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| reply to dynodb
Re: Fcc listening? said by dynodb:said by Tzale:There isn't anything cooler than being able to chat with someone around the world, at random, never knowing who you will get... Um... you just described the Internet  Sorry, just jerking your chain; I don't get the whole ham radio thing, but whatever makes you happy. Still, one does have to question how much new broadband technology should be limited because it has a minor impact on a handfull of hobbyists in a given area. Amateur Radio uses less than 10% of the spectrum potentially affected by BPL. The rest of the users are government, military, maritime, aeronautical, and international shortwave. Regardless if ham radio is involved, the wireless spectrum is a natural resource that we should preserve.
A lot of folks don't get what ham radio is about, but it's more than just talking to people. You can learn quite a bit about electronics and communications in studying for the tests or in daily practice, some of it rivaling what you would learn at a two year technical school. It's the only licensed FCC service where you can design, build, or modify your own equipment. While much of the communications is analog modes on shortwave frequencies, you can get into digital modes and there are about 40 Amateur Radio satellites in orbit. There's a public service / emergency communications component as well. It's much more than the CB like or chat room image many people have. | |
PDXPLT
join:2003-12-04
Banks, OR | said by rf_engineer: Amateur Radio uses less than 10% of the spectrum potentially affected by BPL. The rest of the users are government, military, maritime, aeronautical, and international shortwave. Regardless if ham radio is involved, the wireless spectrum is a natural resource that we should preserve. The counter argument however, is that most of the time, in most places, that spectrum is going unused: no one is broadcasting on it, and/or no one is listening (e.g., maritime frequencies far from water).
In the minds of those advocating "spectrum policy reform", if it is unused, it is being wasted. Just statically allocating chunks of spectrum for certain permanent, fixed uses, because in the 1930's there was no way to make radios and other devices "smart" and flexible, is an anchronism, they say. They argue that accounting for modern technology that can do things like detect the location of a device, access a database of licensees, listen for spectrum occupation, etc., the utilization of spectrum can be increased. Spectrum, by the way, that remains the property of the American people (in the U.S., at least), even when a license is granted to certain entities.
Go to the FCC website and do a search on "Spectrum Policy Task Force Report" for more background, and and insight into where spectrum regulation is going. The old "Command and Control" model of exclusive licensees is going away. You're already seeing the first steps of this: The recent unlicensed allocation in the 3700 MHz band, previously only used by satellite base stations on the east and west coasts. The FCC figured that unlicensed devices could now be built that would be smart enough to figure out if they are anywhere near these base stations. Another example: the 5 GHz Wi-FI devices that now operate in a band allocated to military radar, provided that they check for a rader signal first. Another example is the NPRM on operation of unlicensed devices in TV channels that aren't being used locally (the only real chance for rural broadband, IMHO).
When it comes ot BPL, most of the notorious problems have been centered around Mannassas, and a couple of trials from one particular equipment provider. And they've been such jerks about it by not fixing things. It's unfortunate. I've talked to a utility guy that say they've been doing it for years, quietly, just not for internet access, and with a carefully engineered balanced transmitter, not the cheap single-ended lossy ground return system used in the noisey deployments (which is used because it's cheap and easy). And there have been no interference complaints in Cinncinati, either. If no licensed users are complaining, by definition there can be no "harmful interference" as defined by the FCC. "harmful interference" requires that a licensed user be actually interfered with in a material manner, not just the theoretical possibility of interference. | |
RayWPremium
join:2001-09-01
Layton, UT
kudos:1 | PDXPLT, your point about the power companies using BPL for years left out one minor detail - that version is very low bandwidth and power compared the internet version, and as such does not pollute the MF/HF bands.
I wonder what will happen if internet BPL gets big in the US and deploys all over the place and then the sunspot cycle peaks and the interference jams other countries that still heavily use the HF bands. Then what is to be done?
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I am not lost, I find myself every time. | |
| reply to PDXPLT
said by PDXPLT:said by rf_engineer: Amateur Radio uses less than 10% of the spectrum potentially affected by BPL. The rest of the users are government, military, maritime, aeronautical, and international shortwave. Regardless if ham radio is involved, the wireless spectrum is a natural resource that we should preserve. The counter argument however, is that most of the time, in most places, that spectrum is going unused: no one is broadcasting on it, and/or no one is listening (e.g., maritime frequencies far from water). In the minds of those advocating "spectrum policy reform", if it is unused, it is being wasted. Just statically allocating chunks of spectrum for certain permanent, fixed uses, because in the 1930's there was no way to make radios and other devices "smart" and flexible, is an anchronism, they say. They argue that accounting for modern technology that can do things like detect the location of a device, access a database of licensees, listen for spectrum occupation, etc., the utilization of spectrum can be increased. Spectrum, by the way, that remains the property of the American people (in the U.S., at least), even when a license is granted to certain entities. Go to the FCC website and do a search on "Spectrum Policy Task Force Report" for more background, and and insight into where spectrum regulation is going. The old "Command and Control" model of exclusive licensees is going away. You're already seeing the first steps of this: The recent unlicensed allocation in the 3700 MHz band, previously only used by satellite base stations on the east and west coasts. The FCC figured that unlicensed devices could now be built that would be smart enough to figure out if they are anywhere near these base stations. Another example: the 5 GHz Wi-FI devices that now operate in a band allocated to military radar, provided that they check for a rader signal first. Another example is the NPRM on operation of unlicensed devices in TV channels that aren't being used locally (the only real chance for rural broadband, IMHO). When it comes ot BPL, most of the notorious problems have been centered around Mannassas, and a couple of trials from one particular equipment provider. And they've been such jerks about it by not fixing things. It's unfortunate. I've talked to a utility guy that say they've been doing it for years, quietly, just not for internet access, and with a carefully engineered balanced transmitter, not the cheap single-ended lossy ground return system used in the noisey deployments (which is used because it's cheap and easy). And there have been no interference complaints in Cinncinati, either. If no licensed users are complaining, by definition there can be no "harmful interference" as defined by the FCC. "harmful interference" requires that a licensed user be actually interfered with in a material manner, not just the theoretical possibility of interference. I'm all for use/reuse of spectrum, when it makes sense. BPL "using" spectrum is like a factory "using" a body of water by polluting it. "Smart" devices that are broadbanded using HF radio spectrum is problematic due to ionspheric propagation which is continually changing and the fact that communications on these bands can often take place with signal levels just slightly above the noise floor. VHF, UHF, and microwave are a different story.
There are good deployments of BPL that have addressed the interference issues, as you cite. However the rules and the FCC's inaction have allowed less technically adept vendors to continue operating systems that if deployed on a wide scale would effectively mean the end of HF communications in the US. Despite the "no harmful interference" rules that protect licensees, the FCC has setup the process to be so slow, clumsy, and unresponsive that in practice it will never work for licensees and will ultimately result in BPL overrunning spectrum. This is if BPL were actually successful and deployed en masse. Will it happen? I don't think it will if you're just looking at Internet access BPL. Grid management is another story; this totally changes the business model for BPL. While you are correct that the FCC can't act on theoretical interference issues, when BPL talking heads are talking theoretically about covering the entire US with BPL in every outlet and are in a trial stage, the theoretical issues that would result have to be fully researched. This research hasn't been fully completed by the FCC and what has been done has essentially been ignored. Even the NTIA's phase two report was never completed or at least it was never publically released. This was to determine if BPL devices deployed on a mass scale would result in increasing the noise floor. The theory in their first report is that this probably wouldn't be an issue until millions of devices were deployed. But one has to ask, how do you recall millions of consumer Part 15 devices and network elements after you realize you have a problem? | |
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