[DX] ARRL BPL Video

Thu, 7 Aug 2003 22:24:37 EDT

In a message dated 8/7/03 9:37:36 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] 
writes:

> Chip,
> You call for additional studies, I suppose by W1RFI and the good folks at 
> the League.  I too am "puzzled"--- only I am puzzled by your request since you 
> gave up your ARRL membership almost 2 years ago.  
> 
> Angry? No, not hardly.  That is your choice and I can respect it, even 
> though I don't understand it or agree with it-- especially when the League is the 
> only group fighting for us. 
> 
> You ask, "How many of us live --under-- in- the- air, 
> residential power lines?"    I guess my question is how many of us don't?  
> Unless you live out in the country and generate your own power, how are you 
> actually going to be immune from this garbage? 
> 
> I have been fighting my power company for the past 10 months since I moved 
> to this QTH trying to correct a hardware problem adjacent to my house that 
> gives me a constant 24/7 10-20 over S-9 line noise, that is there rain or shine! 
>  It has taken a complaint filed through the Public Service Commission and a 
> threat from the FCC to get them to even look at this.  How responsive do you 
> think the utility companies will be when they roll out this stuff and trash 
> our bands.  I am just grateful to the League for going to bat for us and think 
> all of us need to circle the wagons on this one or we can all start 
> collecting stamps or doing needlepoint.  We need to file our comments with the FCC, 
> contribute to the BPL fund and get others to do the same.  Otherwise, amateur 
> radio is doomed if we don't.  
> 
> 73,
> Hal, KC8FS
> 

Hi Hal,

I have been a ham for 37 years, and I would say there are occasions when I 
like to subscribe to QST;  work on DXCC; and so on. I'm just too busy for it, so 
I feel very comfortable not being a League member at the moment. I do get on 
the air, BTW, with a variety of proprietary antennas, not used in ham radio. I 
don't see amateur radio as doomed in my lifetime. Transformed? Of course; as 
it always has in the last century. In fact, 60M channelization is a 
transformation, happening as we speak.

These days, in my few free moments,I enjoy my subscription to Outdoor 
Photographer  and I'm getting a real kick out of the digital darkroom.  Its let me 
dig out decades of pictures and bring them back to life. Hence the focus away 
from radio (excuse the pun).But, by the way, radio is in my blood and you might 
wish to check out who I am , what I've done, and what I do. I get dozens of 
request from teachers and students a month, thus the URL (which has 4 lovely 
landscapes):

http://www.fractenna.com/nca_cohen_bio.html

FYI, I suspect that at some point I may wish to subscribe again to QST, since 
you emphasize this point of League affiliation.

Now; on to the point at hand. I am by no means convinced that BPL is a threat 
to ham radio in the US, and have given a reasonable example of a simple path 
that could demonstrate this. If this is demonstrated then I would be happy to 
express my personal and professional opinion supporting BPL restrictions in 
the context of RFI mitigation. As it stands, it would be imprudent to let anger 
replace fact in any appeal to reason regarding BPL.

I am truly sorry that you have a bona fide RFI problem which has not been 
addressed properly by the offending party. But I hardly see what this has to do 
with BPL. In fact, it isn't a BPL case. Does anyone know of documented  
examples of a ham being effectively thrown off HF by BPL RFI in the US?

My point has nothing to do with the League, per se (although yours  does). I 
specifically addressed the issue of how WE, as hams, posit ourselves on this 
issue of BPL. Care and viable fact must be presented.

Basically, if you CLAIM interference, then DEMONSTRATE interference--from 
BPL.  Driving under power lines in the near field doesn''t do this. I, myself, 
would be happy to investigate, and presumably corroborate, any BPL (reasonably 
close to Bedford, MA) RFI case happening at a bona fide ham QTH . I have 
portable antennas; an Anritsu spectrum analyzer; and so on.

I sincerely wish you a speedy resolution of your RFI problem, BTW.

73,
Chip N1IR 

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