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

Wed, 24 Mar 2004 20:25:48 -0600

Danny:  I just sent this article to the BPL committee.  It's interesting
isn't it?   Quirky?  Us?  Nah.

Sue Mitchell
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Danny Pease" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2004 8:08 PM
Subject: [WIARC] Fw: [SMC] Text of today's WSJ article

> More BPL info...
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Kurszewski Chad-WCK005" <[email protected]>
> To: "SMC" <[email protected]>
> 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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