Posted on 08/09/2023 9:27:42 AM PDT by Theoria
Trading firms are asking FCC to open shortwave frequencies to greater commercial use
Ham radio operators are sounding the alarm over the latest threat to their beloved hobby—and this time, it is coming from Wall Street.
A group of high-frequency trading firms is asking the Federal Communications Commission to open shortwave frequencies to greater commercial use, so they can use radio to zip financial data around the world in milliseconds.
Prominent members of the amateur-radio community say interference from traders’ broadcasts could ruin their hobby, which often involves tuning in to weak radio signals so they can chat with fellow hams in faraway places. Hundreds of hams have filed letters with the FCC opposing the traders’ proposal, and some have railed against the plan in YouTube videos.
Brock Fansler is among those speaking out. A 40-year-old Los Angeles resident with shoulder-length hair, he likes using his radio to send digital data about weather conditions to other hams. He complains that the traders are looking to transmit with up to 20,000 watts of power, whereas amateurs are capped at 1,500 watts, and many use off-the-shelf radios with 100 watts.
“They’re asking for an insane amount of power,” Fansler said. “It’s like having neighbors move in with a drum set and guitar. This is going to be blasted all over the planet, with how much wattage they’re going to put behind it.”
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
bttt
You don’t have to be an Einstein-level genius to figure out who’s going to get the short end of the stick in this battle!
Well, we know who will win this battle.........................
The problem isn’t just the fundamental frequencies involved, but data transmission will generate all kinds of interference in other frequencies because of harmonics and intermodulation distortion..................
Money talks, citizens walk.
Hay wall street. They invented this thing called fiber-optic. Look into it.
Fixed it.
Nobody is going to suffer the pain of keeping HF data circuits up instead of modern digital over fiber.
HF radio is faster than ANY optical fiber network. The speed of HF electromagnetic waves will always beat optical fiber as the fiber material slows down the speed of light..
Electromagnetic waves travel fastest in vacuum, any medium will slow it down.
Technical standards should be high, and can easily be met with modern digital transmitters. Some of the US shortwave stations broadcasting bible-thumpers like Brother Stair have had terribly poor signals with no action from the FCC. This started when FCC became staffed with more lawyers than engineers.
A way to cut back on the way citizens can communicate.
Fellas, let me introduce you to this little thing called THE INTERNET!.
The internet not good enough for them?
Fact.
You can have my ham radio bands when you pry them from my cold dead hands!!
“Hay wall street. They invented this thing called fiber-optic. Look into it.”
Believe me, they did that years ago. A company I worked for put in a point to point private fiber connection from a trading floor downtown to a data center near Aurora. 512 strands just for them. And that was just for backup. Too much latency to suit them.
Their primary link is a point to point microwave solution.
L
Legally we’re limited to 1500 watts. I know hams that are capable of far more than that.
Hell, my Alpha 9500 loafs at 1500 and can do that all day long. It doesn’t take much to get it over 2k and into my Mosley TA33SR which is rated at 2500w (before modifications up to 5k, just to be safe) I’m not too worried about traders interfering with MY receive. They should be worried about theirs when we hams start pointing our beams their way and collectively interfering with theirs.
We all know the FCC doesn’t enforce jack sh#t, so not worried about a damn thing. They can’t possibly bust us all.
Routers create too much latency.
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