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 he Austrian Amateur Transmitter Federation (ÖVSV-Österreichischer Versuchssenderverband) http://www.oevsv.at/index.shtml reports that a Broadband over Power Line
(BPL) field test in the city of Linz has been cut short as a result of excessive radio interference.
ÖVSV, Austria's International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) http://www.iaru.org member-society, said in December that the Government Ministry for Commerce, Innovation and Techno-logy closed down Linz Power Company's BPL pilot project because it was generating
inter-ference on the HF bands. Short-wave broadcaster Radio Austria's futureZone service
http://futurezone.orf.at says the case that brought the issue to a head was a Red Cross report that emergency services radio traffic during a disaster response drill last May was the victim of massive BPL interference.
"The Commerce Ministry Order not only means the end of the Linz BPL pilot project," the Radio Austria report said, "but the end of the deployment of this technology in Austria, especially given the interference to radio communication in places of business." According to the broadcaster, measurements were said to have indicated that radiation from the BPL system exceeded permissible field strength levels by a factor of 10,000.
ÖVSV says radio amateurs in Austria have opposed deployment of all BPL experiments as neither legal nor compatible with "vital, worldwide shortwave radiocommunication." Among other problems with BPL, ÖVSV has cited its potential to disrupt emergency communications and safety-of-life services as well as military operations on HF and navigation and aeronautical communication.
Last fall, ÖVSV representatives and Linz amateurs got together with power company representatives in an effort to resolve BPL's incompatibility with HF radio operation. The meetings followed news reports of interference to emergency service communications and QRM complaints from several area hams. "Because of the racket, expensive installations, such as a 20-meter monobander on a high-rise building, become totally worthless," ÖVSV said.
The utility agreed to look into the possibility of a 100-meter protective zone around each amateur's location, notch filters for amateur frequencies, network system filters and the use of 5 GHz wireless local area networks.
-From ARRL Letter January 9, 2004
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here were a couple of things that were supposed to happen in preparation for the January meeting, that didn't. One was the operating budget for 2004, which should have made it into this issue for members to review it before the meeting. Because that didn't happen, the Budgetary considerations will have to be delayed until next month's issue. Part of the reason for this was that there was no December meeting of the Board of Directors.