THE SPARK GAP

A monthly publication of the Meridian Amateur Radio Club March 2004

 

 Bible Verse

Matthew 16:21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. (NIV)

 

Vice President’s Comments

The weather season is upon us once more, and in an effort to help us keep abreast of what is happening in our County and surrounding area we encourage your participation in our local weekly net and when needed our Emergency nets.

Also along the same lines our Red Cross project is proceeding we have almost all of the equipment needed and upon a written agreement with the Red Cross concerning property ownership and operating procedures we will be ready to install the 2 meter station at the Red Cross Building.

I would also like to encourage all members to contact old members who are not active and potential new members Ham or not who would be interested in joining us in our club, as we need all of us working together to make a good thing great. Have a good Month ...73's Michael / N5VWS

   

 VE EXAMS!!!!

VE exams will be held Thursday, March 18 at 6:00 pm.

Exams will be held at Bill Ethridge Lincoln Mercury Used Car Building.

$12.00 fer exams. Tech-Gen-Extra will be given.

Contact: Dennis Carpenter ki5fw

Talk in will be on

146.700/R --- 146.970/R (pl100hz) --- 444.500/R --- 3.705 cw

Test with us and move up in the world!!!!

w5LRG
Lauderdale Repeater Group

146.970 ki5fw/R pl100hz 444.500 w5LRG/R

Hello Everyone: As you may have guessed, it is that time of year again. Insurance for both the w5LRG 444.500/Rptr and the 146.970 ki5fw/Rptr is due. The Lauderdale Repeater Group has split the price of this policy with the Meridian Amateur Radio Club now fer the last three years. This is a liability policy that protects both groups. The premium for the policy is $325.00 per year making each group responsible fer $162.50 to cover the premium. The insurance premium is due the 5th of February and the money needs to be mailed by the 1st of February.

More than $450 has been spent maintaining/repairing repeater equipment this past year. Just recently a new antenna was installed, the controller was repaired and the preamp rebuilt due to a Lightning strike on the 146.970/R. This is sometimes expensive equipment to maintain.

This is a hobby that many enjoy. If you like/enjoy using this equipment, think about helping cover the cost of keeping them on the air. Any donations will greatly be accepted. These repeaters do not go on and remain on the air without cost. This goes also for the MARC 146.700/R.

If you use any of these repeaters on a regular basis you should abide by the gentleman's agreement of most hams and support these repeaters. If you do not wish to be a member of any club or group just send in a donation. Believe me it will be appreciated. Without some help these repeaters may not go back on the air the next time there is a major breakdown or when the next insurance premium comes due. Please mail any contributions to the below address. TNX & 73,

Dennis Carpenter ki5fw
Lauderdale Repeater Group
7760 Vanzyverden Road
Meridian, MS 39305

 TARC to Host BPL Meeting

Saturday, March 13th at 2:30 p.m.

Greetings!

Since I didn't get a large response as to when folks could make our proposed meeting, I decided to act on those who did respond.

Thus, the meeting is hereby scheduled for this coming Saturday, March 13th at 2:30 p.m. The place will be the Tupelo Amateur Radio Club facility at the Tupelo Airport. The folks at TARC have graciously offered their facility, so PLEASE make plans to attend. We'll not waste a lot of time, but will also come out of the meeting with something accomplished. I'll begin by making a short presentation about BPL and its potential, including the video from the ARRL demonstrating just what the interference we all fear will be like.

A few days ago, I posted to this list some of my ideas as to where we should go. Please review that list, because that'll be our starting point. If you have any items you'd like to add, please post to this list, and I'll include them for discussion.

This may be our only chance to meet physically to get our act together, and I can't reiterate strongly enough the potential harm to our hobby if we're not successful. We're particularly interested in having any non-ham telecommunications folks join us. Though we'll be focusing somewhat on the potential interference issues pertaining to Ham Radio, there's plenty of interference potential to go around. So, please make plans to attend, and don't hesitate to inform others and have them attend as well, or better yet, bring them with you!

