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Tzale
Ron Paul - I Didn't Vote For Either
Premium
join:2004-01-06
NJ, USA
 ·Verizon FIOS
 ·Optimum Online
edit:
February 16th, @03:27PM
| reply to hayabusa3303
Re: Fcc listening?
said by hayabusa3303  :I dont think the Fcc cares one bit about anything but dont you cuss or show a nipple on tv they get on edge. if there where more hams they might get heard. just my.02 in this There are around ~800,000 hams in the United States. We are FCC licensed and we earned it. I spent dozens of hours studying the material reading books and learning electronic theory, and learning Morse code to get my license last year. There isn't a hobby like it, it isn't anything like CB radio... Ham Radio is the hobby of tech geeks! There isn't anything cooler than being able to chat with someone around the world, at random, never knowing who you will get using 100 watts or less and a simple antenna, though we are legally allowed to use up to 1.5 kilowatts and any type of antenna we see fit along with 200 foot towers, heh. I can chat with people in Alaska and the West coast using a handheld radio a little bigger than a cell phone, and a small handheld YAGI (beam/directional) antenna, at 1 watt into a low Earth orbiting satellite. Radio is a real thrill.
The FCC can go screw themselves if they think that the license I worked so hard to earn doesn't entitle me to freedom from noise on the bands. I spend close to around 100 hours per month relaying traffic so that if something like 9/11 ever happens again, we can help people communicate. Multiply that by a couple thousand NTS ops. (National Traffic System) and you have a great "off-the-grid" system that can replace telephone/mail/internet in times of emergency. The system consists of preset times/frequencies of "nets" or "networks of amateurs" who "check in" and relay messages between distant locations. There are local nets, sectional nets, regional nets, etc. You can move a message across the country in minutes if it is a priority message. Many don't realize how much we do for emergency preparedness. September 11th, Katrina and New Orleans, Forest Fires and even something as simple as a parade or other event usually has ham ops in the background running the show, such as the NYC Marathon.
-Tzale | |
hayabusa3303
Over 200 mph
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join:2005-06-29
clubs:
 ·AT&T Southeast
·RoadRunner Cable
 ·QuantumVoice
| said by Tzale :said by hayabusa3303 :I dont think the Fcc cares one bit about anything but dont you cuss or show a nipple on tv they get on edge. if there where more hams they might get heard. just my.02 in this The FCC can go screw themselves if they think that the license I worked so hard to earn doesn't entitle me to freedom from noise on the bands. -Tzale I agree i have some of the books i havnt had time to work on it yet. | |
Matt
Running Free
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
 ·Corporate Colocation
| reply to Tzale
Tzale, good for you! That is quite an accomplishment.
It takes all of 15 minutes and a rudimentary understanding of electronics and radio propagation to take the test to become a HAM. You deserve your spectrum. 
Progress is progress.
Please step aside and let progress take its course.
--
Use the OS tool for the job. | |
RadioDoc
Sortofadog
Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11
Chicago, IL
·AT&T Midwest
| That would be relevant if BPL was actually "progress". It isn't. If anything it's a fragile, stopgap technology which has little hope of ever reaching market critical mass. It is far too expensive to deploy and far too susceptible to interference to be anything other than a technology of last resort.
--
Toolmaster of La Grange.
For "Pompous Jackass", see 419381 | |
RayW
Premium
join:2001-09-01
Layton, UT
clubs:
·XMission
| reply to Matt
said by Matt :Tzale, good for you! That is quite an accomplishment. It takes all of 15 minutes and a rudimentary understanding of electronics and radio propagation to take the test to become a HAM. You deserve your spectrum. Progress is progress. Please step aside and let progress take its course. You are better than 99.999% of Americans then. It took my 13 year old daughter about 20 hours of class and about the same amount of home work and two tries to get a license, and she is an 'A' student in school. Most exams have about an 80% pass rate, and I know that some of those people do put forth the effort to ask for help.
Step aside? Sure, I wonder if the family of the lady that one of my group called in life flight a few months ago for thinks like you do? Cell phones did not work, but ham radio still did. As I heard, weakly, and possibly not at all if BPL was heavily used in the area that took the call and routed it to the police.
