[TenTec] BPL suit

[Ken Brown]

>
>
>>   a 500
>> million-one Billion (pick a number) dollar class action suit that 
>> involved
>
>
> Whoa, where do you get this number?  

100,000 Amateurs with $5,000 investment each, in HF/ low VHF equipment, 
which BPL makes unusable would be 500 million. I do not know whether a 
class action suit is the way to go. However, HF spectrum and it's unique 
charactersitics are not provided by the government. It is provided by 
the laws of nature/physics/god whatever. It has been decided in our 
system that our government assigns the "privilege" to use these nature 
given resources only to those who use the spectrum within the manmade 
(government made) rules, either by license or part 15 or other 
non-license methods. Within this set-up it could be argues that the 
government does not have the right to make our investment in equipment 
valueless by revoking our privileges with out due process. Allowing BPL 
to jam HF into unusability would be  effectively a revocation of 
privileges. There may be cases where this has already been done, when 
spectrum is reassigned and equipment becomes obsolete as a result. I 
know that the FM broadcast band has had various incarnations, as well as 
some of the TV broadcast channels. Spark was outlawed, making spark 
transmitters obsolete. This was done for sound technical reasons, and 
the same reasons make BPL a candidate for being banned.