Posted on 10/14/2004 9:52:31 AM PDT by batmast
I would have to sat that Michael Powell is a case of nepotism at it's worst.
As soon as I get harmful interference on the ham bands that I can trace to BPL, I'll file a 1 Billion $$$ lawsuit against the utility and the FCC.
If this question is way too ignorant, I apologize in advance. Can the power grid be used to transmit video and audio? Will this replace cable or satellite?
> ...turn the radios on while on your computers and see
> the distances where the interfences starts.
It's actually not as noisy as I expected. A pocket AM
radio works fine as long as it's 18in or more from the
monitor.
My guess is that the basic problem with BPL is that the
carrier wires aren't twisted-pair (unlike Cat3/5/6), so
the signal radiation is not self-cancelling. It may not
even be balanced.
Almost all Talk Radio -- Rush, Hannity, Boortz, etc etc etc is carried on the AM Band. Disable the AM Band you disable Talk Radio.
Wait til the new refrigerators scan the UPC labels of your food, and beam them back to the databases! Will you be scared then?
When your health insurance company sees a 12 pack of beer located in your refrigerator?
Well, of course. It will affect all of these. I'm a huge fan of talk radio and I will be pretty p*ssed if I can't hear my shows. That might be part of the overall plan anyway. They force you off the am bands and onto the internet.
Taht's something I will leave to the more electronically erudite of our FR friends. I don't however see why it couldn't.
Where they can monitor, and regulate, and classify as political and hate rhetoric, etc etc etc.
Hate to sount tin-foilish, but I do not trust the government to keep thier hands out of the pot.
That's the crux of the matter. It's the transmission lines acting as antennas. DSL and cable use balanced and shielded transmission lines that don't radiate significantly. That's why they haven't been a problem. And of course satellite and other wireless ISP services use frequency bands specifically allocated to them.
My prediction with BPL is it won't fly because of the interference. If the FCC regulates it to point where it doesn't interfere, then its cost advantage will be gone, and the power companies will can it by themselves.
I also predict it will not be the panacea that internet users in the boonies are hoping for. They'll still be last on the list because it will cost to install it on those outlying parts of the power grid. It probably doesn't offer any advantage over extending DSL or cable to the rural areas. If you are really out in the boonies, your best hope is some form of advanced terrestrial wireless internet (satellite works, too, of course, but the long latency hurts internet responsiveness).
Hold a standard AM radio near your monitor. Rotate it around so the internal loopstick antenna can pick up the signal. Tune across the band. Listen to garbage your own monitor emits. BPL will be worse than that and will be everywhere an electric powerline runs.
try DIRECWAY......
works as advertised
"I wonder what a BPL Network Infrastructure looks like."
Stick your finger in a light socket while looking in a mirror and you will have a good idea! </sarcasm>
This is horrible, just horrible. I think BPL will have a problem of limited bandwidth and this will make it impractical, but they will still force it on us. The power lines were never meant to carry radio signals (digital or otherwise). I imagine they will have to have lots of repeaters to boost the signals -- this is all so inefficient and it will limit bandwidth and speed while at the same time ruining radio communication. It does sound like the big business and big government types have found a perfect way to kill off AM radio, amateur radio and shortwave listening all in one "solution." An inferior mode of transmitting data for the Internet that, oh by the way, will ruin other modes of communication.
Thanks. I'll give that a try.;-)
"It does sound like the big business and big government types have found a perfect way to kill off AM radio"
Would you believe it's the liberals way of eliminating right wing talk shows that they can't compete with.
ping for later
I wonder if Ted Kazcinsky's piece of land is still available?
Would the FBI move his shack back for me?
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