As wireless cell towers and antennas flourish, towns, cites and municipalities are challenged to adopt ordinances that let citizens receive the best telecommunications services available. Regulatory legislation hasn’t helped. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was over 500 pages long; during debate, most legislators considered it to only be about deregulation. But buried inside the Act, in Section 704, lay a crafty clause about the siting of cell-phone towers that trips up planning and zoning groups.

For this and other reasons, zoning boards are challenged to approve high-quality wireless services. It doesn’t help when they don’t understand microwave propagation.

An appreciation of microwave propagation comes into play when carriers and network operators are faced with securing wireless transmission media (often a microwave link “backhaul”) that relay the wireless traffic to the landline network or between towers. As more educational institutions offer additional classrooms in distance education and remote video conferencing, their needs also increase for wireless systems and backhaul.

Collocation Tower with Cellular and Backhaul Antennas

As a case in point, a town in Illinois accepted an application from SBA Towers to replace an aging tower on a college campus with a taller monopole structure to allow better backhaul of college networks and to support more wireless tenants. The existing short tower was structurally limited but was situated in adequate campus space to meet setback and other pertinent city requirements. The application was presented to the town by wireless zoning attorney Richard Connor Riley, supported by expert testimony from LBA’s Chris Horne. Chris’ work included a microwave path study of the existing and proposed college backhaul link.

This is where it gets interesting.

The study was performed for a proposed new digital transmission system serving four video conference classrooms and also transporting all internet traffic between the college and a remote teaching facility. The included digital microwave link would be a backup to an existing fiber network between the two campuses.

Controversy arose centered on a proposed antenna dish that was needed to support the data requirements of four video conference classrooms. It would replace an existing microwave dish that served only one classroom and was an outmoded analog link with limited performance and capacity compared to the proposed digital replacement.

When LBA evaluated the microwave installation, it confirmed that greater height was needed for the new dish to support the required performance of the system. It had not been obvious to zoning authorities that such an increase was necessary; the devil was in an “invisible” gremlin!

A close evaluation of the microwave path between the campus and a far terminal revealed that a tall hotel building under construction several miles away was rising exactly in the path of the beam. At its final height, the building would penetrate the microwave Fresnel zone and block the microwave signal. Based upon LBA’s engineering evaluation, the town zoning board was persuaded to approve the SBA tower application, and clear the way for the higher microwave dish. The university learning network was saved!

So – just what is this mysterious microwave path Fresnel zone?

In order for radio waves emitted from a transmitting antenna to reach a receiver without attenuation of power, a certain amount of 3-dimensional space is required. The radio wave energy cannot reach the receiver via one straight line in space. Think of a hole the size of a needle in a concrete wall. If you shout across a pond to the wall, do you think all the sound penetrates only the hole?

The Fresnel zone or First Fresnel zone (0.6) is a three-dimensional elliptical space surrounding the line of sight path from the transmitter to the receiver. If a reflective object is placed anywhere on the edge of the ellipse, it will cause a reflected signal that, due to propagation delay, is delayed 180 degrees (“carrier phase shift”) with the line of sight signal at the receiving antenna. Digital radio equipment is typically robust in the presence of propagation fades and other noise. However, if there is an obstruction between the antennas (ground, buildings, natural objects, etc.), the radio waves will be reflected, resulting in multipath interference and unacceptable bit error rates–think old TV “snowy pictures.

Depiction of a Fresnel Zone in urban environment

A 0.6 Fresnel zone clearance is normally desired for microwave paths. While “line of sight” (LOS) is important, it obviously is not always adequate. Even though the path may have clear LOS, when obstructions penetrate the Fresnel zone, unwanted signal attenuation results.

This is precisely what happened in this case; a building encroached upon the 0.6 Fresnel zone of the proposed college microwave link. Such obstacles can wreak havoc on wireless backhaul including transmission errors and signal reception issues.

The take away here is that next time you plan a microwave backhaul link, be sure to consider the Fresnel zone, LOS obstructions, and other antenna placement factors. Consider every detail of the traversed terrain, including vegetation, existing, and planned construction. A detailed path study will provide valuable input results for an efficient tower placement scheme that meets both coverage and transmission quality metrics. A not unimportant byproduct is that it also provides the basis for a credible defense of a tower proposal in an increasingly contentious zoning environment.