--
I am not lost, I find myself every time. | |
dynodb
Premium,VIP
join:2004-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
| reply to Tzale
said by Tzale :There isn't anything cooler than being able to chat with someone around the world, at random, never knowing who you will get... Um... you just described the Internet 
Sorry, just jerking your chain; I don't get the whole ham radio thing, but whatever makes you happy.
Still, one does have to question how much new broadband technology should be limited because it has a minor impact on a handfull of hobbyists in a given area. | |
rf_engineer
join:2003-08-04
USA
| reply to Matt
said by Matt :Progress is progress. Please step aside and let progress take its course. Ummmmm...progress? You joking? BPL is a wideband RF carrier superimposed on an unshielded medium that was built for carrying 60 Hz energy. It was known back in the 30s and 40s that unshielded wires weren't suitable for wideband data. That's why twisted pairs were created which lead to phone service on a mass scale, TDM facilities, and ultimately to fiber. Carrying data on powerlines is like making a horse and buggy go 200 MPH with rockets. Sure, you have the technology to do it, but it's messy and can't really compete with a race car or even a family SUV. | |
rf_engineer
join:2003-08-04
USA
| reply to dynodb
said by dynodb :said by Tzale :There isn't anything cooler than being able to chat with someone around the world, at random, never knowing who you will get... Um... you just described the Internet Sorry, just jerking your chain; I don't get the whole ham radio thing, but whatever makes you happy. Still, one does have to question how much new broadband technology should be limited because it has a minor impact on a handfull of hobbyists in a given area. Amateur Radio uses less than 10% of the spectrum potentially affected by BPL. The rest of the users are government, military, maritime, aeronautical, and international shortwave. Regardless if ham radio is involved, the wireless spectrum is a natural resource that we should preserve.
A lot of folks don't get what ham radio is about, but it's more than just talking to people. You can learn quite a bit about electronics and communications in studying for the tests or in daily practice, some of it rivaling what you would learn at a two year technical school. It's the only licensed FCC service where you can design, build, or modify your own equipment. While much of the communications is analog modes on shortwave frequencies, you can get into digital modes and there are about 40 Amateur Radio satellites in orbit. There's a public service / emergency communications component as well. It's much more than the CB like or chat room image many people have. | |
PDXPLT
join:2003-12-04
Banks, OR
| said by rf_engineer : Amateur Radio uses less than 10% of the spectrum potentially affected by BPL. The rest of the users are government, military, maritime, aeronautical, and international shortwave. Regardless if ham radio is involved, the wireless spectrum is a natural resource that we should preserve. The counter argument however, is that most of the time, in most places, that spectrum is going unused: no one is broadcasting on it, and/or no one is listening (e.g., maritime frequencies far from water).
In the minds of those advocating "spectrum policy reform", if it is unused, it is being wasted. Just statically allocating chunks of spectrum for certain permanent, fixed uses, because in the 1930's there was no way to make radios and other devices "smart" and flexible, is an anchronism, they say. They argue that accounting for modern technology that can do things like detect the location of a device, access a database of licensees, listen for spectrum occupation, etc., the utilization of spectrum can be increased. Spectrum, by the way, that remains the property of the American people (in the U.S., at least), even when a license is granted to certain entities.
Go to the FCC website and do a search on "Spectrum Policy Task Force Report" for more background, and and insight into where spectrum regulation is going. The old "Command and Control" model of exclusive licensees is going away. You're already seeing the first steps of this: The recent unlicensed allocation in the 3700 MHz band, previously only used by satellite base stations on the east and west coasts. The FCC figured that unlicensed devices could now be built that would be smart enough to figure out if they are anywhere near these base stations. Another example: the 5 GHz Wi-FI devices that now operate in a band allocated to military radar, provided that they check for a rader signal first. Another example is the NPRM on operation of unlicensed devices in TV channels that aren't being used locally (the only real chance for rural broadband, IMHO).
