[Scan-DC] Digital tv/radio

[Andrew Clegg]

There is quite a bit of noise, but NRAO (which is a facility funded by my
agency, the National Science Foundation) administers a 13,000 square mile
National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ) that surrounds our Green Bank observatory
in West Virginia. Unfortunately, not all of our radio astronomy facilities
are protected by such a quiet zone, so we have to coordinate the best we
can. Arecibo, for example, is on the radio-noisy island of Puerto Rico. By
the way, the recent rules for TV "white space" devices forbid such devices
from operating on channel 37, and severely restricted out-of-band emissions
for those operating on channels 36 or 38. As far as regular TV stations go,
we carefully monitor proposed changes to the TV allotment table in case
someone tries to put up a channel 36 or 38 near one of our observatories.

The medical telemetry devices are only used in hospitals, and are for
relaying patient data such as heart rate and respiration to central
monitoring stations in the hospital. This allows monitoring of vital signs
without the patients being tethered to electronics boxes, so they can walk
around for example. When a hospital wants to install such a system, they go
through a frequency coordinator, who notifies us, and we analyze the
proposed system to make sure it won't interfere with any of our
observatories operating on channel 37.

Wes Sizemore, the subject of the Wired piece, is our RFI guy at Green Bank.
He gets to spend most of his time with scanners and spectrum analyzers,
seeking out signals that violate the Quiet Zone rules. This would be a dream
job for a scanner enthusiast!

The observatory is remote (on purpose), and is a 4.5 hour drive (if you
drive fast) from DC, and it's not a particularly easy drive (lots of
mountain roads). But it's a cool place. I'll be out there the week of June
24 - 30th, if anyone wants to pop by for an insider's tour. Cell phones and
pagers do not work out there, and transmitting devices are strictly
forbidden at the observatory!

Cheers!
Andy

-----Original Message-----
From: scan-dc-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:scan-dc-bounces at mailman.qth.net]On Behalf Of b_thom at juno.com
Sent: Monday, March 02, 2009 3:57 PM
To: Scan-DC at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [Scan-DC] Digital tv/radio


-- "Andrew Clegg" <w4jecom at w4je.com> wrote:
... low-power medical telemetry devices that must coordinate with the radio
astronomy service....
-----------------

Sounds like a story. What would they be?

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