"scott"
If people need internet in rural area...

"If..." ?? Geesh moo, excuse me.

...let them dial in like I do.

1) www.wildblue.com
Two-way satellite coming mid-2005+/-. Anik F2 is up now.

2) Wi-Max
Huge range and very high speed. Coming soon to a tower near you, or even not
so near.

3) Also, advanced DSL can now reach much further and faster.

"Dee D. Flint" wrote in message ...
"Theplanters95" wrote in message
...
I have an unanswered question about BPL. Where I live has a very old
power
line system, full of splices and corrosion. How will splices affect the
1) the
internet signal and 2) RFI?

Randy ka4nma

The internet signal will be crappy and subject to interruption by static
from all kinds of sources. RFI generation will be severe. I do not know
whether the splices and corrosion will make it worse but it certainly won't
help matters.

A lousy splice could well act as a completely non-linear diode
detector and spew even more garbage everywhere up and down the whole
RF spectrum. It just keeps getting worse.

As to power line physical specifics kindly consider: To to a large
extent the radiated interference the BPL ISP's might bless us with, if
it ever gets off the ground, is dependent on the physical realities of
the line configurations they use.

Roll back decades ago and the phone companies rather easily beat their
interference problems (crosstalk for one) eons ago by using twisted
pairs of conductors to move comms along their wires. Twisted pairs of
conductors are generally inclined to reject incoming interference and
equally are not particulary inclined to radiate whatever signals they
might be transmitting from here to there analog or digital yes? Of
course. Goes back to some guy named Maxwell, has something to do with
the 3D electromagnetics right-hand and left-hand drive ya batty
"rules" he "discovered".

So it's become quite obvious to me that BPL and HF ham radio could
co-exist quite peacefully on the bands after they install their 3Ø
13Kv twisted pairs.


Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

w3rv

On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 21:44:17 GMT, 'Doc wrote:

I wonder if 'they' will hold up the 'taking of office' until
after all the 'provisional' ballots are counted? What if the
count should change to favor the 'looser'? Wonder why I am still
amazed to hear how the government has "solved" a problem?
'Doc

PS - It was a joke, right??

Hi Doc,

Hold up the "taking of office?" You mean like it got "took" before
(as you may recall, no votes above 9 counted)?

In the last election cycle we had a close race for Senate between
Maria Cantwell (D. challenger) and Slade Gorton (R. incumbent) and it
was the Absentee Ballot from the rural counties that gave Slade the
boot and that final count took some several weeks (following his
concession).

In fact, the final count hardly saw a ripple in the ballot calendar.
If you consider the Oregon vote, it is 100% Absentee Vote.

Today the new registrant count has pushed past 1700 with the focus
moving back into the well-heeled suburbs. Same enthusiastic
participation in a traffic of SUVs following me through the parking
lot while I was looking for the designated parking place (I'm driving
a 25 foot RV style mobile registration office for the Office of
Elections and Records).

It is not without its amusing moments, and its irritating moments.
Yesterday had me in a tide pool of University students (their moment
to catch up on registration once back on campus) and they were quite
inventive on how they thought voting should work (with some as lazy as
their parents in the 'burbs). Back in the 'burbs today and this
frantic b**ch demanding guarantees for her mother (at her side).
There was nothing I could offer that was satisfactory and she
dominated everyone's time to get her agenda cleared first. I put up
with that just so far and cut that loose; gave my spiel (the facts of
life and how to cope); and her mother shook my hand while daughter
went into melt-down.

Another fellow with a thick accent asked why we didn't check identity
papers. I explained that if we got more than 1 signature from the
same address and the same voter, he would be visited post-haste. He
then asked what kept a foreigner from voting, I responded "5 years in
the penitentiary."

There's your joke.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 09:26:08 -0700, "Ed Price"
wrote:


"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
...


Ed Price wrote:


"Fractenna" wrote in message
...


SNIP

snip
Ed, if my understanding is correct, the power companies will indeed be
stringing fiber optic cables. There will be one going right by your house
if you are blessed to live in an bpl blessed neighborhood. THe
infrastructure must be built. I think there is an impression that the
power companies are just going to alligator clip a bpl signal on the lines
at the generating plant.

It's my understanding they have to not only run the fiber optic cable,
but "reclip" it to the power line every mile or so. In the end they
are basically running a fiber optic feed, but the power line gets it
into the customer's home or business.

I'd really like to see a definitive write up on just how the
infrastructure works and the protocol.

As has been mentioned a number of times, Both Europe and Japan tried
BPL and gave up. Possibly it'll come back to haunt them, but it
sounds like they've already found it an unsatisfactory means for high
speed Internet connections.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Power lines are fair at delivering low frequency
and high power. At HF they aren't so hot.

So while you have the leaky, degraded signal with the dubious convenience
of being placed from the HV lines to the other side of your line
transformer (and let's just hope that has been worked out to be safe)
wouldn't it just make more sense to get the fast signal from the proper
source? Going right by your house....

BPL is the industry equivalent of putting bicycle tires on a top fuel
dragster.

A triumph of politics over technology.

- Mike KB3EIA -



I agree that the power companies can't couple to their intermediate
distribution lines, since coupling across the next set of step-down
transformers is poor. I was thinking that the power companies will have to
run fiberoptic to the customer side of each of their lowest-level
distribution transformers. (As an example, in my case, my residential power
feed is a 240 VAC line that is parallel shared with about a dozen other
residences. This 240 VAC is created from a 16 kV to 240 V transformer.)

