[RFI] HDTV: Plasma vs LCD

[Eddy Swynar]

On 2012-12-26, at 11:30 AM, Dale Svetanoff wrote:

> Actually, an incident along the lines of what you say actually did happen to the FCC itself a number of years ago in the Chicago area.
>  
> Up until late 1999, I lived in the far NW Chicago suburbs and commuted to work in some of the closer-in suburbs.  Back in the mid-1980's, I happened to pass by an office building complex in Park Ridge, IL, as part of my daily commute and one day, I noticed a short tower had been erected on the roof of one building, around 3 or 4 stories high, as I recall.  Shortly afterward, a number of antennas, including a VHF/UHF log periodic, several discones, and a few VHF verticals were installed on that tower.  I thought it all to be interesting, but had no clue as to the owner/user of the tower and antennas.
>  
> The radio club to which I belonged at that time just happened to meet in Park Ridge.  One club meeting night, we had a speaker from the Chicago office of the FCC come and discuss various issues related to ham radio with the club.  That is when I learned that the FCC Chicago office had relocated from downtown Chicago to this office building in Park Ridge.  Disaster for them!
>  
> The FCC engineers had done an RFI study at the site prior to signing the lease.  The site seemed quiet enough for their purposes (the field office plus monitoring the local area VHF/UHF spectrum).  About 6 months elapsed from the time of the RFI study to the FCC actually moving in.  When they got the antennas all connected to the matching receivers, they got an earful, literally - all junk!
>  
> During that 6 month waiting time, a bank had opened for business in that same building.  The FCC engineers quickly found that the bank's Part 15 Class A devices were as horrible as any I've ever heard (while driving past banks and service stations).  The monitoring function of their new office site was laid to waste and they had to go find a new place to locate what would then become a remote monitoring site. 
>  
> So, while this was critical to FCC, it wasn't a national emergency.  However, they were done in by their own rules and regs.  I laughed for weeks over that one, until I realized that we taxpayers probably would be paying out even more money for the monitoring site, now that a separate location would be needed. 
>  
> Yes, the antennas and tower came down a few weeks afterward.  I never did learn where the new monitoring site was located.  
>  



Hi Dale,

That's really quite the story...! In that instance the "...tail actually wagged the dog" for a change---too bad the powers-that-be never learned much from the experience, though...

I recall keeping-up with all of the dialogue a few short years ago over that broad banding / internet stuff that "they" were trying to shove down everyone's collective throat in the USA ("High-speed internet to rural areas everywhere!")---remember that? And how the ARRL presented petition upon petition for the FCC to reconsider implementing this disaster in light of documented scientific facts. And yet the then-FCC director's behaviour in light of it all was akin to his being no more than a corporate shill for the technology. I found his "...deaf, dumb, and blind" stance in the face of reality to be unconscionable, in light of the man's position of supposedly protecting "the public domain", such as it was. I could hardly believe my eyes...

But we here in The Great White North are no better with our Industry Canada "leadership": they have effectively tossed the Amateur into the four winds when it might come to antenna ordinances, having deferred some years ago their authority over antenna restrictions to petitions of residents in the neighbourhood who might object to the sight of a radio tower in their presence...and their "support" of Canadian Hams on the receiving-end of RFI is deplorable.

The dumbing-down of our North American society continues unabated---indeed, it is AIDED and abetted, both, by those very entities that we support through our tax dollars.

~73~ de Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