LBA can help with all of the above. LBA also offers RF Engineering services including expert testimony and system design. We offer extensive zoning technical support here. Other capabilities include microwave system design, path study, and RF engineering services here.

“As one of the awardees from around the country, you have distinguished yourself as one of the leading entrepreneurs in the United States,” said Kenton Clarke last week in announcing LBA Group’s listing among 2,500 successful businesses in the U.S.  Clarke is CEO of DiversityBusiness, the nation’s largest organization of minority-owned companies doing business with Fortune 1000 firms, government agencies and universities.

Besides the national recognition, LBA Group earned a spot in two significant state rankings by the same organization: Number 51 among top 100 minority businesses in North Carolina and an identical ranking among top 100 privately held companies in the state.

The three awards continue LBA’s run as a recognized small business success story in an economy that tests the mettle of every company.

“LBA is particularly honored to be recognized for 2011,” says Lawrence Behr, company founder and CEO. “It is gratifying because it comes at a time of international economic stress. We are succeeding because of the commitment and excellence of our diversified team.”

Behr entered the industry in 1963 after becoming fascinated as a teenager by AM broadcast engineering. First hiring out his skills, the young Behr soon formed his own company.

Today, LBA Group, Inc is comprised of two units: LBA Technology, Inc. which markets such products as AM antenna systems, antenna test equipment,  EMF shielding, and RF safety monitors to wireless, commercial and military users; and consulting firm Lawrence Behr Associates, Inc., offering  professional services including cell tower zoning and RF safety compliance, RF safety training, EMF shield design and testing, RF interference resolution and distributed antenna system (DAS) services.

LBA Group is very much a global company. It has been deeply involved in telecommunications projects on every continent—from Europe to the Middle East and Africa and across the entire length of South America. A contract completed in January was for India’s radio broadcast system.

LBA Group and other award-winners will be recognized at the organization’s 12^th annual National Business Awards Conference, held this year on April 25 at a resort in Mashantucket, Conn.

We have now finished reviewing the dismal (partial) list of historic FCC spectrum management engineering mistakes, and in this final part of the series we’ll look at some suggestions for how the FCC could, ideally, conduct this highly-important function.  The Commission would never adopt any of these proposals, of course, but “even engineers can dream!”

As detailed earlier in this series, too many times the FCC regulators have dipped their pinkies into technology and have tried to force ‘regulated” spectrum management solutions which buck the well-known laws of physics.  Their regulatory development process (at a general level) seems to operate as follows:

 1. Especially under prodding from Congress and/or from specific entrepreneurs or regulated industries, promote development of a new spectrum-using technology by proposing an allocation of a slice of spectrum to accommodate the new systems.

2. After the public discussion and the submission of Comments has ended, ignore recommendations from well-qualified engineers and technical experts, both within the Commission and external to it, which are in full or partial opposition to the proposal as written.

3. Adopt the proposal by using administrative fiats that declare that the opposition’s technical findings are “of no merit” or, alternatively, by issuing their own “administrative fixes” to circumvent any identified problems.

4. After operations of the new technology are implemented, begin receiving complaints from established spectrum licensees/users that their existing operations are becoming affected by the new activities.

5. Transfer the burden of proof that damages have indeed occurred entirely to the complaining parties, while retaining the option for the Commission administratively to dismiss the complaints because of “non-proof” of the claims (at least to the Commission’s satisfaction!) or because of the demonstrated narrow “technical compliance” by the newly established systems with “existing Rules.”  This then leaves the federal judicial system as the only remaining remedy for redress of damages, again at the injured licensees’ own expense.

6. Finally, if matters cannot be resolved in any other easy way, propose an ad-hoc “administrative settlement” together with modified Rules which solve few of the FCC-created problems, leaves no party satisfied, but provides an easy way for the FCC to exit gracefully.

