[TenTec] BPL trials

[Rob Atkinson, K5UJ]

This is not good news to me.  If I were on a huge tract of land and could 
easily
place my antennas hundreds of feet from any power line I guess I'd be a bit
relieved.  However, being located in a city, I have three separate sets of 
lines
no more than 200 feet from my lot and one cuts right across my front yard.
The BPL people are going to have to do a lot better than this if they want
me to go away.

Rob Atkinson
K5UJ


<<<<There was a very comprehensive article about this in the most recent 
South
Eastern Repeater Association's Repeater Journal magazine. Several of the
SERA ham's were involved in the recent BPL testing conducted in the Raleigh,
NC area. They were working with officials from both Progress Energy and the
BPL equipment vendors and a couple hams who work for Progress Energy. The
testing they did used both overhead and underground lines. The hams used
mobile and fixed stations to monitor the BPL signals. For the overhead
segments, they heard signals between 25 and 29 MHZ. The mobiles heard
signals at S-9 near the lines but it fell off quickly as they drove away and
was barely audible at 400 feet away from the lines. A fixed station about a
mile away using an 80 meter dipole heard the 10 meter BPL about S-6. A ham 5
miles away with a big beam on a 100 foot tower heard no signal.
On the underground segments, they reported signals between 10 and 15 MHZ.
The signals were reported to be much weaker, and were audible only within
100 feet of the above ground pedestal.
They reported on a quick transmit test to see the effects on the BPL
signals. A 5 watt FM signal on 29.6 MHZ completely disrupted the BPL signal,
but a 100 watt FM signal only caused a momentary blip. A 100 watt CW carrier
on 40 meters had no effect on the 10 meter BPL signal.
It seems the BPL equipment is very frequency agile and is able to quickly
jump around anywhere in the HF spectrum as needed.
The bright spot in all this is that they report the power company and BPL
providers are very cooperative and seem genuinely concerned about the
possibility of causing interference to ham and emergency communications and
are considering ways they can avoid or eliminate interference.
My hat is off to the SERA for their involvement in the testing and to editor
Gary Pearce, KN4AQ for writing such an informative article. I just wish they
would put some of the material on their website so other hams could enjoy
it.>>>>

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