When it comes ot BPL, most of the notorious problems have been centered around Mannassas, and a couple of trials from one particular equipment provider. And they've been such jerks about it by not fixing things. It's unfortunate. I've talked to a utility guy that say they've been doing it for years, quietly, just not for internet access, and with a carefully engineered balanced transmitter, not the cheap single-ended lossy ground return system used in the noisey deployments (which is used because it's cheap and easy). And there have been no interference complaints in Cinncinati, either. If no licensed users are complaining, by definition there can be no "harmful interference" as defined by the FCC. "harmful interference" requires that a licensed user be actually interfered with in a material manner, not just the theoretical possibility of interference. | |
Tzale
Ron Paul - I Didn't Vote For Either
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join:2004-01-06
NJ, USA
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edit:
February 16th, @08:36PM
| reply to Matt
said by Matt :Tzale, good for you! That is quite an accomplishment. It takes all of 15 minutes and a rudimentary understanding of electronics and radio propagation to take the test to become a HAM. You deserve your spectrum. Progress is progress. Please step aside and let progress take its course. Uh, I think you have the Extra class confused with the Technician and even General class license.... Sure, the technician class license is easy (VHF/UHF), but General and especially Extra require a lot of knowledge.
You can become a ham in a day or two of studying for the "Technician" class, but for the others, it requires much more.
Don't be an idiot, learn about it before you bash it. I had to learn CW, which took well over a month of daily study for an hour, and that is just for General. The FCC has relaxed the requirements A LOT in the last few years, even eliminating the CW requirement on December 19th 2006, which will go into effect Feb. 23rd, but you still need a good electronic understanding to get an Extra class license. It is by NO means easy to get, most people who earn that license are Electronic Engineers.
-Tzale | |
Tzale
Ron Paul - I Didn't Vote For Either
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join:2004-01-06
NJ, USA
·Verizon FIOS
·Optimum Online
edit:
February 16th, @08:34PM
| reply to dynodb
said by dynodb :said by Tzale :There isn't anything cooler than being able to chat with someone around the world, at random, never knowing who you will get... Um... you just described the Internet Sorry, just jerking your chain; I don't get the whole ham radio thing, but whatever makes you happy. Still, one does have to question how much new broadband technology should be limited because it has a minor impact on a handfull of hobbyists in a given area. The internet uses land based technology.. You're missing the point... There are no wires or millions of dollars of equipment between me and the other operator. It is simply amazing and that is why it works so well during emergencies, such as Katrina and the Tsunami, where in some places HF Ham Radio was the ONLY way to communicate for months.
I had a QSO with an op in Minnesota last week. The guy was out in the woods, far away from any big cities. There were no "wires" in between us, and he was only running 20 watts, I was running 100 watts. We chatted for over an hour, free and with our "own" infrastructure. If the infrastructure crumbled around us, we'd still be able to talk, provided we ran on battery power. That is the major plus behind Amateur Radio. MOST people have no knowledge of radio or how it works. Most people who work for radio stations don't even understand it today, it is the enthusiast, the hobbyist that understands it. For example, I read about a state police radio repeater that went down during a hurricane in Florida. Ham ops jerry-rigged the repeater back together, so the cops could communicate. HAM ops. are enthusiastic about learning electronics and radio communications and they KNOW how to fix them when they break. Many times, during an emergency the government doesn't have these people within their own ranks, except for maybe the Office of Emergency Management, which often includes an Amateur Radio station and operators.
-Tzale | |
RayW
Premium
join:2001-09-01
Layton, UT
clubs:
·XMission
| reply to PDXPLT
PDXPLT, your point about the power companies using BPL for years left out one minor detail - that version is very low bandwidth and power compared the internet version, and as such does not pollute the MF/HF bands.
I wonder what will happen if internet BPL gets big in the US and deploys all over the place and then the sunspot cycle peaks and the interference jams other countries that still heavily use the HF bands. Then what is to be done?
--
I am not lost, I find myself every time. | |
thender
Glamour Profession
Premium
join:2004-05-16
Staten Island, NY
| reply to Matt
said by Matt :Tzale, good for you! That is quite an accomplishment. It takes all of 15 minutes and a rudimentary understanding of electronics and radio propagation to take the test to become a HAM. You deserve your spectrum. Progress is progress. Please step aside and let progress take its course. Progress is DOCSIS 3.0. Progress is FTTH.
