Making BPL Play Nice > Why not use PL tones?

reply to dispatcher21

Re: Why not use PL tones?

I thought that what the problem was, sporadic interference? I did not know the interference was constant to the point of them not being able to communicate with their equipment. And yes, I know how PL tones work, we use them on our radios here and they filter out quite a bit of interfernece we get on our fire channel. With the PL tones off, we get a constant buzz and warble, we turn the PL tones on, the noise is completely gone. Whats causing the noise? We guess that its CSEPP across the river but the PL tones solve the problem for now till we can figure it out completely.

HF communications are very different from typical VHF/UHF communications. Squelch is rarely used (and is not even included as a feature in many HF transceivers), as many of the signals are very weak and close to the noise floor.

PL/DCS is really only useful for local VHF/UHF communications where relative signal strength is high and there is no need to pick faint signals out of the muck.
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reply to dispatcher21
All the PL Tone does is tell the radio to "un-mute" when the tone is, for lack of better words, heard. Otherwise, the freq stays squelched. This works great if everyone uses the same freq, the same tone, and you can guarantee that you are in range of the contact without interference being an issue. It also keeps the radio nice and quiet when not being used.

However, when we are talking long distance contacts, which HAMs are more likely to deal with, you can't hear the contact or the tone over the interference, thus nullifying CTCSS tones. This is neglecting the fact that they would be searching for unknown contacts, to begin with. As such, they would not be squelching the radio purposely.

However, I believe what goes to the heart of the issue is that HAMs have to operate within specific guidelines and part of those guidelines is that they do not interfere with others traffic. Yet, at the same time, the FCC was allowing BPL to interfere with theirs, thus narrowing their radio spectrum even further.

reply to dispatcher21

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reply to moonpuppy

They are. They are trying to stop the interference.