[WIARC] Fw: [SMC] Text of today's WSJ article

[Danny Pease]

More BPL info...

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kurszewski Chad-WCK005" <Chad.Kurszewski@motorola.com>
To: "SMC" <smc@w9smc.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 9:19 AM
Subject: [SMC] Text of today's WSJ article


> > -----Original Message-----
> > You may already receive the WSJ on a daily basis, but 
> > if not, here's
> > the latest front page story regarding BPL, thanks to Rick 
> > Lindquist, N1RL, at ARRL HQ.
> > 
> > 
> >   -----Original Message-----
> > 
> >   In This Power Play, High-Wire Act Riles Ham-Radio Fans
> > 
> >   New Use for Lines Sparks Tension With Operators;
> >   'Firestorm' in Penn Yan
> > 
> >   By KEN BROWN
> >   Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
> >   March 23, 2004; Page A1
> > 
> >   Rick Lindquist drove down a street in a New York City 
> > suburb, ignoring the
> > snow swirling around his car and twirling the dial on the ham 
> > radio mounted
> > to the side of his dashboard. The radio picked up an operator 
> > in Minnesota
> > discussing antennas, the Salvation Army's daily emergency 
> > network check and
> > then the time, as broadcast from Colorado by the National Institute of
> > Standards and Technology.
> > 
> >   As the car turned onto North State Road in the village of 
> > Briarcliff Manor
> > in Westchester County, the voices faded, replaced with whirs 
> > and wahs --
> > what could have been sound effects from a 1950s 
> > science-fiction movie. The
> > source, according to Mr. Lindquist, was right outside the 
> > window: the power
> > lines running alongside the road.
> > 
> >   Owned by Consolidated Edison, the lines transmit not just 
> > electricity but
> > data, much like phone and cable-TV wires. The utility is 
> > testing a system
> > for reading meters, probing for outages and potentially 
> > offering high-speed
> > Internet access to its customers via their electrical outlets. The
> > interference from the power lines "ranges from very annoying to
> > that's-all-I-can-hear," contends Mr. Lindquist, 58 years old, 
> > who often taps
> > out Morse-code messages as he drives.
> > 
> >   In a clash between the dots and dashes of the telegraph and 
> > the bits and
> > bytes of the Web, the nation's vocal but shrinking population 
> > of ham-radio
> > operators, or "hams" as they call themselves, are stirring up 
> > a war with the
> > utility industry over new power-line communications. Hams 
> > have flooded the
> > Federal Communications Commission with about 2,500 letters and e-mails
> > opposing power-line trials. In a letter to the FCC, the 
> > American Radio Relay
> > League, a ham-radio group with 160,000 members, called power-line
> > communications "a Pandora's box of unprecedented proportions."
> > 
> >   The league has raised more than $300,000 from nearly 5,600 
> > donors since
> > last summer, to pay for testing, lobbying and publicity to 
> > spread the word
> > about the perceived threat. A half-dozen hams even confronted 
> > FCC Chairman
> > Michael Powell, a big advocate of the power-line technology, 
> > when he visited
> > a test site near Raleigh, N.C., earlier this month.
> > 
> >   The problem, most ham operators contend, is that power 
> > lines weren't built
> > to carry anything other than electricity. Telephone and 
> > cable-TV lines are
> > either shielded with a second set of wires or twisted 
> > together to prevent
> > their signals from interfering with other transmissions. But 
> > signals sent
> > over electrical wires tend to spill out, the hams contend.
> > 
> >   The FCC and the utilities say new technologies have eliminated the
> > interference and accuse the hams of exploiting the issue for their own
> > gains. "We haven't seen the sun darken and everything 
> > electrical turn to
> > white noise and haze during a deployment," says Matt Oja, an 
> > executive at
> > Progress Energy, whose test Mr. Powell visited. "This is a 
> > fairly vocal
> > group that has been whipped into a frenzy by their organization."
> > 
> >   The controversy comes at a sensitive time for the hams. Not too many
> > decades ago, ham-radio operators were on the cutting edge of 
> > communications
> > technology. They chatted with people in far-flung places at a 
> > time when
