Will BPL Kill The Shortwave Spectrum?
 

Ray Crites (K1WW) on April 27, 2004

Are the days of short wave listening over? If you are in one of the proposed
BPL areas it appears so. From what I've heard of the various audio clips,
you'll be battling an unending blanket of saw-tooth modulated audio tones.
No more reception of BBC, VOA, or other foreign broadcasts.

In other worlds, the HF radio spectrum will become a wasteland of jamming
signals authorized by the FCC. Cuba, China and other anti-democratic
countries have been selectively jamming the short-wave spectrum for years,
now our own government is going to allow BPL to do it for them.

All of this is being allowed to happen with the FCC taking the position that
BPL can not cause interference, but the truth of the matter is that the very
nature of BPL is to cause interference. It cannot operate in the HF spectrum
without causing interference. If I live in a BPL area and I want to listen
to the short-wave broadcast band then BPL will be interfering. That's fact
not fiction.

Will BPL have to shut down if I complain? According to the FCC's own rules
it will. I don't understand how the FCC, a regulating and enforcement
agency, can authorize a service to jam the frequency spectrum with BPL and
at the same time tell them they will be held liable if they do so.

Can anyone explain all this in a manner that makes common sense? I just
don't get it.

http://www.eham.net/articles/8073