FCC Spectrum Management Universe

The FCC’s historical record in spectrum management is one of repeated poor-to-disastrous engineering decisions, punctuated with occasional successes (for example, the Personal Communications Service [PCS]).  Too much at the FCC has gone too badly wrong for too long a period of time for this level of poor agency performance to be dismissed or to be labeled as “unimportant.”  Their cumulative record is equivalent to leaving Apollo 11 motionless on the launch pad, rather than on its way to a first lunar landing.  At the bottom of it all, this record is one of failure!

The Curmudgeon is an informed citizen who is angry about the quality of regulation that has been historically provided by the FCC.  Not angry because the FCC is a governmental regulatory organization.  Angry, rather, because it has been government done poorly!  Angry because the FCC has always been an organization with grossly insufficient direction from both its own scientists and engineers and those in the outside professional community.  Angry because the people at its top who cannot possibly understand the spectrum management engineering arguments and their ramifications still make the final decisions.

It is generally not the case that the FCC is administered by uneducated bureaucratic dummies who are the “survivors” in the civil service.  (The Commissioners themselves are political appointees, so not much relief can be expected there.)  Their top staff people may well have advanced degrees from well-recognized universities in law, economics, public service, or business.  But they may also carry college academic transcripts that indicate they earned grades of C- or lower in their “introductory survey of physics for non-science majors” or “business calculus” courses, the last technical requirement courses they might ever take.  It would be fascinating to know!

Would you still believe that a solid background in a technical discipline isn’t really a necessity for a successful top manager in that same discipline?  Then you ought to consider the prospects for a hospital surgery department managed by a Wall Street options trader.  Or an airline’s Pilot Training and Certification Department administered by an (non-aviator) economist.  Or a nuclear power plant Reactor Operations department led by a divorce lawyer.  And, for that matter, a clinical psychological counseling group managed by an RF engineer!

There are few easy decisions to be made in the area of RF spectrum management, which, by its very nature, is a highly technical area.  Is it not perhaps reasonable and rational for the regulatory decision makers in spectrum management to be highly qualified in its physics and engineering disciplines?  Is it not reasonable for the regulators to accept, and even to actively seek, engineering advice from non-governmental technical experts?  Certainly lawyers can write the subsequent Rules, and economists can do the industry financial assessments.  But highly experienced engineers need to make the spectrum management decisions!  And by the way, in this new and enlightened era politicians and lobbyists would be nowhere to be seen around the FCC!

What a beautiful, satisfying dream-in-progress experience this was…..which dream was abruptly terminated in mid-course by the clamor of trash cans clanging in the alley behind The Portals in Washington, D. C.!  “And so another typical day at the FCC begins……..”

What do you think?

“Let’s save the universe for RF!”

The Old RF Curmudgeon

Since 1963, LBA has been providing RF equipment and engineering consulting services for radio and television broadcast and wireless communications.

The 4GWE conferences attract wireless carriers and industry stockholders who are keen to stay on top of swiftly changing technologies and applications. Anyone in the wireless industry knows the sweep of change involved these days, and one such phenomenon is the lowering of barriers between licensed and unlicensed wireless spectrum providers.

At the conference, Horne—a registered professional engineer with a doctorate in electrical engineering—will be one of five panelists in a discussion of “Breaking Down the Licensed-Unlicensed Wall.”

Because the demand for more spectrum is blurring and fusing the worlds of licensed and unlicensed internet service providers, the panel will explore the possibility of more efficiently utilizing spectrum by blending it between the two ISP categories. This fuzzing of distinctions between licensed and unlicensed providers crosses the threshold into another brave new world of spectrum usage.

Another example of the movement toward parsing spectrum is the Federal Communications Commission’s approval of sharing UHF and VHF television channels. The decision came after experimental trials of TV spectrum-sharing were conducted in several areas, including Wilmington, N.C.  KTS Wireless is a pioneer in this whitespace radio technology.

Horne is a veteran of such discussions as these. He was a panelist last fall at a 4G World conference in Chicago where splitting and rebranding spectrum was dissected for conference attendees.

