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Amateur Radio Newsline™ Report 1403 – July 2, 2004

The following is a Q-S-T.

The score is now Ham Radio one, BPL zero; OSCAR Echo is alive, and business 
is good for CW.

Find out the details on Amateur Radio Newsline report number 1403 coming 
your way right now.

**

BPL: SCORE ONE FOR THE GOOD GUYS

A major broadband-over-power line pilot test by Alliant Energy in Cedar 
Rapids, Iowa is shut down after local hams document the harmful 
interference and the Federal Communications Commission gets a formal 
complaint from the A-R-R-L. We get the details from Amateur Radio 
Newsline's Mark Abramowicz NT3V:

************

It took nearly three months to accomplish the mission, but amateurs in 
Cedar Rapids - armed with ample data and the muscle of the American Radio 
Relay League - convinced Alliant to prematurely halt their B-P-L test.

Jim Spencer, W0SR, first discovered the interference on his HF radio right 
after Alliant launched its B-P-L testing March 30.

Spencer, who quickly mobilized other Cedar Rapids hams to form a technical 
committee, says the interference was so severe that it wiped out his and 
others' ability to use their radios.

Spencer says the group worked with Alliant officials to try to resolve the 
interference and conducted several test measurements with the utility's 
cooperation.

Spencer tells Amateur Radio Newsline the group appealed to Alliant to shut 
down the system and stop the interference on several occasions. But it was 
clear the B-P-L industry was telling Alliant's managers something else.

"There's a lot of regulatory uncertainty here," Spencer explains. "And that 
what the hams were calling harmful interference - in my case S-9 signals, 
you know, every 1-plus kilohertz across the band, they were being told that 
wasn't really harmful.''

Spencer says communications between his technical group and Alliant 
officials were civil, but they accomplished little action. He says he and 
others filed complaints with the FCC.

"I think in 21 communications I received one simple response basically told 
me to go back to the power company - the operator of the system," Spencer 
says. "And, of course, I had done that all the time. So, we had been asking 
the utility company to close it down, we had been asking the FCC to help us 
and then the ARRL went and escalated that."

Wade Walstrom, W0EJ, is the ARRL's Midwest Division Director. He says the 
league's FCC complaint finally got the utility's attention.

"The thrust of the complaint was that they were now aware that the system 
was causing interference and didn't shut the system off so now that makes 
it willful interference," Walstrom said...

Alliant stopped the B-P-L pilot test on June 25 saying it had gathered the 
necessary data to make a determination on whether a general rollout of 
B-P-L would be worth pursuing, according to Spencer. He says Alliant's 
project leader told him the ARRL's FCC complaint was just one factor in the 
company's decision.

"Obviously we're happy, but we didn't feel like we had won," Spencer said. 
"We felt like this was a technical problem and that we tried to communicate 
some of the technical parameters to them and that they'd made a good 
business decision."

Spencer says an Alliant representative told him the company has no plans to 
pursue B-P-L at this time.

"In order to distribute it out to a sparsely-populated rural area with all 
the equipment it would take, it's not clear that this thing makes economic 
sense," Spencer says. "And that this really can meet the goals of the rural 
user which is one of the things that people touted."

The ARRL's Walstrom is cautiously optimistic Alliant's decision might have 
a ripple effect.

"We would hope that other utilities or other organizations that were 
looking to possibly use B-P-L as a source of revenue will look and see the 
decision that Alliant has made and re-think their own plans and hopefully 
decide that maybe there are other ways to provide broadband internet 
connections to the population as a whole," Walstrom says.

Walstrom says the Cedar Rapids group led by Spencer has set a precedent.

"All the proof on how well it's going to work isn't there yet," Walstrom 
says.

"And the proof that we have established here in Cedar Rapids and is coming 
out from other parts of the country is that it's not an interference-free 
system by any means and in fact it causes a lot of interference and we've 
documented that here."

Spencer says his committee, consisting of a group of engineers - most of 
them retired from Rockwell Collins - stuck strictly to technical evidence 
in communications with Alliant.  But he says its clear B-P-L has taken on a 
very political tone.

"Obviously the problem has got a lot of political implications, but the 
thing that hams can do is remain professional and keep it primarily on a 
technical level," Spencer says.

The ARRL's Walstrom says if he could stand before the FCC panel to make his 
case, he would strongly urge the commissioners to postpone action on or 
even walk away from B-P-L.

"I think they need to delay it until they're satisfied that they're able to 
mitigate any interference problems at all and by mitigate from an amateur 
radio standpoint that really means eliminate," Walstrom says.

