day of use.
"Other drone manufacturers can easily configure their existing and future drones to transmit identification information in the same way." I couldn't find any doc or protocol definition or public API or anything, so that's statement is dubious.
If/when it becomes a requirement, there will be documentation. If DJI patents it, then there will probably be a price to get the documentation, but since DJI is part of a consortium I doubt they will do that without granting free licenses.
It also means that the drone or the base station has an internet connection, which is not a given.
Uhh, no. Transmitting location/identification data in the control stream does not require either end to have internet. It will require having multiple-band receive capability in the monitor, but that's not hard.
Well, on the broadband side, the FCC says that theoretically there could be competition so it's a competitive market.
Well, on the broadband side, since there is no legal monopoly status for ANY ISP, the only reason there isn't competition in your area is because nobody has thought it would be profitable to try. They have in my area, so there is competition.
They probably feel the same way about cable.
They determine competition not by the physical medium being used for delivery, but for the service itself. Dish Network, DirecTV, and now things like Sling and other streaming video services count as competition because they provide the same service, just not using the same physical delivery system. Does it really matter what the medium is as long as the message can be bought from more than one provider? If you think the other media are not competing, then why do their ads always seem to target "cable" and present themselves as a better option?
They put up with this garbage from the sports associates then wonder why no one wants to buy their service...
Well, obviously it isn't true that nobody wants to buy their service. And they put up with it because they know the cost of covering all the games would be very high. Most people would not want to pay that amount. That's why they have special packages that do have them all. MLB and NFL networks. And NHL. A dozen channels each. You want them all, you can buy them. Be ready to pay through the nose, though.
That is not the case.
And that is why I find Sling's TV ads to be downright misleading if not outright lies. I want to buy ONE CHANNEL from them. They say they offer this kind of pickiness. ("If you are that picky about your beer, why aren't you that picky about your TV?") The website says "customize your packages", but no, you only get to pick which of the pre-configured packages Sling wants to sell you.
Well, show me how I can get just Turner Classic Movies from Sling. When I actually try, I find that I have to buy a base package of all kinds of stuff I don't want for $20/month, and then another $5/month for a package of five channels, (34 total channels, 33 of which I don't want), just to get the one channel I do. This is different than how the evil cable company does it exactly how, again? (Cable charges more for more channels, is all. Still packages of things you don't want...)
And guess what you get with "Sling Orange"? ESPN, in multiple forms. But not a single major broadcast network. Oh, wait, I can add "Broadcast Extra" for $5/month -- and get ABC and two Spanish networks. To get NBC I have to pay more by getting 45 channels of "Sling Blue". To get CBS -- not.
I'm happy for people who get what they want with Sling, but don't tell me that it's "TV ala carte" and that I can be as picky as I want, because that's just a lie.
The cable companies could include an antenna and feed the signal into their set tops without violating any laws.
First, why would the cable companies want to show people that they don't need the cable companies? And second, how do you deal with the problem of not being able to get very much OTA anyway?
Wouldn't it be wonderful for my "cable company" to give the finger to the major broadcast networks by refusing to pay them their transmission fees, and then give me the finger by charging me for a device that cannot pick up CBS ever, has very marginal NBC when it does, reasonable Fox/CW and a couple of niche secondary channels, but not much else?
The problem is that it would require adding an additional tuner into the set top
No. The same tuner that manages ATSC via cable can do ClearQAM via antenna. It just needs to know where to tune. The cable system tells the settop box that info for cable; you do a local channel scan for OTA. That leaves just the switch.
You also would not be able to record these channels to a cloud based DVR system.
Uhhh, what? I don't know why "cloud" would matter; I have both an HDHomerun Prime and a Connect, and the same Windows Media Center can record from either one to disk. The only significant difference between the Prime and the Connect is that the Prime has a CableCARD slot so it can do cable decryption and the Connect does not.
Except you are forgetting, with cable you pay for the service and still have to watch the commercials.
That's because you are paying for the delivery, not the content. The producers still have to be paid, as well as the production companies.
