New PLT Product Brings HF Doom A Step Closer

Let's forget the tech speak, and the engineering talk of decibels and signal levels.

Here's what is happening, in plain English:

What we are facing is the design and high-powered marketing of a whole large family of new products which cannot operate normally without ENDING SHORT WAVE RADIO, FOREVER.

Period.

It's no more technical, or esoteric than that. NO MORE SHORT WAVE. EVER. The entire HF band, 2 to 29 megahertz, JAMMED by the most highly distributed system of wideband HF noise generators EVER INVENTED. If WE do not act proactively, NOW, these will be in every building in the industrialized world.

Is that simple enough?

The latest such invention being heavily marketed, amid glowing praise in magazines, sends audio through power lines using HF carriers at a high enough power to jam the entire spectrum in a radius of hundreds or thousands of feet depending on conditions.

This particular product was tested by someone on the UKQRM list and was found to have NO NOTCHES! Amateur radio frequencies are NOT PROTECTED! This matches the experience in Portugal, where products are distributed without these notches.

Got that? No more utility. No more ham. No more use of marine USB while dockside. NO MORE SHORT WAVE RADIO, ANYWHERE IN THE INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD, EVER AGAIN.

I don't know why I bother with this cause. The apathy is complete, and the regulatory indifference is shocking. Unless a movement starts, right now, involving people who traditionally distrust political movements, it will be over. The regulatory agencies will say, well, that's the breaks. Sorry about that.

The people of this Earth will lose the most accessible and democratic (small d) communication medium ever invented. This will have a tragic effect on all history.

Now... is that clear enough?

British Telecom to Continue Specifying Spectrum Polluting Equipment

In a move that surprised everyone with any knowledge of the current situation, British Telecom has renewed its contract with Comtrend to buy its DS2-based PowerGrid 902 home networking adapters for another year.

This is despite full knowledge that the normal on-spec operation of the DS2 chipset continuously transmits a strong signal across most of HF, except for an audible reduction in known international amateur bands. Utility and international broadcasting DXing (including DRM) cannot co-exist with this technology, and everyone knows it.

It is obvious that BT intends to deploy this equipment in millions of homes throughout the UK, while solving the few interference complaints on a case by case basis. Note that this solution requires that the users of the home video system will approve installation of a hard-wired network. If they don't, the complainer will need a new hobby. Too bad about all that money they spent on receivers and equipment. The only recourse left will be a long, expensive, and unpredictable test case in the courts, against extremely well funded and connected corporate interests.

To show how well this approach is working, note the case of longtime Utility Logs contributor "Mike" in West Sussex. He is on something like his third round of Ofcom complaints and technician visits by Ofcom and BT to his neighbors. Every time one is resolved, a new one starts up within a matter of weeks.

It should now be completely obvious that public access to short wave radio is now considered expendable by most of the world's governing bodies. Maybe someone will try to change this, and maybe they won't.

Here's the announcement.