Spencer adds, there are no hard feelings toward Alliant. Spencer says he 
and members of his technical group still have a good, working relationship 
with the utility.

"We've had quite a bit of communication back and forth through this whole 
thing," Spencer says. "I mean I've had many, many e-mails and some phone 
calls and I would say that it was pretty positive and still is."

For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Mark Abramowicz, NT3V, in Philadelphia.

************

In addition to operations in Cedar Rapids, Alliant also provides utility 
services to customers in sections of Minnesota and Wisconsin, and a small 
strip of northwestern Illinois

(W0SR, ARRL)

**

HAM RADIO IN SPACE: ECHO IS UP AND RUNNING

The newest Amateur Radio satellite is now in orbit and doing fine.  Chuck 
Green, N0ADI, reported by phone from the Baikonur Cosmodrome that the 
launch of AMSAT Echo and the other satellites occurred on time on June 29th 
at 0630 UTC.  He watched the rocket climb out and said it appeared to be 
flying straight and true. A second phone call from Chuck 18 minutes later 
confirmed that the launch carrying AMSAT OSCAR Echo was successful and that 
all spacecraft had separated successfully.

Chuck was assisted in the final integration and checkout process at 
Baikonur by the team from SpaceQuest which included Dr. Dino Lorenzini 
KC4YMG, Mark Kanawati N4TPY, and Lyle Johnson KK7P.  The SpaceQuest team 
members are also AMSAT members and volunteers.

First contact with Echo was at 1452 UTC on June 29th.  After collecting a 
bit of TLM the 435.150 MHz transmitter was turned off at 1500 UTC.  The 
preliminary keps were observed to be pretty close. The first look at Echo's 
telemetry shows things are looking good. The battery was fully charged and 
the panels were delivering about 950 ma, which is fine. The panels were 
supporting the transmitter power adequately at about 2.3W output.  The bird 
appeared to be tumbling as expected.  Internal temperatures are around 10 
degrees Celsius which is also as expected.

On the second pass the loading of software began and good progress was 
made.

Telemetry continues to look very good.  While fades clearly indicated Echo 
continues to tumble (as expected), at 2.2 Watts output good bits were 
received without difficulty. Rather than turn the transmitter off at the 
end of that pass, based on a very good looking power system, the power was 
turned down to about 0.3 Watts.

The hour between passes was spent closely examining the captured telemetry 
and comparing it to pre-launch testing, as well as tweaking the keps a bit.

During the second set of passes approximately twelve hours later, the 
command team finished loading the housekeeping software.  The housekeeping 
task is up and running as of June 30th at 0525 UTC.  With more data 
available on the power systems performance the transmitter has now been 
left at about 1.2W.

The morning passes on June 30th concentrated on gathering telemetry.  The 
evening passes continued with checkout activities.

A telemetry decode program, TLMEcho, is available for those who would like 
to view and report data from Echo.  It may be downloaded from AMSAT.ORG in 
the Echo project area, http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/echo/

If you record telemetry please send the CSV files to ke4azn at amsat.org.

Please do not transmit to Echo until checkout and commissioning has been 
completed and the satellite is made available for general use.  Unexpected 
uplinks may cause delays in verifying the proper operation of ECHO and 
delay the opening of the transponders to general use.

(AMSAT, WD0E)

**

WITH NEWSLINE:  SEND US YOUR ID - PLEASE

Would you like to ID your own repeater or bulletin station here on Amateur 
Radio Newsline?  Well here is how you can do it.  Record the following 
sentence and include the call sign and location you want to honor.

 From the United States of America, we are the Amateur Radio Newsline, 
heard on bulletin stations around the world including the xxx repeater 
serving yyy zzz.  The xxx is the call sign.  The yyy and zzz are the city 
and state.

Then, take the tape and mail it to Amateur Radio Newsline, Editorial 
Office, 28197 Robin Avenue, Santa Clarita, California, 91350.  As time 
permits, we will select an audio I-D and include it in the newscast.

All tapes submitted become the property of the Amateur Radio Newsline and 
cannot be returned.  Again, the address to make yourself a part of this 
bulletin service is Amateur Radio Newsline, Editorial Office, 28197 Robin 
Avenue, Santa Clarita, California, 91350.

**

RESCUE RADIO: VA HOSPITALS SAY YES TO HAM RADIO

Hospitals in Roanoke, Virginia, will soon be ham radio equipped.  Mike 
Knight, K4IJ, reports through the Repeater Journal that a budget of 
twenty-five thousand dollars has been approved for the installation of 
Amateur stations at between ten and twelve primary healthcare facilities in 
the Roanoke area.

