25 MAR, 2004 - 1900 CST
Another 9-Land ham sent me this message earlier to day. Mr. Philip
Hunt,
CEE, (and amateur radio operator?) of Surrey, England has taken the WSJ
to serious task. I thought you all would enjoy reading his
letter.
73 - Dick, W9GIG
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FOR Attn; THE MANAGING EDITOR,
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Dear Editor,
Here in England we have virtually grown up with the doctrine that
the WSJ is to be considered as 'America's Number One' ---- trusted and
respected as having an integrity and style much as our own top Newspapers
such as 'The Times' and Financial Times.
Imagine my disappointment therefore on
coming across such a piece of third-rate hack reporting as was presented
under the by-line of your 'Staff Reporter' Ken
Brown in WSJ edition of Tuesday March
23, 2004 Page A1.
I am sure Mr Brown is an otherwise competent writer.
This must have been one of his less brilliant days.
Graced with a 'headline' that one would have thought could only have been
dreamed up by a cub reporter on the lowliest provincial rag trying his
luck, this piece of incomparable prose must have slid past the Subs
on a day when there was absolutely nothing of worth in the world to
report .....other than a further drop in George W's popularity !
Purporting to comment on the mounting reaction
against BPL by communicators and Amateur Radio operators, the
article is not only badly written, it is insulting, scurrilous in
suggestion, and confusing in technical fact. It is insulting
in the fairytale picture it presents and in a style which even a toddler
would find 'sick-making --- Quote , Rick Lindquist drove .....
ignoring the snow swirling round his car and twirling the dial on the ham
radio mounted
on the side of his dashboard...... (Rick Lindquist is an internationally
known and respected staff member of the American Amateur Radio Relay
League; a body respected for its high standards and role-model examples
followed by tens of thousands of Amateur operators worldwide ----- your
reporter's cozy little scene-setting depicts him driving in a highly
dangerous and irresponsible manner) I would doubt that.
Other remarks -----"the nation's vocal but shrinking population of
ham-radio operators or "hams" as they call
themselves"
They don't ! ----- and their numbers are
certainly NOT shrinking I assure you, either parochially in America
or in any other country in the World. I would suggest that
the word 'ham' is far more applicable to your reporter's writing skills
than to the hundreds of thousands of government licensed Radio Amateurs
that he seeks to degrade to the level of unlicensed truckies
and CB' ers.
The ARRL is what its name implies. It is
a Relay League, self policing, and setting standards for the
passing or relaying of messages, generally as an exercise of self
improvement and experiment, set against the possibilty of emergency
public safety communications to aid Police, Fire, and other
emergerncy services in time of National
or local emergencies, ----- a function in which its members have proved
their worth many hundreds of times in the past to the gratitude of the
community at large.-------- and members do not , to my knowledge,
'twiddle the dials of their radios while driving in built-up suburban
areas in swirling snow' when they should no doubt be keeping a
sharp eye on the road. This sort of fairy-tale writing is
regrettable in the columns of a respected newspaper of the standing of
the WSJ.
The facts regarding BPL are clear. Greedy
profit motives on the part of big business are seeking to ride rough-shod
over the interests of a less powerful but equally worthy section of
the community. BPL (Broadband data)
is by its very nature raw binary digital switching, and as any
schoolboy physics student will be pleased to tell you
is , like all square-wave switching, super rich in powerful and
obtrusive harmonics. Fine , if carried on
properly designed balanced coaxial lines, matched and shielded
according to accepted communication engineering techniques,
but put such data on open power distribution lines , of themselves
noisy, and in some rural areas 'economically' maintained, and you
are effectively coupling random NOISE to one gigantic open antenna
system, by default far more effective than anything dreamed up by
"ET" in his efforts to 'phone home !
SETI afficinados may well suddenly have
remarkable success in the form of messages telling us to "Turn that
damned racket DOWN" !
And it won't be just radio amateurs who will be
affected. The spectrum taken up by this stuff is broad.
Wait until the Police ,Fire, Ambulances (and a host of other
services' ) communication managers latch on to the increased foul
up, not to mention the airlines, satcom operators and NASA looking
for micro--watt signals from space.
How would you like to be in a 747 making an
emergency landing somewhere into the JFK, La Guardia, Newark Intl.
complex, in rapidly deteriorating weather with your ILS aerials
looking directly into the mess of wide spectrum noise emanating from ten
thousand chat-room contacts in the downtown Bronx. Queens, and Brooklyn
areas ? Frankly, I'd just as soon stay home.
I suggest the WSJ investigates
further. Don't listen to vested interest. Listen to
those who communicate for love
of the game (Amo = I love. thus
Amateur) Oh! . and do send a good reporter
!. You are after all the Wall Street Journal.
Regards
Philip Hunt.
Chartered Electrical Engineer,
Professional (and Amateur)
Communicator
Surrey, England.