See you Saturday!
Karl, WA5TMC

Below is a note from Karl - WA5TMC. He is organizing a meeting to discuss and take action on the FCC's BPL Proposed Rulemaking. Please respond to Karl at Bpl@bullockassociates.net .

=======================================

Since the NPRM first hit, I've been thinking of possible comments, so let me put my ideas here for your consideration:

1) The FCC's technical bureau dismissed the possibility of power lines as effective radiators because of their length. However, I saw no mention of elements within the power system being radiators. I believe it's likely that "sub-elements" within a particular power system could become antennas in and of themselves. For example, a set of cable connections sufficient for the transfer of several KW of power at 60Hz could become a radiator on a particular frequency if the impedance of the connections themselves appeared high enough (much like a trap on an antenna). A good example would be the connection going from the power line tap into a particular residence. Those lengths will vary depending on length from the power pole to the house - and could become a very effective radiator

2) The power levels involved seem to self-mitigate according to the FCC, but we all know that QRP is a popular facet of amateur radio. Right now we're at the low point of the 11-year sunspot cycle. What happens in 5 years when the peak begins again, and we have thousands of little radiators, all spewing pulse noise into the ionosphere at exactly the frequencies that are best reflected? I have personally had contacts with QRP stations running microwatt power. One in particular was on 20 meters late one afternoon. The ham on the other end was running the output of a clock-radio IC he'd reprogrammed (his company manufactured the IC's) to radiate power on 20. It was loosely (with clip leads!) coupled into his dipole outside his house. He was 20db over S9, and was the loudest thing on the band! He estimated his output power at 10mw.

3) Does anyone really believe that if I am being interfered with on, say 21.230, that a simple call to my power company will result in reduced power? OR that they'll immediately reconfigure their system to cease all radiation on 21 MHz? NO. The reality is that I'll have to contact the FCC for a formal complaint. Anybody remember what happened in the 1970's when CB was at it's peak? The FCC didn't have the manpower to address all the complaints (I was working for a CATV system at the time, and the FCC was useless in reducing interference to our system by illegal amplifiers). Since then they've drastically reduced their enforcement branch. There's no way the FCC can handle all the interference complaints surely to come as a result of BPL.

4) The FCC recently dismissed a petition to give Amateurs access to LF frequencies (below 500 KHz) because of the fear of interference to existing BPL control circuits the power companies are operating in that region. Is it reasonable to expect that we'll not interfere with the new BPL bands, where our power authorizations are exponentially greater than what we were asking for in the LF band? Who do you think will get the blame for reduced throughput, even though Part 15 rules state that unlicensed operations must accept any interference?

5) Why is the FCC in such a hurry to place a potentially devastating technology in place when there are other technologies that do the same thing, but just need more research? It appears they would, instead, propose rules for experimental installations of these new technologies that don't pose such an interference potential.

6) Why was there no considerations given to authorizing BPL at microwave frequencies where the potential for interference was much less? Is it possible they're afraid of interference to satellites utilizing (or potentially wishing to utilize) these frequencies?

7) Has the Commission given any consideration to the Short Wave Listener community? These folks have as much a right to a low noise-floor for reception as we do for 2-way communications.

These are the arguments against BPL. However, we must also prepare for the eventuality that they'll ignore all the arguments and pass the thing anyway. In that case, we must at least make sure that sufficient rules are in place to provide swift remedies. Here are some suggestions:

1) Each BPL installation should require an area survey of spectrum usage, including public notices (SWL's don't radiate signals, but would surely be affected) and the system designed specifically to eliminate interference for those users.

2) BPL installations should include notice to the end users that interference from legitimate licensed sources is possible, and that they must accept that interference without complaint.

3) The FCC should give authority to local officials to issue injunctions against interfering BPL installations when local licensed users present sufficient information to show that the BPL installation is indeed the source of the interference, and that BPL providers must work with local complainants to identify the source of interference. This would at least short-circuit the need to go to the FCC before anything can be done.

4) BPL should only use existing microwave spectrum not under local usage instead of the 1-50 MHz region proposed in the NPRM.

There are other possible arguments, but these are the ones I've come up with. Please post any suggestions for additional items to the list, and feel free to comment on these.

Karl

 

Have a great month

  

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