Knight says that the system will include a dual band base radio, a mobile 
radio, a power supply, antennas and full lightning protection at each 
hospital.  Also going on-line will be a pair of commercial grade FM voice 
repeaters with back-up generators, and a dedicated digital repeater.  The 
voice systems will have IRLP and Echolink tie-ins to communicate outside 
the local area.

When completed, the Roanoke system will consist of five to six linked 
repeaters.  The base stations will be connected to each hospitals emergency 
power system to keep them on the air.

(Repeater Journal)

**

RADIO LAW:  COURT SAYS NO TO EXPANDED MEDIA OWNERSHIP

A U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia has thrown out most of the Federal 
Communications Commission's new and controversial media ownership 
deregulation.  Its Thursday, June 24th decision means that for the time 
being, ownership levels of broadcast properties and related media will 
remain at current levels.

Back on June 2nd of 2003, the FCC's Republican majority voted to 
dramatically ease a prohibition barring daily newspapers from buying 
broadcast stations in their markets. The agency lifted caps limiting how 
many radio and TV stations a broadcaster could own in the same area.

But in its 2 to 1 decision the Philadelphia court said that while some 
relaxation of the ownership limits might be reasonable, the agency had 
failed to adequately justify the limits it had put in place. The court 
announced that its original stay on the FCC's media ownership deregulation 
would continue until the agency fixes the regulations to the court's 
liking.

(TV Week)

**

ENFORCEMENT:  TOO MUCH MORSE CODE

The FCC is asking a Missouri ham why he is running a Morse code training 
program smack in the middle of the 40 meter band.  The target of the 
inquiry is Paul D. Westcott, KC0OAB of Purdy who apparently has code 
practice on the air around the clock.

Its June 21st letter to Westcott notes that the agency had previously 
discussed this matter with KC0OAB and was given assurances that the 
transmissions he was making were for Morse Code practice.  Since that time 
the agency has received another complaint which alleges that the purported 
40 meter code practice transmissions are 24 hours a day, seven days per 
week. The FCC says that due to the crowded nature of the 40 Meter Band, it 
is extremely inconsiderate to take up spectrum in that area for 
transmissions 24 hours a day.  This, even if it is purportedly for "code 
practice" purposes.

The agency has posed several questions to Westcott to explain his operation 
and was given 20 days from the date of the FCC letter to provide a very 
detailed response.

**

ENFORCEMENT:  NO LICENSE - DON'T OPERATE

The town of Reseda, California, is only about 10 miles from the Newsline 
studio.  It's also the place where the FCC alleges that someone has been 
operating a ham radio transmitter without the benefit of being a licensed 
ham.

In a letter to a resident identified as Joseph A. Mosbergen, the FCC says 
that he or someone in his residence has been operating radio-transmitting 
equipment on several Los Angeles area Two Meter Amateur Radio 
repeaters.  The agency warns Mosbergen that this is a violation of it rules 
and will subject him or whoever is proven to be operating to punitive 
action. This could include a fine or imprisonment, as well as seizure of 
any non-certified radio transmitting equipment.  It also tells Mosbergern 
that this is the last warning that he will receive.

**

HAM RADIO BUSINESS:  HEIL TO MARKET CLEAR SPEECH SPEAKER

Turning to the ham radio business scene, word that the NCT Group has 
appointed Heil Sound Limited as its prime worldwide manufacturer and 
distributor of the Clear Speech Speaker system.  Under the terms of the 
deal, Heil Sound will distribute Clear Speech speakers to their present 
amateur radio dealers and commercial broadcast distributors.  Also, the 
Clear Speech speaker will be improved and several new products will be 
brought to the market using the NCT Group technologies.  According to Heil 
Sound these new product models are in development and will be available for 
market by the end of July.  More is on line at www.heilsound.com

**

COMMUNICATIOS NEWS:  DUAL-CORE PROCESSORS ON THE WAY

Tech News reports that Advanced Micro Devices plans to begin selling 
microchips with the equivalent of two microprocessors in one next 
year.  The Sunnyvale, California based company said it plans to offer 
dual-core processors for data-serving business computers in the middle of 
next year, and for high-end home computers in the second half of next year.

Dual-core technology combines the power of two processors in one 
package.  This permits the creation of a more powerful computer and 
increased computation power when multitasking.

