Interference from BPL a bigger headache than anticipated

While Power Line Communication (also known as BPL) has not been rolled out in South Africa, the South African Radio League is aware of two pilots which have been announced, of which one is operational.

While the Tshwane Metro denies that their Rooiwal pilot is running, reports by some Council spokes people in last week's iWeek speaks to the contrary. The SARL carried out some preliminary tests and found a high level of interference in the 3 - 13 MHz HF spectrum in the surrounding areas.

An other pilot may soon start in Durban near Mitchell Park.

On Wednesday this week, the SARL will be attending an EMC subcommittee meeting of the STANSA TC74 Committee of the SABS. The meeting will be devoted to reviewing current regulations and the preparation of a report to ICASA to request urgent action to regulate PLC and to agree on interference standards. The PLC problem is aggravated by the absence of international interference standards which are only to be ready in a year's time.

At last year's PLC conference in Pretoria a case study was presented by the City of Manassas in the Washington area talking in glowing terms about the success of PLC which in the USA is referred to as BPL. The City Engineer even referred to their negotiations with local amateur radio clubs and the ARRL and how they successfully had notched out BPL on the amateur bands.

Over the past few weeks the ARRL has filed participations to have the system closed down. The latest is that in response to a report from BPL operator COMTek that claims its BPL system in Manassas, Virginia, cannot be shown to be the cause of ongoing interference complaints by local amateurs, the ARRL has documented the report's shortcomings and again has demanded that the FCC shut down the system until the interference problems are solved.

On a more positive note, so far the only system that seems not to create mayhem on amateur frequencies is the pilot installed by Motorola on the ARRL Campus.

Source: The South African Radio League

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