Info from WIANEWS 10 October 2004 Edition

A new tool to let you determine the possible potential interference from BPL
to your radio installation.

Owen Duffy, VK1OD has developed a very useful tool to assist in evaluating
the effects of BPL on a radio receiving installation. The tool allows you to
determine using your own Antenna and receiver installation parameters the
effect that BPL might have on your installation.

Broadband over Power Lines is technology for carriage of high speed data,
principally for Internet Access, over the existing power line network.

Current BPL technology works by conduction of signals in the radio frequency
spectrum up to about 100MHz. Existing power lines networks are not ideal RF
transmission networks, they will radiate radio frequency energy causing
interference to radiocommunications services, and they will be susceptible
to interference from nearby transmitters (radio or otherwise).

The European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation, CENELEC, are
developing a standard for "Electromagnetic emissions from access powerline
communications networks". Access powerline communications networks are
commonly termed Broadband over Power Lines or BPL.

The proposed CENELEC standard does not automatically apply globally, though
countries like Australia draw heavily on international standards, such as
CENELEC's for their own jurisdiction.

This proposed standard would set limits for the conducted energy and
radiated energy of BPL systems. The radiation limit is specified for example
as a field strength in dBuA/m in a measurement bandwidth at a specified
distance on particular frequency, and its impact will not be immediately
apparent to most radio users.

Do you know what the impact of +4dBuA/m in 9KHz at 3m is on your receiver?

The BPL Interference Evaluation Tool allows evaluation of the impact of BPL
interference under the proposed CENELEC standard given a set of location /
application specific parameters.

Go to the BPL Interference Evaluation Tool at www.vk1od.net/bpl and enter
the details for your site and discover the impact.

If you understand the potential impact, you will understand that BPL is the
most serious risk that faces amateur radio today. We, as a community seem
absorbed with club level issues and small minded parochial thinking when a
concerted national and international level approach is needed, and needed
now.


--
*Eliminate Qru, Qrt & Broadband over Power Lines to ragchew!
**Stephen Newlyn, VK5VKA. G'day from the City of Elizabeth, South Australia.
***Visit the "Stop BPL" page
http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~vk5vka/stopbpl.htm
****Visit my Home Page at http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~vk5vka/index.html


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