BPL is not progress - it is garbage.
--
The Problem With Music.
Our Rationale
Time to rewrite the DMCA. | |
dynodb
Premium,VIP
join:2004-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
| reply to Tzale
Don't get me wrong; I'm not knocking your hobby... just saying I don't get it. I LIVE in Minnesota and don't want to talk to strangers here in person, thus don't have a desire to talk to them on the radio 
Seriously, the ham radio people have a point... but so do the PBL people. The latter will serve more people, but the ham folks were there first. | |
RadioDoc
Sortofadog
Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11
Chicago, IL
·AT&T Midwest
| BPL will serve more people? By what measure? BPL is not supposed to be a radiated service. If they could keep it where it belongs they could serve anyone they want. They can't seem to accomplish that.
--
Toolmaster of La Grange.
For "Pompous Jackass", see 419381 | |
rf_engineer
join:2003-08-04
USA
| reply to dynodb
said by dynodb :Don't get me wrong; I'm not knocking your hobby... just saying I don't get it. I LIVE in Minnesota and don't want to talk to strangers here in person, thus don't have a desire to talk to them on the radio Seriously, the ham radio people have a point... but so do the PBL people. The latter will serve more people, but the ham folks were there first. If BPL actually used the spectrum, they would perhaps have a valid claim to the frequencies. The kicker is they don't use the frequencies, they merely radiate into wireless spectrum as a byproduct of the service. | |
Phattieg
join:2001-04-29
Jacksonville, FL
 ·Verizon Wireless B..
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| reply to Tzale
It's going to be hilarious when the finally move into a densely populated HAM community, and everyone there starts beaming 1.5 kilowatts into the transmission sites. I could see the beams pointing now.
"Hmmm, noisier here, less noise when I put it on the back side of the beam, that must mean the signal is coming from right here. Lets shut down some internet, ::key's up and whistles into mic, knocking everyones modems offline, whilst turning on the neighbors touch lamp::."
I would be right there with em, and I don't even have a Ham license, I will get one when I am moved back into a house, and can actually put up a 200ft antenna.
--
SIPPhone/Gizmo # 17476200648 / PIMPNET Chatline / Ran by Asterisk & Slackware 10.1. | |
rf_engineer
join:2003-08-04
USA
| reply to PDXPLT
said by PDXPLT :said by rf_engineer : Amateur Radio uses less than 10% of the spectrum potentially affected by BPL. The rest of the users are government, military, maritime, aeronautical, and international shortwave. Regardless if ham radio is involved, the wireless spectrum is a natural resource that we should preserve. The counter argument however, is that most of the time, in most places, that spectrum is going unused: no one is broadcasting on it, and/or no one is listening (e.g., maritime frequencies far from water). In the minds of those advocating "spectrum policy reform", if it is unused, it is being wasted. Just statically allocating chunks of spectrum for certain permanent, fixed uses, because in the 1930's there was no way to make radios and other devices "smart" and flexible, is an anchronism, they say. They argue that accounting for modern technology that can do things like detect the location of a device, access a database of licensees, listen for spectrum occupation, etc., the utilization of spectrum can be increased. Spectrum, by the way, that remains the property of the American people (in the U.S., at least), even when a license is granted to certain entities. Go to the FCC website and do a search on "Spectrum Policy Task Force Report" for more background, and and insight into where spectrum regulation is going. The old "Command and Control" model of exclusive licensees is going away. You're already seeing the first steps of this: The recent unlicensed allocation in the 3700 MHz band, previously only used by satellite base stations on the east and west coasts. The FCC figured that unlicensed devices could now be built that would be smart enough to figure out if they are anywhere near these base stations. Another example: the 5 GHz Wi-FI devices that now operate in a band allocated to military radar, provided that they check for a rader signal first. Another example is the NPRM on operation of unlicensed devices in TV channels that aren't being used locally (the only real chance for rural broadband, IMHO). When it comes ot BPL, most of the notorious problems have been centered around Mannassas, and a couple of trials from one particular equipment provider. And they've been such jerks about it by not fixing things. It's unfortunate. I've talked to a utility guy that say they've been doing it for years, quietly, just not for internet access, and with a carefully engineered balanced transmitter, not the cheap single-ended lossy ground return system used in the noisey deployments (which is used because it's cheap and easy). And there have been no interference complaints in Cinncinati, either. If no licensed users are complaining, by definition there can be no "harmful interference" as defined by the FCC. "harmful interference" requires that a licensed user be actually interfered with in a material manner, not just the theoretical possibility of interference. I'm all for use/reuse of spectrum, when it makes sense. BPL "using" spectrum is like a factory "using" a body of water by polluting it. "Smart" devices that are broadbanded using HF radio spectrum is problematic due to ionspheric propagation which is continually changing and the fact that communications on these bands can often take place with signal levels just slightly above the noise floor. VHF, UHF, and microwave are a different story.
