RadioBanter - View Single Post

October 6th 03, 01:29 PM

In article ,
(Len Over 21) writes:

In article , Mike Coslo
writes:

Carl R. Stevenson wrote:

"N2EY" wrote in message
...

In article , "Carl R. Stevenson"
writes:

The FCC and Congress see the ARS as a valuable national resource.

I hope they remember that BPL. FCC seems to require a reminder now
and again...

And they are being reminded vis a vis BPL.

Indeed!

The "money" I'm talking about is that represented by all the OTHER
commercial radio services administered by the FCC.

Oh ... why didn't you say that?

This is where the FCC's true mission exists,

The FCC has a Congressional mandate to regulate all of the radio
spectrum "in the public interest, convenience, and necessity" - that
includes the ARS.

Included in that "public interest, convenience and necessity" are economic
concerns. Some perceive that broadband access to the 'net is somehow a
big part
of economic recovery, regardless of what other services get trashed. See
Comm.
Abernathy's remarks on the "Road To Enlightenment" and "Wideband
Nirvana" being BPL. As if!

The problem is the the BPL vendors/organizations apparently "pitched"
BPL to the Commissioners as "the greatest thing since sliced bread,
"the infrastructure already exists" (the wires are there, but they'll have
to spend many millions of ratepayers' money to add all of the couplers,
modems, etc.), and that it would provide a quality, economical competitor
to xDSL and cable modems, all with 'no problems'."

Exactly. And for test purposes at least, FCC bought that pitch.

It's understandable that the Commissioners would get rather excited
at the prospect, BUT they haven't had all of the facts, just hype from
the BPL industry and utilities that are seeing $signs ... despite the fact
that it's a demonstrably crappy business model.

Agreed. You think that after the dotcom bubble burst, they'd be a bit more
skeptical.

The other reason the
Commissioners would get excited is that they simply don't have the
technical background to see the problems without significant education
on the matter ... and, sadly, NONE of the Commissioners has a technical
advisor on their staff ... several legal advisors each, but not a
technical advisor amongst them.

Incredible but true.

NOTE: I am NOT trying to "defend" the FCC's enamourment with BPL,
just explaining how it came to be and what's required to turn it around.

You did a very good encapsulated explanation there, Carl. The "Morning Call"
exposure was solid gold.

One of the odd things about the commissioners however. They must be
able to suspend disbelief pretty easily.

Household and electrical wiring has been around for a long time. And
there's no rocket science to the technology of riding a signal on a line
voltage circuit. Control signals are sent along these wires regularly
and have been for many years.

Yup. Just not at HF

Mike, the "X10" system works at only a few hundred Hz of spectrum.

"X10" is not Access BPL. It's not even In-House BPL

At no time was any part of the US electrical distribution system, home
to generating plant, EVER CHARACTERIZED OR STANDARDIZED
AS R.F. TRANSMISSION LINES OVER A 1 TO 80 MHz FREQUENCY
RANGE!

Why are you shouting, Len? We all know that.

Apparently the Office of Engineering and Technology at the FCC doesn't
understand that yet...?

Maybe not. But they are the 'expert agency" in charge of regulating such
things. Both 'wire' and 'wireless' communications.

I can look out at my neighborhood's electrical distribution system and
see "RF transmission lines" that must vary from several hundred Ohms
to just a few Ohms within the metal conduit of my home.

Ever hear of matching transformers?

That is NOT any sort of "RF transmission medium" that anyone can
expect to work at either smooth, easy, or trouble-free radio frequency
transmission.

Yet it does. BPL works. It just trashes the EM spectrum in the process.

There's discontinuities up the ying-yang there and
wherever there are discontinuities, there is also the danger of even
more radiation (in addition to introducing more attenuation).

Couplers. Matching transformers. Adaptive transceivers. Modern modulations and
codings. Error detection and correction.

So if this was (is) such a good way to send signals, why wasn't the
internet developed this way in the first place?

For the simple reason that it does NOT work very well. :-)

How do you know?

I've got a pair of Phonex through-the-line coupled "modems" that are
supposed to work between two rooms here. It's the second pair over the
counter, the first pair returned because they don't work well. Second
pair is no better.

One good reason why they don't work is that the AC wiring in one room
is on one side of the "double-phase" split from the pole drop and the
outliet
in the other room is on the other side. Neither Phonex or any other of
the
Homeplug group explains that.

Neither Phonex nor Homeplug are Access BPL

I measured an attenuation from the AC outlets better than 30 db from
10 to 80 MHz, 36 db being lower limit of this setup. The attenuation is
probably greater than that. No sense in improving the test setup with
that much attenuation...it is already too great.

For the technology used in those units. part of the reason for their failure is
that they must meet current Part 15 regulations. BPL advocates are trying to
get Part 15 levels raised.

I believe that I am skeptical enough that even if I didn't have a
technical background, that question would pop up pretty quickly when
considering BPL.

The philosophy of FCC seems to be to let them at least try it out rather than
banning it on purely "theoretical" grounds.

Carl, is there any other way that we can aid this fight?

One of the first things to try is to force an explanation of how all the
vaporware BPL systems work.

Why? Do you think they don't work?

NONE of them explain it in enough
detail to make any electronic sense right now. They haven't done so
in any of the prominent electronic trade publications yet...other than
more generalized, non-specific-detail claims. Vaporware.

So if it isn't in one of your magazines, it doesn't exist. Well, Len, that's
simply not the case.

The BPL folks are playing their cards very close for a number of reasons,
including things like:

- there are a number of different methods being tried out
- patents probably pending
- they don't want to help out the opposition and competition

Those BPL folks are *professionals*, remember? They're on record as saying that
*amateurs* are exaggerating the interference. They say, in so many words, that
we amateurs want to hold back "progress".

Why should FCC accept the word of *amateurs* over *professionals*, Len?

Are the *professionals* who came up with Access BPL mistaken?

Tests sites are functioning right now in places like Emmaus, PA. WK3C, W1RFI
and others (including at least one other rrap regular) have visited that test
site for measurement and observation. (See excellent comments to FCC on BPL by
WK3C and ARRL).

BPL isn't vaporware. BPL works. It just trashes the EM spectrum in the
process.