W1RFI
join:2003-05-12
Burlington, CT | reply to moonpuppy
Re: RF Polluter > First off, BPL will NOT serve rural communities. It will
> overlap were DSL, fiber and cable are right now. It
> costs too much to send it out too far.
IBEC is making a business go of selling BPL to rural areas, primarily through helping rural utilities get subsidized RUS loans. The Central Virginia Electic Co-op is building a fairly large commercial system in and around Colleen, VA.
I was just there, and it truly is rural, complete with dirt roads with route numbers and lots of cow pastures. Most of the electric lines run in between farms, so I wasn't able to get to all areas of the system.
While some of the really remote roads may not get BPL, the system there is extended well past the rural-community center of town.
> Second, keeping ham radio only around in crisis is like
> you not doing emergency training until an accident
> happens. Imagine what would happen if Amtrak mandated no
> emergency drills because they take up too much time and
> cost too much.
Few people would invest in ham radio if the only time they could use it was when there was an actual emergency to deal with. Hams put together stations because they get to use them regularly. The fact that when needed, they can sometimes provide the ONLY communication out of a real disaster area is a benefit of the whole package.
Ed
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