Hello fellow hams .. here is the reply I sent to the author of the item on
MSN that was discussed here.
http://equipped.msn.com/article.aspx?aid=4
I could have added more, but hope I got my point across! 73 ... Mark,
AA6DX
-------------------------
RE: BPL
David, you don't know me, and before today I did not know of you. I
read your MSN article about Broadband over Power Line, and found it quite
well written, as far as it went. But, you, either by design or by purpose,
failed to report that the technology has some serious down sides. One
obvious one for the user... what happens when the power goes out? That
occurs a lot more than your telephone line going down (I use DSL and can
communicate with the Internet via battery power in that situation). And, if
you are using the Internet as a telephone provider, that would be a major
problem. BPL subscribers, under current FCC rules (Part 15) will be
susceptible to a wide range of interference from other services, and have no
protection from that, because BPL is an unlicensed service!
I spent quite a few years of my life in the radio broadcast industry, as
a Chief Engineer, and in management. I have also worked the 2-way commercial
radio business, for government (USAF SAC,Army, USCG) and commercial users.
I have been involved in Amateur Radio for over forty years, so I feel
qualified to address this situation.
The effect of the power line radiation which is inherent in this method
has been proven to be unacceptable because of its interference with existing
radio services sharing the radio spectrum. Other countries have
experimented, and concluded that the effect on the other users was
unacceptable. Affected radios include military, high frequency aircraft
communications, public safety services, marine radios, two-way HF users
(rural Alaska is a prime example of this usage), MARS stations that provide
our armed forces men and women a way to call home, and the list goes on.
The United Nations is a major user of high frequency communications, you
may have noticed the large Log Periodic beam antennas at the UN
installations world-wide. And, I might add, just because there is a distance
from the BPL power company's lines to a receiver does NOT mean that the
possibility of interference is nil. Atmospheric conditions can be such that
the interfering noise can be propagated for quite a long ways, perhaps
thousands of miles over continents and oceans! Amateur Radio operators
regularly communicate using QRP (exceptionally low power, down to
thousandths of a watt) to make contacts many miles away. I am sure that you
are aware of the "skip" that can be prevalent on the 11 meter Citizen Band,
where 4 watt and under radios can be heard across the USA, and even from
other countries!
As a quite active member of the ham radio community, which in the USA
has hope you will review this situation, and include a more balanced
presentation in future articles. As a matter of fact, the MSN one deserves
a follow up, in my opinion.
There are those who can provide a much further in-depth examination of
the situation than I. Please take a listen to the audio files on this
below, on the American Radio Relay League website, where you can hear for
yourself the disrupting nature of BPL. I am a life member of the ARRL.
There are many interesting items for your perusal!
http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/HTML/plc/
Here is the FCC's rose-colored glasses information. It pretty much is like
what you wrote.
http://www.fcc.gov/broadband/
President Bush is in the mix, please read this:
http://www.remote.arrl.org/news/stories/2004/04/27/1/?nc=1
As pointed out by another ham, you did not address the thousands of wireless
broadband service providers already doing a job that should be recognized in
the "mix".
Thank you for reading my letter. If you email me for more information, I
will be glad to me of assistance.
Mark Nelson Amateur Radio Station AA6DX
<address removed>
aa6dx@arrl.net
http://home.pacbell.net/aa6dx
cc:msn
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