Michael Lawson wrote:
"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...

John S. wrote:

Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:


In article , Mike Terry wrote:


Why are there so few on topic postings on this newsgroup? Is

shortwave dying

like stamp collecting and other hobbies of the past?

Yes, and Google has invested $100,000,000 to kill it. Boycott

Google if

you want to keep listening to shortwave radio.



Huh??? Where did you get that notion. Please tell us what project

to

kill shortwave google is investing $100,000 in. And what could
possibly be their motivation.



Google dumped $10Million into BPL, which, it is feared, in most

areas,

may end HF listening.


Doesn't mean it will succeed, tho. 10 Mil to Google is a
drop in the bucket.

--Mike L.





BPL has not been of checkered success in other countries. But FCC has
made a commitment to it. Short of a sudden burst of good sense, they're
not likely to back down, especially with the enormous commercial money
being poured into it.

My question is: How does BPL perform with electrical noise on the
same line. The further out a line runs from the hub, the more noise it
can pick up from switching, appliances, other electronic devices. We're
all familiar with the huge noise output of an SCR dimmer. That's because
of the enormous switching generated by the On/Off switching of the SCR.
Since BPL is targeting rural users, where Edison can run on very long
lines which are more susceptible to picking up, and radiating noise from
high current transients, transients of surprisingly rich harmonic
content, how's this going to affect digital devices taking down data
bursts which may contain harmonics from these switching transients? Even
modems are affected by low level noise on the line, which can create
errors, and eventually disconnections. AC lines can be dramatically
more noisy.


I don't hold out a great deal of hope for the commercial success of
BPL, but I don't suspect anyone in a position to change things will
admit that until the damage HF usage has been compromised.