W1RFI wrote:

Wonder how much BPL garbage that setup would pick up?


My guess is about S7 at 100 feet spacing between houses, on frequencies that
BPL was using. That is assuming they didn't crank up the power to meet Part 15
limits so they could go farther and/or have more immunity to noise.


A question arises - 30 m from what? If every piece of house wiring has the
BPL
signals on it, in many locations you cannot get 30 meters away.


Correct. The limit is for 30 meters distance. There are cases where it can't
be measured there, and the FCC allows measurements to be made at other
distances, and extrapolated to 30 meters. But here's the kicker -- they allow
the extrapolation at a 40log(distance ratio), unlike virtually every other
country in the world. That translates to an inverse-to-the-fourth power ratio.
Think any of the Part 15 guys make measurements at 3 meters that COULD be made
at 30 meters, just to gain that extra 20 dB?


Is there stock equipment for BPL yet? Or could they be using prototypes?


At this point, PPL is going commercial in the Allentown area. I have offered
several times to show them exactly what they are getting themselves into, but
their BPL engineer does not answer my email.

That is kinda' odd, because if I were about to invest millions of dollars and a
national organization came along and told me that there was a major problem
with it, then offered to drive 200 miles to show me, I think I would want to
hear what they had to say and would find an hour's time.

Any PPL shareholders here? :-)

73,
Ed Hare, W1RFI

Has anyone addressed the security issues with BPL? If BPL radiates from
the powerlines, what is to keep some savy hacker from receiving those
signals and with a little bit of software engineering they could read
your email, get your passwords and see everything you do on the
internet. I remember back in my days in the computer industry, long
before the internet, one of the big defense contractors did this very
thing. They discovered that enough signal radiated from the coaxial
cable between the main frame and dumb terminals they could pick the
signals up some distance outside the building and see everything going
on on every terminal. Should be even easier with the amount of radiating
that BPL will do.