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 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,
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!
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
March 2004
Lauderdale
Repeater Group
Lauderdale Repeater Group
7760 Vanzyverden Road
Meridian, MS 39305
Karl, WA5TMC
