BBC Paper on PLT

Power Line Telecoms (PLT) was discussed at a meeting of the CEPT Electronic Communications Committee (ECC) Working Group FM46.

The 6th meeting of the ECC Working Group FM46 was held in Bucharest from Nov 3-5, 2009 and two PLT documents were submitted to the meeting:

- Commentary on work in ITU-R on Power Line High Data Rate telecommunication Systems by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

- Compatibility between HF Aeronautical Mobile Radio and PLT In-House Devices

These input documents to FM46 can be downloaded by following these steps:

1. Go to the ECO (formerly ERO) home page http://www.ero.dk/
2. Under 'ECC Activities' select 'ECO Meeting Documents'
3. In 'Select Group: ' select 'FM46'
4. In 'Select Year: ' select '2009'
5. Expand '6th meeting: Bucharest, 3 - 5 November 2009'
6. Expand 'Input'
7. Tick all the documents you wish to download
8. Click on the 'download Selected' button (top right)

The minutes of the meeting are also available. As well as mentioning PLT the problems that LED lights can cause was also raised:

"In the discussion mr. Lindley also referred to a recent situation in Sweden where an LED lantern blocked HF communication possibilities completely."

In addition to PLT the BBC paper also mentions the problem of energy saving Compact Fluorescent Lights, saying:

On 8 June 2009, the US Coast Guard issued a Marine Safety Alert (Alert02-09) advising the maritime industry that “energy saving Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL) or lighting, sometimes known as radio frequency (RF) lighting devices may interfere with certain communications equipment”.