The power service is already "right to my home." OTOH, the 16 kV
distribution feeds are not always "running right past your home." (True, the
16 kV lines do run past some homes, in order to get to an efficient feed
point for the 16 kV to 240 V transformer. Some people have their power flow
"past" them, at 16 kV, only to come "back" at them at 240 V.)

BPL, as I understand it, will be radiating from a huge number of these 240 V
residential clusters. Since the power company will have to use fiberoptic to
get to their step-down transformers, it seems like they should use
fiberoptic for the last leg too. (And then they wouldn't need a
fiberoptic-to-240 V coupler at the transformer nor the 240 V-to-coax coupler
at each residence.)

Ed
wb6wsn

Are
you getting old

Older, anyway:-)

Best,
Chip N1IR

You just picked out an
obscure, already known, form of antenna, and "discovered" a new more
stylish name for it. MK

That life was so easy:-)

No Mark, I'm afraid (for you) there's more to it than that..

You have taken two statements that relate to different things, and tried to
confuse people by combining them as one.

I believe the history of self similar antennas has been well documented in my
publications, and the relevant excerpts are publicly available.

In any case, this is a BPL thread and you and I have already expressed our
thoughts on that subject.

73,
Chip N1IR

The way I
see it, you really didn't "discover" anything.

Yes, I understand that you feel this way. The facts are different, as is the
reality; both of which have accurately shaped the global perception.

73,
Chip N1IR

On 16 Oct 2004 20:31:55 -0700, (Mark Keith) wrote:

|sideband wrote in message
| I'll be the first to admit I have things to learn, and I'm no expert
| in any one area. I do know what I've experienced with BPL, and it's
| not been pleasant. Just ask the folks around the Orlando, Florida
| area... Their BPL tests can be heard all the way across the state in
| Titusville, and so greatly that it interferes with communications.
|
|
|Money talks, and common sense and real world reports take a walk. In
|most cases anyway. Some companies have already tried and discarded
|BPL. Problems o-plenty. Maybe others will see the light. The dark side
|has won a major battle, and Darth Chipster gloateth o-plenty, but the
|day is not lost yet. My R2 unit, "henry 2k console model", is jumping
|around beeping and squeaking just itching to join the battle. If they
|attack locally, I will give them sporadic shots of my BPL death beam
|via my various elevated radiating devices. I'll have them locking up
|like a J38 model speedsters hitting a canyon wall. The F.C.C brass
|should be flogged with leather whips for the obvious disregard of the
|currents users of the HF spectrum. It's all about money...Nothing
|else. All the reports of problems with the systems were ignored.
|"Except by some owners, who dropped out of the BPL testing"
|Also, many claims are pretty hokey...IE: they claim that they can null
|out problem frequencies, IE:, aircraft, etc, etc. But I hear of
|problems doing this. I hear it's not really that feasable if they want
|to maintain proper operation, and I also hear it doesn't really cure
|the problem, as the "nulling device" is not far from the user.
|Take just aircraft alone...We are talking nulling say 2-3 mhz, 6 mhz,
|8 mhz, 10 mhz, 11 mhz, 13 mhz, 17 mhz, 21 mhz, 27 mhz, just for a
|few...I may have missed some military bands, etc...
|I have heard of no notching plans for amateur bands, so I guess we
|have to go to rf noise hell...:(
|I bet the system will work great with all those notched
|holes...Not....
|
|They still will be radiating those freq's on the main lines I would
|think. It's the biggest money grubbing farce I've ever heard of. Heck,
|with my radios and antennas, they could probably be blocks or even
|miles away, and I could still hear it. The Florida experience backs me
|up on this. I'm not just barking at the moon. Bye bye weak DX....Bye
|bye weak aircraft signals. Bye bye any rf weaklings...QRp will be
|extra fun being half the country will probably soon have their ears
|plugged with digital spew.
|But, I bet they will hear me too, if the leakage is that bad...:) It
|will be a bad day for the empire if my R2 unit joins the fray. I'll
|keep those BPL techs a hopping all over the neighborhood. Remember,
|most of the speculation is about damage to the hams, etc... But don't
|ignore the damage all the 1000's of hams and other rf emitting device
|owners will likely cause them. CB's will have to deal with them also,
|and you know how nasty signaled some cb'ers can get. I hear some 4-5
|mhz wide as it is... I don't think they have really fully taken this
|into account yet. MK

Exactly.

I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned much of the following before but
just in case...

My power company is a rural cooperative. It serves 29,000 customers
spread over three counties. (one of these counties is larger than a
few states.) It has 2900 miles of line (and I don't think that covers
the 600' of underground feeder from the pole to my house). They serve
from the river bottom land near Tucson to the top of a 9800' mountain
and a community on the Mexican border. The company is also my ISP.

A few years ago I was fighting powerline noise and not getting a lot
of help from the company. It wasn't for lack of interest on their
part, they just didn't have the resources or trained personnel to
isolate the problem(s). I basically wound up instructing their
linemen about what to try.

During this time I wound up in contact with the company VP in charge
of new technology. We had an interesting one-engineer-to-another
conversation wherein he told me that they had experimented with a
system to read customers' meters remotely using "common-carrier"
signals on the lines. Sending guys around the service area in pickup
trucks once a month to read meters was a big expense so they had a
compelling motive to pull this off. They failed.

Even with very narrow-band, low-speed signaling, they couldn't even
read a meter once a month. They finally went to meters with
transmitters in them that can be read without the guy having to get
out of his truck and walk around with the rattlesnakes.

And they're going to supply me with high speed Internet over the same
wires?

Are
you getting old

Older, anyway:-)

Best,
Chip N1IR

Ah, but not wiser. Sad.

A