Last month, Intel said it would bring dual-core chips to the marketplace in 
2005. That's more than a year ahead of schedule.

**

HAM RADIO BUSINESS:  CW IS GOING STRONG

If you think Morse code is on its way out, the ham radio business community 
probably disagrees with you.  At least that's the impression one gets 
thumbing through the articles in the July issue of CQ Magazine.

Not only are the ads for Morse related products holding steady, but the new 
products area has some reviews of the latest CW related products.  And not 
to be outdone, Dave Ingram, K4TWJ, devotes his World of Ideas column to 
Morse Keys from around the world.

If you are a Morse lover, this is the CQ edition for you.  It's on your 
newsstand now. More information is on the web at www.cq-amateur-radio.com.


**

THE SOCIAL SCENE:  COME TO THE TENNESSEE HAM BREAKFAST

On the ham radio social scene, the Middle Tennessee Ham Breakfast takes 
place at the famed Tennessean Truckstop on the second Saturday of every 
month.  People begin to gather there at about 9 a.m. and it's billed as a 
chance to meet the middle Tennessee hams you may have contacted on the air.

Interested in attending? For full information simply send a note to 
kenbreed at surfmore.net or call Ken, AI4DV at area code 931 – 424 – 9523 
during normal business hours.

(Do Not Read:  Repeater Journal)

**

THE SOCIAL SCENE:  ROANOKE VA. IN JULY

And still in the South, mark down July 31st to attend the annual Roanoke 
Hamfest. This event is sponsored by the Roanoke Valley Amateur Radio Club 
and will be held at William Byrd High School in Vinton, Virginia starting 
at 8 a.m. local time.  Full information on this friendly event is on line 
at w4ca.host4www.com

**

COLOR TV IS CELEBRATING ITS 50TH ANNIVERSARY THIS YEAR

Now for a bit of a history lesson.  Although color TV transmissions were in 
the development stages many years earlier, the broadcast industry is 
celebrating its half century mark this year.  This is because it was 50 
years ago that color broadcasts were initially made available to the 
public.

Now, National Public Radio has posted a story and some interesting 
historical resources at its website.  It is very interesting reading.  That 
URL is in this week's printed Amateur Radio Newsline report.

(www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1789944 (CGC))

**

EMERGING TECHNOLOGY:  NEW DVD PLAYER FILTERS OUT BAD WORDS

Wal-Mart is selling the world's first DVD player that can seamlessly skip 
over violence, swearing, nudity and other potentially offensive movie 
content. The $79 unit features technology by ClearPlay and is manufactured 
by Thomson Inc. under its RCA brand.

The DVD player is the latest development in a legal battle between the Salt 
Lake City-based software company and Hollywood.  Members of the Directors 
Guild of America filed suit against ClearPlay in September 2002, when the 
filtering product was available as a computer program claiming it impinges 
on intellectual and creative rights.  Those legal proceedings are still 
under way in Colorado's 10th District Court. Both sides currently are 
waiting for a ruling on a summary judgment filed by ClearPlay.

**

WORLDBEAT - SLOVAKIA:  FIRST CELLPHONE VIRUS ANNOUNCED

On the international scene word that a group of underground virus writers 
have announced what is believed to be the world's first worm that can 
spread on advanced mobile phones. According to news reports, the worm named 
Cabir, was sent to security software firms in the United States and Russia 
by a member of 29a.

29a is described as a group of virus writers from the Czech Republic and 
Slovakia who pride themselves in creating proof of concept malicious 
viruses. Thankfully, Cabir has been found to have no damaging code attached 
that might destroy files or execute other harmful operations.

**

WORLDBEAT – UK: RSGB QSL BUREAU CHANGE

On a more positive note, word that Marc Litchman, G0TOC is the new RSGB QSL 
Bureau Sub-Manager for the G7AAA through G7ZZZ series of 
callsigns.  Litchman can be reached at 26 Oak Tree Close, Loughton, Essex 
IG10 2RE, in the U-K.

**

WORLDBEAT – NEW ZEALAND:  ZL1AN HONORED FOR EDUCATIONAL WORK

And a word of congratulations to New Zealand's Dr. Gary Bold, ZL1AN.  Bold 
is a physics lecturer at the University of Auckland and he has been awarded 
the Prime Ministers Supreme Prize based in part on his 43 years of 
dedication to teaching.

Bold has taught every course in the physics department, all courses in 
geophysics signal processing and network theory.  He has also devised and 
revised experiments and designed the curriculum for many second and third 
year physics courses.  A dedicated C-W enthusiast, in his spare time he 
writes the NZART Break-In Magazine column "The Morseman."