Have you ever bought a newspaper? You are paying for the content there, and there are still ads. Hmmm.... seems like "paying for" and "not having ads" have never been synonyms.
But I'm somewhat offended by this entire pair of continents being named after an Italian cartographer.
Well, imagine being a call center employee who wakes up every morning in a country that is named after the natives of a continent in the opposite hemisphere. And you can't have a Big Mac for lunch because the cows are your dead Uncle Fred. That's got to suck, huh?
I think the larger point is, the fact that Columbus got it wrong doesn't make the name derogatory, only technically incorrect, just like calling a Nintendo cartridge a "tape".
We call the diverse peoples of Europe "Europeans," don't we? It's perfectly fine to have a blanket term of some sort,
And consider the term "Americans", which covers more geographic area and peoples than "Europeans" does.
I never claimed technological change doesn't happen, or that it does not, in the long run, destroy natural monopolies.
You claimed that it was a "bullshit argument", so that sure looks to me like you said it doesn't happen.
The profit motive coupled with the power of a monopoly always leads to abuse.
More hyperbole. But my response wasn't to that statement, it was to your claim that it was a "bullshit argument" that technological solutions would arise to counter the effects of a monopoly, and I gave several examples of that specific thing happening.
the simple fact remains that it's against Federal law for credit card companies to do business with casinos.
Citation required. I find a lot of online information saying that some casinos won't accept credit cards for chips, and that some credit card companies won't deal with casinos for the same thing, but no federal law that prohibits credit card companies from dealing with casinos. In fact, the local casino is quite happy to accept credit cards for various things other than gambling chips.
If you are referring to Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), then you need to consider that this act deals with "illegal internet gambling". While credit card companies may take the safe approach and just not deal with any online gambling operation, they are only legally prohibited, as far as the information I see about UIGEA, from dealing with the illegal sites. If this new site is legal, then UIGEA doesn't apply to them.
From here: "To be clear, the UIGEA does not make Internet poker playing illegal," Pappas says. "It simply says that banks must block 'unlawful Internet gambling' transactions, and therein lies the rub."
Credit card companies care a lot more about pissing off the Feds than they do about doing business with what they admit is a shady, untested casino scheme.
Yep. Banks, too. In Oregon there is a significant issue with banks refusing to deal with pot dispensaries, which are legal under Oregon law but not under Federal. This has created a huge cash-only business system, and created a problem for the state when it collects the taxes. They're getting boxes of cash, and dispensaries are having to tote that cash to Salem to pay the taxes. They can't just write a check -- banks won't handle the account.
and get him to put a pet bill through a Republican-controlled Congress.
If Trump proposes a bill, neither Reps or Dems will want to deal with it. He's neither one, and neither side shows him any allegiance.
Government sanctioned gambling -- the ultimate tax on the poor,
Other than the fact that taxes are involuntary contributions and gambling is not, you're right. You have a hard time avoiding income taxes except by foregoing income. You can trivially avoid gambling losses. For the latter, you have lost essentially nothing by giving up gambling because you were losing anyway. If you are a winner then it isn't a tax, it's income.
The great thing about lotteries and casinos is that the government can capture significant revenue from the poor and lower middle class without having to raise taxes on the wealthy
The great thing about lotteries and casinos is that the government can capture significant revenue from people who want to give away their money instead of taking it from people who would rather hold onto it for their own use. Nobody forces anyone into a casino or to buy a lottery ticket, but gosh if there aren't people whose job it is to collect taxes from people who don't want to pay them.
Perhaps you have cause and effect swapped because you are relying on correlation to prove your point? Can it be that poor people are poor because they make poor money decisions, like "buy lottery tickets as a way of saving for retirement", and the rich are rich(er) because they don't?
while sucking the last ounce of blood like a vampire from those who can least afford to lose a drop.
When a government agent shows up at my door with a gun and a stack of lottery tickets telling me to give him my money, your analogy would be valid. As long as I can walk right past the places that sell lottery tickets (or have to drive 45 miles to the closest casino), then there is no "sucking", only poor choices made by free people.