Ham Radio Ping ListPlease Freepmail me if you want to be added to or deleted from the list.
Posted on 10/18/2004 6:43:55 AM PDT by Denver Ditdat
Ham Radio Ping ListPlease Freepmail me if you want to be added to or deleted from the list.
Bump.
Hmm. A ZOT would really mean something with a broadband connection over a power line!
Patton comes across as a lower than low used car salesman. He doesn't do us any favors.
Ping!
Yeah, that particular talking point is a loser.
Why would this provide significantly more interference than electricity only power lines?
Patton comes across as a lower than low used car salesman. He doesn't do us any favors.
Yeah, most all of us have to surf on our battery-powered laptops all the time because the electric power cuts out on our desktops so often...
I really don't see how this would be either cost effective or even workable. Coaxial cable works well because it has an outer shielding on the cable that keeps out external interference, but power lines lack that shielding. From the standpoint of offering broadband, it's not what gets out of your lines and bothers the amateur radio guys, it's what gets into your lines and corrupts your signal. Also in order to run an RF signal you need amplifiers spaced at regular intervals, the higher the frequency the more amplifiers, and who in the world is going to want to do the maintenance work on amps that are hooked up to primary power lines? They're not like transformers that you can just leave there for decades at a time.
Because of the frequency range used. Normal power lines are at 60 Hz which is well below any kind of radio transmission.
"Get Smart; use this:"
"Federal Broadband Equality Act Access Charge" (for the "poor" of course).
16kv gloves; might present a problem when trying to use a screwdriver...
Haven't we been paying the "algore tax" for years? Why isn't this country coast to coast, border to border, fibre optic?
You are forgetting alot of things here, IMO.
First, for those of us in "rural" areas, Ham radio does lots of things. The Sheriff's office RELIES on the Ham radio operators as back up to when their ordinary systems get hammered by weather or whatever.
Ham radio operators are ESSENTIAL in mountain rescue operations, co-ordinating search teams, bouncing their signals off the mountain top relays THEY have INSTALLED and PAID FOR. This may not count for much in the city areas, but it means alot to the rural areas.
Alot of athletic events in the rural areas are also dependent on the Ham operators, as event communications.
What will also be affected, I have heard, is CB communications. For those of you who don't travel by car alot, the entire trucking system relies on CB communications from truck to truck on the open road. I have a CB in my truck, and I have had to use it 5 times with various breakdowns of mine or another person. There is an incredible amount of goods moved by truck that the whole country uses EVERY day. The Homeland Security agency has enlisted and trained long haul truckers for more eyes and ears in the problems of possible terrorist activities. That is their communication.
Lots of truckers have cell phones, but they live on the CB radios. What disruption to that part of the commerce of the USA will be hammered by this "advance" in technology?
Short wave radio will be overrun, also, and there are a great number of persons who enjoy listening to shortwave from all around the world.
I personally don't see the need for "broadband" to be using the electrical system of the country, effectively riding the coattails of the power companies who placed the lines and poles in place. Not every person in a rural area even wants broadband. They barely use computers, and they like it that way. They have no use for alot of "big city" ways, and they are not going to appreciate it being crammed down their throats and added to their current telephone bills.
As for power outages not being as bad as another poster stated? I live north of Sacramento. The power went out 3 times yesterday for short periods- NOT just a flicker. Don't tell us about "NO POWER OUTAGES". We live with it all the time, expecially in winter. The longest I have dealt with was almost 2 days in the last couple of years.
Fiber. Gotta love it. Kinda tough to use from a boat or when camping on a mountaintop, though. RF still rules there.
My own oppinion is that the future will be fiber run all the way to the house for home service and fiber run to wireless relay stations for laptops, cars and cellphones. I also think that phone, TV and internet service will become so intertwined as to be indistinguishable. You might buy an entertainment computer for your TV/moniter that would download programs off the net rather than pick them up as a broadcast or a communications computer that would essentially be a jacked up telephone that also operated on the net. Of course the entertainment or communications computer could still do your regular computing functions as well, they just wouldn't be built specifically for that purpose.
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