> > long-distance calling was still a luxury. They spread word of 
> > disasters that
> > otherwise might have taken days to reach the public. In the 
> > age of e-mail,
> > wireless Internet access and cellphones that double as 
> > walkie-talkies, many
> > operators worry that their hobby will fade away.
> > 
> >   To become a fully licensed ham operator, people still need 
> > to learn Morse
> > code, though that requirement likely will be dropped soon 
> > after more than a
> > decade of debate. Aging hams, who built crystal radio sets as 
> > kids or were
> > radio operators during World War II, are dying. Fewer youngsters are
> > replacing them. Armed with powerful computers, today's young 
> > tinkerers grow
> > up to be tech geeks, playing videogames and writing software.
> > 
> >   The American Radio Relay League has seen its membership 
> > shrink to today's
> > 160,000 from a peak of 175,000 in 1995, and the average 
> > member is in his
> > mid-50s. The group estimates that there are about 250,000 
> > active ham-radio
> > enthusiasts.
> > 
> >   Hams always have been a quirky bunch. They haunt a series 
> > of short-wave
> > radio frequencies set aside for them by the federal 
> > government in the 1930s.
> > Other slices of the spectrum are reserved for AM and FM 
> > radio, broadcast
> > television, cellphones, and police and fire departments, 
> > among other uses.
> > 
> >   Hams take great pride in radioing around the world. One 
> > favorite game:
> > trying to contact someone in each of the 3,000-plus counties 
> > in the U.S. Mr.
> > Lindquist is so enthusiastic about ham radio that he 
> > vacations in spots such
> > as Whitehorse, the capital of Canada's Yukon Territory, so 
> > other hams can
> > claim they made contact with that city.
> > 
> >   Ed Thomas, the FCC's chief engineer, says the commission 
> > has spent a year
> > listening to the hams' concerns about power lines and is 
> > getting frustrated.
> > "Why is this thing a major calamity?" he says. "And honestly, 
> > I'd love the
> > answer to that."
> > 
> >   Companies such as Con Ed and Progress note that current FCC 
> > regulations
> > call for systems to be shut down if they interfere with hams. 
> > The radio
> > operators agree the rules are clear, but they fear they will 
> > be rescinded or
> > not enforced.
> > 
> >   Con Ed says its system in Briarcliff Manor doesn't 
> > interfere with the hams
> > and maintains that, in two years of testing, it hasn't received one
> > complaint. But the American Radio Relay League says it did 
> > mention this
> > system in its letters to the FCC, and it has been complaining 
> > about it on
> > its Web site.
> > 
> >   The hams have been quick to act wherever systems are being 
> > rolled out.
> > Just days after Penn Yan, a town of 5,200 that sits amid New 
> > York's Finger
> > Lakes, approved a plan to test power-line Internet access, 
> > "the firestorm
> > started with the ham-radio operators -- letters, e-mails, 
> > telephone calls
> > saying, 'You can't do this,' " recalls Mayor Doug Marchionda Jr.
> > 
> >   Hoping to keep everyone happy, he approached David Simmons, 
> > a local ham
> > and owner of an electronics store that sells radio gear. They 
> > surveyed the
> > town before the trial began to get base readings of 
> > interference. They even
> > pinpointed a spot that had bothered police and firefighters for years,
> > tracing it to refrigerators at a local supermarket.
> > 
> >   With the refrigerators fixed and the power-line system in 
> > place over nine
> > blocks of Penn Yan, Mr. Simmons is satisfied that there is no 
> > interference
> > and now favors the new technology. "This thing has caught 
> > quite a buzz," he
> > says. "It's just so much negativity out there."
> > 
> >   Tom Gius, a ham-radio operator in Alpine, Texas, sees the 
> > power lines as a
> > threat to the public services that hams provide. When hailstorms sweep
> > through each spring, Mr. Gius heads to the local radio 
> > station, while other
> > hams fan out to the north, south, east and west. They 
> > communicate by radio,
> > and Mr. Gius passes information to the radio station. "We 
> > won't be able to
> > understand each other, it'll be so noisy," frets Mr. Gius, a 
> > 60-year-old
> > retired broadcaster.
> > 
> > 
> > 
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