There are good deployments of BPL that have addressed the interference issues, as you cite. However the rules and the FCC's inaction have allowed less technically adept vendors to continue operating systems that if deployed on a wide scale would effectively mean the end of HF communications in the US. Despite the "no harmful interference" rules that protect licensees, the FCC has setup the process to be so slow, clumsy, and unresponsive that in practice it will never work for licensees and will ultimately result in BPL overrunning spectrum. This is if BPL were actually successful and deployed en masse. Will it happen? I don't think it will if you're just looking at Internet access BPL. Grid management is another story; this totally changes the business model for BPL. While you are correct that the FCC can't act on theoretical interference issues, when BPL talking heads are talking theoretically about covering the entire US with BPL in every outlet and are in a trial stage, the theoretical issues that would result have to be fully researched. This research hasn't been fully completed by the FCC and what has been done has essentially been ignored. Even the NTIA's phase two report was never completed or at least it was never publically released. This was to determine if BPL devices deployed on a mass scale would result in increasing the noise floor. The theory in their first report is that this probably wouldn't be an issue until millions of devices were deployed. But one has to ask, how do you recall millions of consumer Part 15 devices and network elements after you realize you have a problem? | |
Phattieg
join:2001-04-29
Jacksonville, FL
·Verizon Wireless B..
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| reply to dynodb
said by dynodb :I LIVE in Minnesota and don't want to talk to strangers here in person, thus don't have a desire to talk to them on the radio So you posted because????.... You're talking to a bunch of unknown people right now. The people on the Ham radios will likely share that point with you, which is why HF interference is vital. You can't hear on the other end, you have no-one to talk to. HF travels very far and uses minimal power, so you'd likely find another state or country before you'd be talking to your neighbor. Your point is not very well made. You're on a broadband forum talking about how much you don't get why people want to talk to unknowns. How about this, get a radio with data capability, and scan the band. You'll find some people allow internet access THRU the ham radio. The Ham radio could be nice enough to redeem itself by allowing people to share internet access on repeaters, but I doubt operators want to foot the bill for anonymous internet access.
--
SIPPhone/Gizmo # 17476200648 / PIMPNET Chatline / Ran by Asterisk & Slackware 10.1. | |
Matt
Running Free
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
·Corporate Colocation
edit:
February 17th, @06:56PM
| reply to RayW
said by RayW :said by Matt :Tzale, good for you! That is quite an accomplishment. It takes all of 15 minutes and a rudimentary understanding of electronics and radio propagation to take the test to become a HAM. You deserve your spectrum. Progress is progress. Please step aside and let progress take its course. You are better than 99.999% of Americans then. It took my 13 year old daughter about 20 hours of class and about the same amount of home work and two tries to get a license, and she is an 'A' student in school. Most exams have about an 80% pass rate, and I know that some of those people do put forth the effort to ask for help. Step aside? Sure, I wonder if the family of the lady that one of my group called in life flight a few months ago for thinks like you do? Cell phones did not work, but ham radio still did. As I heard, weakly, and possibly not at all if BPL was heavily used in the area that took the call and routed it to the police. Nevermind, pointless.
--
Use the OS tool for the job. | |
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