[TenTec] BPL and buying an Orion

[G3JAG]

With the US dollar crashing downwards every day it looked like a good time to 
spend the kids' inheritance and come over to collect an Orion, maybe at 
Dayton. But if (when) BPL arrives here, ham radio in my neck of the woods - a 
densely populated city neighborhood - will be stone dead. We already have 
humongous noise levels from crappy electrical gear, TV sets etc etc etc.

But why oh why is BPL not already stone dead ?? Over here everybody knows 
modern broadband down phone lines is superior and much faster, but they are 
busy trialling BPL in a few places where there are (conveniently) no hams and 
precious few folk who need high speed internet anyway.

BPL has nothing going for it technically. And you can bet it will not be 
significantly cheaper. In fact it is the technically least appropriate 
medium, for rural areas, because of the need for multiple repeaters (or 
ginormous RF power levels.

Over here they plan to cover most of our remaining hilltop open countryside 
with huge wind farms to generate a miniscule amount of electric power (but 
only when the wind is blowing !) Why ??.

There is only one answer:  Money. The power companies need it. The politicians 
need it.  All of the hardware costs go straight to the power guys and their 
cronies. Of course, it is OUR money they want. The taxpayers foot the bills, 
but the net benefit to the taxpayers is negative. Net benefit to businessmen 
and their friendly politicians - megabucks.

Of course the truth is that most of us can manage without high speed internet 
access. You can only type so fast and the DXCluster is not rocket science. 

Think I'll hang on to my Omni-V.9 for now.
G3JAG Patent Attorney, professional cynic and amateur Luddite.