[CQ-Contest] Article on BPL

[Doug Smith W9WI]

On Wed, 2004-05-26 at 23:33, George Harlem W1EBI wrote:
> I can't help reading this as an eerie parallel to the flawed technology
> of BPL and the political clout of the electric power industry in
> reaching the White House with its own pitiful pursuit of diversification
> into Internet services.

Amen.

Unfortunately some of us saw it coming.  This is not the first blatantly
lobbyist-based piece of radio-related action to come out of the
government recently.

- IBOC, where the "guard bands" between broadcasting channels are to be
used to stuff digital signals - in places where receivers expect to find
brief bursts of splatter, not 100%-duty-cycle data signals.  Massive
interference to adjacent AM frequencies is already proven but they're
going to go ahead with it anyway.

- LPFM, where Congress ruled that a low-powered FM transmitter will
interfere with a station 600KHz away if it airs programs produced at a
local studio.  But if the transmitter relays the programs of some other
station, received via satellite link, it can operate within 400KHz (and
at more than double the power) without causing interference.  

<sentence I'm VERY tempted to type deleted here>
-- 
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN  EM66
http://www.w9wi.com