[TenTec] FCC rules, BPL, side effects

Wed, 10 Mar 2004 13:02:00 -0700

I wonder if the manufacturers of amateur radio gear have even thought about
the effect of BPL on amateur radio?????? And more specifically , I am right
now on the fence to buy a new Orion , and the last major considerations  is
, Will it be a useless piece of equipment in three or four years ????? How
many other potential customers feel the same way ?????

I already have to pick spots between illegal operators , between touch lamps
, horizontal oscillator radiation ,or whatever other piece of RF emitting
junk appears in the neighborhood ...

RFI is so bad now that even TV channels 3 , 4 and 5 at my house are not
pleasant to watch ... and I have had local power company out three times
with no solution .. even though I can point out the two poles with BC loop
antennas and  aircraft am receivers with dipoles .But again I fight a losing
battle because almost everyone else is on cable and does not see this
pollution.

I have basically had to give up on another hobby , Astronomy, because of
light pollution , now ham radio is threatened with more pollution.

Our best , or maybe only , shot may be to get manufacturers involved ???

Sorry for the philosphy , I will shut up now .

Hank K7HP

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kenneth Stringham" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2004 3:38 AM
Subject: Re: [TenTec] FCC rules, BPL, side effects

> Hi,
>
> I did raise this issue in an e-mail that I sent
> Commissioner Abernathy. She made a statement before an
> industry association that indicates to me that the FCC
> will entertain any technology and provide space for it
> if there is sufficient money in the package. In fact,
> I got the distinct inpression that this set of
> commissioners believes that the service allocation
> stategy, that has been in use since the advent of
> radio regulation, is outdated and prevents deployment
> of promising new technologies.
>
> I think you must face the fact that licensed services
> and frequency allocations for them are real problem
> for an industry that is spectrum hungry.
>
> There is another under lying thing I see here. I think
> this commission believes that licensed services that
> the lower frequencies are a waste land. Most of the
> services that use these frequencies can be accomodated
> in the satellite services and many have already moved
> into the higher frequencies to avoid the problems
> variations in propagation bring. Those services that
> remain will just be authorized higher power to
> overcome the interference and we amateurs will follow
> suit by abandoning QRP activies and resort to higher
> power as well.
>
> You could take this as a challenge. This could
> encourage us to develop technologies to defeat the
> interference. We could also take our QRP work to
> higher frequencies too.
>
> They only thing that can be said for QRP, and this is
> the challenge that I like, is this permits minimal
> communication that may save lives in a disaster. This
> is not a problem for the commission because in that
> situation, BPL will not be working anyway. We can
> still develop equipment and test in locally, we just
> will not have the satisfaction of working over very
> long distances.
>
> Do you really think the Commission is concerned about
> us? I think not. In fact, I think that they would
> eliminate us, should International Treaties be changed
> to enable it.
>
> There are two NOI presently active concerning spectrum
> within this government. One covering government
> services and the other domestic services. The tone of
> these NOI indicates to me that the commission and NTIA
> are looking to apply spectrum efficiency to determine
> who is allocated spectrum. Can we be said to be
> spectrum efficient?
>
> I have seen, in print, the cry for changes to the way
> spectrum is allocated. There are hundreds, if not
> thousands, of new ideas that require spectrum out
> there that are not being implemented because the
> present allocation tables do not provide a place for
> them and they are looking to change the way spectrum
> is parsed out.
>
> I think I've said enough for now, but we can not sit
> back. We need to make our voices known and our
> interests must be voiced.
>
> Ken
>
> AE1X:kes
>
> --- [email protected] wrote:
> > One BPL problem that hasn't been mentioned yet is
> > that QRP has become popular, and the majority run
> > relatively low power on HF (<5W QRP, 20W Argosy V,
> > 50W Century21/Argosy 525, 100W most others). If BPL
> > is allowed anywhere, it will propagate just as our
> > signals do, and to make ourselves heard, more of us
> > will step up our power levels to overcome the noise,
> > so we can make contacts - per the FCC rules, we use
> > no more power than is necessary to communicate - BPL
> > will force us to use more power, so we'll be causing
> > more RFI to our neighbors, just trying to be heard
> > over the BPL noise. So BPL will cause higher local
> > RF levels wherever hams are, even if the BPL isn't
> > the one causing the high RF level in those
> > locations, it will be the hams raising their power
> > to be heard elsewhere. Can someone explain this
> > clearly to the FCC ?
> >
> > Fred Wagner, KQ6Q
> > _______________________________________________
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> > [email protected]
> > http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/tentec
>
>
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