Fractenna wrote:

If BPL is trashing the bands, it will make it that much more difficult
to receive HF broadcasts, and HF Amateur transmissions, which will
tend to get people away from HF. They won't want to put up with the
interference. Bad idea.

-SSB


How can you be on CB and say that no one puts up with interference? Also, the
actual number of hams affected is probably very small, so the point is
interesting but probably better posed in the context of :"if we don't get
novices again, with no code privileges, then..."

73,
Chip N1IR.

CB is intended for short range communications, under 120 miles. Rarely
will a legal station be able to transmit much more than 20 miles, when
the hash and trash aren't throwing their deadkeys and noise toys.
Completely different subject.

Chip, you probably haven't been out driving around in the areas they
were testing BPL, while trying to work a net. You can hear, literally,
the "motorboating" from BPL interference 40-50 miles away from a test
area. By the time you're within 10 miles of a test area, the noise
from the BPL (different from magnesium lights and other urban noise
sources) is close to 20db over S9.. making working the net nigh-on
impossible. We're talking, minimum, a 100 mile radius around a BPL
test site where the interference from BPL makes Amateur HF
communications, at a minimum, extremely difficult, and at worst,
impossible.

Now, mind you, this is receiving from a "compromise" antenna. I've
tried switching types from my 40-foot, ICOM AH-4, tuned looped
longwire, to Hustler "dummy loads", to Hamstick whips, to Iron Horse
whips, to 102" SS whips tuned with LDG tuners, on the 10, 20, 40, 75,
and 80 meter bands. ALL of them were affected to varying degrees, but
none were affected so little as to make communications in these areas
possible.

So your contextual assumptions do not apply to this situation in the
least. IMHO, BPL is a bad for the Amateur community, and for emergency
communications in general.

The interference on CB is a completely different story.

-SSB