For the Miami discussion, on the panel with Horne are Thomas Knippen, vice president of W.A.T.C.H. TV; Phillip Merrill, owner of Arizona ISP company, BeamSpeed;  Dr. Mohammad Shakouri, vice president of broadband solutions provider Alvarion; and Greg Williams, senior vice president of BelAir Networks.

Conference attendees can take part in the panel discussions, network with wireless world peers, and view new products and services of an expected 200 exhibitors on the convention center floor. To register for the conference, or for more information, the 4GWE contact person is wireless spectrum, overloaded wireless spectrum, 4G Wireless Evolution conference,4G Wireless Evolution conference,4G Wireless Evolution conference, 4GFrank Coppola at 203-852-6800 extension 131 or he can be e-mailed at fcoppola@tmcnet.com.

Here at LBA Group Inc., our team did a magnificent job of tuning out the static and vectoring in on solutions to customers’ needs. Consequently, we are able to look back on the year with considerable satisfaction and to look forward to 2012 with genuine eagerness. We believe we are well-positioned to ably serve old and new customers and to grow our position in the market.

So… Happy Holidays from all of us at LBA Group Inc. May your New Year be replete with personal and professional success.

In this post we will finish the list of FCC historic spectrum management mistakes that began with Part 1 of this series.

12.  Land Mobile “Re-farming:” (1990s-present). By itself not a major league blunder, but more of a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” gambit.  The basic idea is to halve, and then later halve again, the occupied (RF channel) bandwidth used by individual private land mobile networks, in order to squeeze ever more of them into a very limited amount of spectrum.  This kind of action is consistent with the basic FCC practice of just ignoring the laws of physics whenever it suits their administrative needs.  There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the concept, except that the compliant licensees will inherit new systems with operating characteristics different from those to which they designed and built their original systems on the (then) wider channels.

Private land mobile operations overwhelming use analog FM emissions, and as the bandwidth of an FM channel is progressively narrowed, the inherent signal/noise advantages of FM emissions, compared to envelope-modulated methods, proportionately diminish.  By the time the occupied channel is narrowed to the bandwidth of an equivalent AM signal, there are no remaining FM signal/noise advantages over AM.  Hence with new “AM performance-equivalent networks,” system operators will find themselves with smaller than expected operating radii and an increase in operational noise problems.  (Different problems apply to digital land mobile radio systems, which are not considered here.)

Mobile Radio is Still the Backbone of Public Safety

13.  “Broadband” Public Safety nationwide interoperability network (2000s-present).  This one is more than just an engineering blunder; it’s a total system failure!  September 11, 2001, showed the glaring deficiencies in our Public Safety first responders’ radio networks, especially in the area of interoperability of responders from different agencies under emergency conditions.  Commendably the FCC began quickly to develop a plan for a replacement “nationwide broadband interconnect network” for the current fragmented system, including clearing spectrum at 700 MHz to house it.  But now September 11, 2011 has passed and as a nation we have produced………. nothing!  We’ve diddled around with “novel economic concepts” for funding the system, to no avail.  But we haven’t really begun in earnest to design and to build the new system.  On the “FCC time table” it would be another 2½ centuries before the US would first land men on the moon!  It might just be more productive for a different agency to take on this priority project.  “Hey, NASA…………!!!”

14.  Digital broadcast radio – “In Band On Channel” (2000s).  This really isn’t inherently a bad engineering idea, rather more of a botched implementation.  Eventually broadcast radio (AM and FM) will need to transition from the analog world to the digital realm, to join just about every other medium of contemporary information transfer.  Unfortunately with a huge installed base of radio receivers, comprising a much larger number of receivers than the equivalent installed television receiver base, the “single national transition day” concept that was used with some success for television probably isn’t feasible for radio.  And there is insufficient unused broadcast radio spectrum to assign to our current broadcasters temporary “second, digital channels,” as was done with television.  Some sort of simultaneous “dual mode on a single channel” radio transmission scheme is necessary to permit a long time-scale transition before the analog modes sunset.

