Jory McIntosh, KJ5RM.
Jory McIntosh, KJ5RM. |
NEWINGTON, CT, Mar 30, 2005--An Irving, Texas, BPL pilot project that was the target of an ARRL complaint two weeks earlier has shut down and removed its equipment. In mid-March, the League called on the FCC to shut down the system and issue fines for causing harmful interference to Amateur Radio communications. The ARRL's March 15 filing to the FCC's Enforcement Bureau, its Office of Engineering and Technology, system operator TXU and equipment manufacturer Amperion supported a complaint from ARRL member and North Texas Section BPL Task Force Chair Jory McIntosh, KJ5RM, who regularly commutes through the BPL test zone in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
"I just got back from reviewing the site and can confirm that the BPL installation in Irving, Texas, has been removed and is no longer operating," McIntosh told ARRL this week. "Things are so quiet you can hear a pin drop. Definitely quite a change!" He said when the system was running, interference in its vicinity was 20 dB over S9 or stronger on all amateur bands from 40 through 6 meters.
The ARRL became involved after FCC failed to respond to a formal complaint McIntosh filed last fall. ARRL Laboratory Manager Ed Hare, W1RFI, also took measurements at the Texas site that verified McIntosh's observations. ARRL CEO David Sumner, K1ZZ, thanked McIntosh for his help in bringing the situation to a head. "I hope your example inspires other amateurs facing similar situations to get involved," Sumner added.
 Pole-mounted Amperion BPL equipment in the now-terminated Cedar Rapids, Iowa, pilot project. [Alan Erickson, WB0OAV, Photo] |
On the basis of McIntosh's report, the ARRL this week canceled its complaint to the FCC seeking the system's shutdown and fines for the operator. "ARRL therefore withdraws its complaint with respect to the TXU/Amperion site and requests that the Commission turn its attention to the remainder of the BPL sites which are actively causing interference to radio amateurs, including Briarcliff Manor, New York," ARRL General Counsel Chris Imlay, W3KD, wrote the Commission.
There's been no word from TXU as to its reasons for shutting down the system and removing the equipment. The test report the League included with its complaint pointed out that the interference was not confined to Amateur Radio spectrum but included additional HF spectrum. The ARRL said the system even failed to protect many of the bands that the FCC's new BPL rules require to be notched.
The Irving BPL test site is the third using Amperion BPL equipment to shut down following complaints from Amateur Radio operators. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last June, Alliant Energy cut short its BPL "evaluation system" after the utility and Amperion were unable to resolve ongoing HF interference to amateurs. In the Raleigh, North Carolina, area last October, Progress Energy Corporation shut down Phase II of its BPL field trial after pronouncing the test a success.
Despite an FCC inspection report to the contrary, local amateurs said Progress and Amperion had only limited success in mitigating interference on amateur frequencies in that trial. While initially saying it had no plans for a large-scale commercial rollout of BPL in its service areas, Progress later backed away from that statement, contained in a memorandum announcing the shutdown.
 In the early stages of the utility's two-phase BPL field trial, Progress Energy and BPL partner Amperion cooperated with local amateurs to eliminate interference. [Gary Pearce, KN4AQ, Photo] |
The ARRL formally supported Amateur Radio complaints in Iowa and North Carolina.
Energy East--a cooperative of New York State Electric & Gas and Rochester Gas & Electric--decided last summer against deploying BPL in its Western New York service area. It reportedly based its decision in large part on the high levels of radio frequency interference that an engineer and company officials observed during a visit to Penn Yan.
Last October, a BPL field trial in Menlo Park, California, where now-former FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell earlier had extolled the technology's virtues, was aborted before getting very far off the ground. The BPL demonstration was co-sponsored by Pacific Gas and Electric Company and AT&T, which said it decided to direct its business energies elsewhere.
In January, the Borough of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, decided against plans to offer broadband Internet service via BPL. The Cumberland Valley Amateur Radio Club (CVARC) spearheaded ham radio opposition to the plan in the eastern Pennsylvania community of some 17,000 residents through an informational campaign.
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