Ron, W4WA hit the nail on the head about power line noise. I went to school
with a fellow who graduated in Power Engineering and has worked for Houston
Con Ed for many years. He told me recently that along the gulf coast they
would gave saved billions if they had gone to underground in the 1960's as
they should have. Then the only power lines would be the big cross country
lines and the feeder lines to the underground. Of course, this would have
made BPL harder to implement.
He also told me green poles and concrete are being used more as the old
treated poles require remediation to remove toxic chemicals. The green
poles are also smaller in size. So its all about costs.
At least Riley and the Field Operations Beureau (field offices such as
Atlanta) are trying to get power companies to clean up their lines. This
includes the big power companies under say Duke Power and Southern Company
along with EMC's which as Ron notes are Cooperatives (used to be rural coops
but are now in the suburbs).
On the issue of ingress Ron is betting that the ham will be addressed first.
I remember the ham in the Gainesville area that was deemed clean but still
put on quiet hours. Is this in our future with BPL??
The ARRL is really pushing the FCC on BPL and my insiders in Washington tell
me the FCC is getting tired of the ARRL complaints. They think the ARRL
should work with the BPL suppliers (as they are now) to find solutions as
the FCC and the Federal Government plan on pushing BPL no matter what.
Hopefully notching will get rid of the problems but can they notch
everything? What about other users such as Forest Industries and
Fixed/Mobile? Even DOD at 5Mhz and 8 Mhz among others have had problems and
you can bet the FCC is more interested in fixing those problems than hams.
I don't think BPL will go the way of Little Leo's unless the power companies
can't compete which is a probability.
Dave K4JRB
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