ARRL's complaint

A little more than a month earlier, on October 8, 2004, Christopher D. Imlay, of the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Booth, Freret, Imlay & Tepper, P.C., on behalf of his client, ARRL, The National Association for Amateur Radio, also known as the American Radio Relay League, Incorporated (ARRL), filed a complaint with the FCC. In that complaint, Mr. Imlay says that the "adjustments" made by Ambient at its Briarcliff test site did not eliminate the interference that had been complained of earlier.

On behalf of the ARRL, Mr. Imlay requested of the FCC that "the BPL facility at Briarcliff Manor, New York be instructed to shut down immediately; and that it not resume operation unless the facility is shown to be in full compliance with Commission rules regarding radiated emissions and with the non-interference requirements of both Section 15.5 of the Commission's Rules and the terms of the experimental authorization."

Mr. Imlay's communication with the FCC goes on in great detail to specify the manner in which the use of Con Ed power lines in Briarcliff Manor are interfering with the operations of amateur radio stations in that area.

In a footnote, the attorney for the ARRL cites the terms of "Special Condition #1," one of the rules regulating this test of BPL:

"Licensee (Ambient Corporation) should be aware that other stations may be licensed on these frequencies and if any interference occurs, the licensee of this authorization will be subject to immediate shut down."

On December 16, 2004, according to a letter sent on December 17, 2004, by Mr. Imlay to the FCC, ARRL representatives conducted further tests of RF interference along the power lines being used by Ambient and Con Ed in their BPL trial and found that "the BPL interference to Amateur Radio communication, to the extent it was ever reduced, has now reappeared at high levels, principally on the 14 MHz band."

Mr. Imlay concludes his letter to the FCC by saying:

"The Commission has made many allusions to a firm commitment to prevention of interference to Amateur Radio communications from BPL systems, and to enforcement where such occurs. Based on the Commission's complete inaction to date with respect to documented interference complaints at various BPL test sites, this commitment seems vacuous. ARRL demands that this BPL site be shut down immediately, pending compliance determination, and a demonstration that the system can operate without causing harmful interference. Given the unsupported, and demonstrably false allegations contained in the Ambient October 12, 2004 response to ARRL's interference complaint, the Commission should rescind the experimental authorization as well, and determine other appropriate sanctions against Ambient Corporation."

Coverage of the Briarcliff BPL Trial in the Wall Street Journal

Ken Brown wrote a front-page article on the Briarcliff trial for the Wall Street Journal, which ran the piece, entitled "In This Power Play, High-Wire Act Riles Ham-Radio Fans--New Use for Lines Sparks Tension With Operators; 'Firestorm' in Penn Yan," on March 23, 2004.

The article caused a firestorm of its own.

Alan R. Shark, President & CEO, Power Line Communications Association, wrote a letter to the editor of the WSJ saying, in pertinent part, that "there is simply zero empirical evidence that power line communications causes harmful interference with ham radio frequencies.".

Richard Moseson, Editor, CQ Amateur Radio magazine, wrote one too, containing ten detailed refutations of what he calls "significant inaccuracies" in the Brown article. Mr. Moseson concludes his letter by posing a rhetorical question:

"Perhaps a better question for Mr. Brown to be asking than "Why is this thing a major calamity?" is "Why is BPL so important to the FCC?" It is FCC policy not to promote any one particular technology, yet from Chairman Powell on down to the staff level, this policy is being violated with regularity as the FCC has become cheerleaders for a technology with potential for massive interference to a host of long-distance radio services and whose economic potential is unproven at best. Why is BPL so important to the FCC? It's a question that may well be worth the curiosity of the Journal's excellent investigative staff."

Another party heard from

President Bush supports BPL, too, and said in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on April 26, 2004, that "the technical standards need to be changed to encourage that." For a comment on this from David Sumner, K1ZZ, Chief Executive Officer of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), read his July 1, 2004, editorial piece entitled "BPL—A Blind Alley.".

Summary to date

To summarize: Ambient Corporation and Con Edison Company of New York, Inc., are running what may be the most significant experimental trial of broadband over power line so far in the leafy Westchester suburb of Briarcliff Manor, not far from former President Clinton's current digs in Chappaqua, New York. Irritated ham radio operators have conducted extensive monitoring of the radio frequency (RF) emissions from this trial and say it is causing "harmful interference" with their FCC-licensed amateur radio station transmissions and reception.

Through their attorneys and their association, the ARRL, the amateur radio operators have formally and repeatedly complained and presented documentary evidence they say corroborates their complaints to the FCC, which is required, under law, to shut down BPL installations that cause "harmful interference" with the radio spectrum allotted under law to the amateur broadcasters. According to the radio station operators, the FCC's inaction in this matter renders their expressed commitment to enforcing the law "vacuous."

The ARRL's lawyer yesterday asked the FCC to shut down the trial and take away Ambient Corporation's license to conduct it.

Let's see what happens on Monday.

Directions to the site of the alleged "harmful interference"

Those interested in measuring the RF emissions at the site of the Ambient-Con Ed BPL trial themselves can access a map showing and directions to the intersection of Chappaqua and North State Road in Briarcliff Manor, NY, where, it is alleged by ARRL, measurements and tests conducted on October 3, 2004, showed that "the BPL signal…occupies the entire band, and at distances of more than 500 meters from the BPL injector," by clicking here.

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