The presentation was made at the recent 2004 Tertiary Teaching Excellence 
Awards. ZL1AN was one of 12 academics from nine institutions presented with 
awards, each of which brings with it a $30,000 prize.

**

DX

In D-X, word that several O-H prefix operators will be operational from 
Aland Island as OH0I during the CQ Magazine and RTTY Journal RTTY DX 
Contest.  This, from September 25th to the 26th.  They will operate as a 
Multi class 2 entry using multiple beams and vertical arrays on the low 
bands. QSL via OH3BHL.

And keep an ear open in September for RA3AMG from Cyprus.  He will also be 
active in the same contest signing P3B.  QSL via his home callsign.

Lastly, ST2DX will be active from the Sudan until the 10th of July.  Look 
for him mainly on SSB, with some CW, on all bands between 30 and 6 
meters.  QSL this one as directed on the air.


**

THAT FINAL ITEM – HAMMIN' OLDIES ON WBCQ

And finally this week
 who says hams and short wave listeners are nothing 
but a bunch of stuffy old geezers?

The Peacock Project is a group of Internet broadcasters that have banded 
together to present a variety of music eras, styles and talk over WBCQ on 
Saturday nights at 8PM Eastern time, which is Midnight Universal Time, 
Sunday. Named in tribute to one of their group, Rob Peacock, who suddenly 
passed away in January, the show features a different host each week with a 
program that is unique to his own musical preference and personal 
presentation.

The first weekend of every month will feature Dave Kirby's look back at Old 
Time Radio and some non-English language versions of American songs.  The 
second weekend is The Voice of Savage Henry, a 1960's and 70's "Garage 
Band" rock show hosted by Steve Evanchuck, KG8KO.  Tim Gaynor is heard 
directly from Australia on the 3rd week and the 4th week is S teve Coletti, 
aka "Big Steve Cole". Four times a year there is a 5th Saturday to the 
month and on those weekends it is time for "Hollow-State Hound", a show 
scheduled to feature big band music with Mike "The DX Hound".

The broadcasters got together in an odd way, and going on WBCQ's 7415 kHz 
frequency is like going home to where it all started.  A few years ago 
there was a group of ham radio operators who were also listeners to 
shortwave broadcasters and utility stations. Under the umbrella 
organization of the Association Of North American Radio Clubs, (ANARC), 
they would join into a ham traffic net every Sunday morning on 7240 kHz to 
compare their station loggings. While the net still has a lot of good 
memories for those who joined in or only listened in, the group eventually 
disbanded.  The net then moved to an Internet Relay Chat channel that was 
already in existence. To a few die hard members like Dave Kirby, N1DK, the 
discontinuance of the radio net was only a minor setback.  Dave began doing 
weekly reports by way of the Cyber Shortwave real audio file that was 
available for download by anyone. It was at the suggestion of member Pete 
Costello that Dave began doing his presentations as a live interactive 
program by way of sending sound via live365.com and receiving typed 
comments back from listeners via the IRC chat channel.

As loggings and SWL news tapered off, Dave began doing more music and off 
topic bantering. This led the powers that be at the chat room to ask Dave 
to create his own chat room for the show. The kick in the butt turned out 
to be a blessing as now the door was opened for others who wanted to do 
interactive radio using Dave's chat room

We hope that you will enjoy the diversity of programming that these 
enterprising hams and SWLs have created.  The Peacock Project begins July 
3rd on WBCQ at 7415 kHz and your fellow broadcasters, hams and SWLs at the 
Amateur Radio Newsline wish you the best.


**

NEWSCAST CLOSE

With thanks to Alan Labs, AMSAT, the ARRL, the CGC Communicator, CQ 
Magazine, the FCC, the Ohio Penn DX Bulletin, Radio Netherlands, Rain, the 
RSGB and Australia's Q-News, that's all from the Amateur Radio 
Newsline(tm).  Our e-mail address is newsline @arnewsline.org. More 
information is available at Amateur Radio Newsline's(tm) only official 
website located at www.arnewsline.org.  You can also write to us or support 
us at Amateur Radio Newsline(tm), P.O. Box 660937, Arcadia, California 
91066.


Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF, is away on vacation this week, so with Mark 
Abramowicz, N-T-3-V, as my partner this week, I'm Don Wilbanks, AE5DW, 
saying 73 and we thank you for listening." Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) is 
Copyright 2004.  All rights reserved.