[Yaesu] It looks like BPL is being offered in Manassas, VA

[waltah@earthlink.net]

Pete Markavage wrote:

> ARRL has been very proactive over this issue. 

I've been a long time critic of the ARRL but I have to say they seem 
to have done the right thing on this one.   They haven't had much 
effect because this is the Bush administration -- "if it can be strip 
mined at a profit, go for it," regardless of the law.   

The astonishing thing to me is that there's not a ripple yet on the 
placid pond of ham radio.   Looks to me like if your neighbors get this 
service, you're out of HF ham radio, period.   Yet in maybe four hours 
average daily listening on 80-40-20, I have yet to hear the topic 
mentioned.   We get all hot about changes in license requirements or 
the possible loss of a smidgeon of spectrum but the planned sinking 
of the whole ship doesn't seem to bother us.   

I don't think we should plan on commercial and military services 
carrying our water on this one.   My guess is it's gonna be a lot 
worse for folks with an urban power line (serving many BPL users) 
located near their antenna and that's not typical for the big boys.

I look for this to get really ugly and the further it goes before it's 
beaten, the uglier it will be.   Right now the money involved is all 'by 
and by', but if a bunch of these systems get going, it'll be quadjillion 
dollar lawsuits in every direction.   Businesses formed to make 
money from an innovation cannot back down, the FCC has no 
incentive to -- indeed, the incentives for them are evidently to press 
ahead.   (Chairman Powell's post-FCC career plans probably would 
give us the tip-off.)  That leaves the Congress and the courts.   
Courts generally defer to regulatory agencies.

Enterprising (surely there's a more precise word, but I can't think of 
it) hams doubtless will explore countermeasures ... I suppose even a 
small transceiver loaded up on the power lines would have some  
effect on neighborhood modems.   A series-tuned circuit in one or 
more outlets might help the situation on one band at some expense 
to signal levels at local modems.  I don't see that being good for the 
hobby.  As I say, very, *very* messy.   Let's hope the thing can be 
strangled at an early stage.

I wouldn't have thought this idea was even worth exploring -- carrier 
current systems have been around from before WW-II and never 
amounted to much.   I guess that digital techniques boost the s/n 
enough to make it workable.

Walt Hutchens
KJ4KV