For the simultaneously compatible digital system the FCC chose the Ubiquity IBOC concept, which the manufacturer promoted as “In-Band On Channel.”  Unfortunately the engineering reality is somewhat different; it’s “IBAC, In-Band Adjacent Channels.”  In both AM and FM band digital modes, digital modulation sidebands on the analog carrier can extend into both first adjacent channels.  Spectrum analyzers will demonstrate that presence, and on-air interference complaints corroborate the problems.  If, instead of the FCC’s administratively “bending” physics to meet its regulatory needs, it had instead planned for the necessary cleared adjacent channel spectrum and made adjustments to currently assigned stations, the concept might have worked from the beginning.  Or if it had ordered multiplexing of the programming from all the stations in a particular “city of license” onto a single new digital-only carrier (as is done in satellite radio broadcasting) while continuing with the existing separate analog carriers, the transition to new receivers could have been facilitated.  Now ????

FCC Mapping of Broadband Availability – 2010

15.  “The Broadband Superhighway” (2000-present).  In the words of the late great Ed Sullivan, “this one is really, really big!”  Trusting the “big carriers” to develop a physical and operational structure for an affordable nationwide, universal broadband digital network, a capability required today as essential infrastructure in the global economy, the FCC again dropped the ball.  The carriers failed to develop a universal network.  Today there is no single nationwide broadband highway that extends into most citizens’ homes or businesses, or even a plan for one, but rather a patchwork of different high cost (relative to other countries), modest performance transmission methods and services.

Now that we are in the fourth quarter of the game with the clock running down, the FCC is ready to play “catch up football” and to begin throwing Hail Mary! passes.   But there is still no workable plan.  And indeed the FCC (as well as other cognizant federal agencies) still shows almost no interest in the single solution that would meet the requirements: universal basic fiber-to-the-premises networks with sufficient natural operating bandwidth to meet every conceivable future need.  Instead they are expediently promoting everything but that solution.  Most perniciously, the FCC is casting its hungry eyes upon the RF spectrum on which to do a “quick and dirty” RF implementation, contemplating devouring huge chunks of spectrum for new “broadband” transmission services that could better done on land lines (i.e., there is no justification for supplying RF broadband service to an urban building).

If the FCC were in charge of developing a universal, nationwide materials-transportation network for example, they would today be enthusiastically promoting all of the following (and more):  mule trains, river canoe traffic, one-shot space cargo missiles, under-sea dolphin delivery systems, etc.  They would be involved in everything except clearing land and laying rails or asphalt on it.

GPS Interference Problem Illustrated – GPS Working Group (PDF)

16.  LightSquared (present day).  “Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water…..!”  This is the matter that precipitated the original visualization of the Sweet Sixteen list.  In the year 2000, to its credit the federal government’s executive branch opened the (until then) mostly military-oriented Global Positioning Satellite system to the general public and thereby launched an entirely new industry:  high accuracy Navigation and Timing.  With cheap and useful terrestrial hardware and a reliable and well-maintained fleet of satellites, and especially with secure satellite operating frequencies that could be successfully received over most of the surface of the planet, GPS offers levels of technology, convenience, and service never before available.  But even that achievement may not be sufficient to preserve GPS as we have grown to know it.

In its mania to develop some kind of “universal broadband” service, the FCC now stands ready to sacrifice GPS.  In a block of L-band frequencies immediately adjacent to the block in which the civilian GPS service now operates (military GPS has additional satellite frequencies for its needs), the FCC has given LightSquared a waiver of Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) rules to permit “supplemental” terrestrial broadband data services to otherwise inaccessible locations.  In fact, LightSquared proposes a system of over 40,000 transmitters, virtually identical in function to those already deployed by AT&T, Verizon and others for wireless service. The LightSquared licenses to construct and operate the system are conditioned on resolving interference problems with GPS.

On the face of it, the MSS and GPS systems should be “compatible.”  They both would operate from comparable orbital space locations with comparable transmitted power levels. But the huge number of terrestrial MSS “repeaters” each operating at powers up to 1600 watts, change the game! Blockage of the received GPS signals through receiver overload from strong adjacent channel MSS terrestrial repeater transmissions becomes a huge risk!  Even a Boy Scout working on a merit badge in “radio” should be able to see through this one!

In just a decade GPS has come to be the underpinning for a number of essential, critical services.  It has been widely successful.  Why jeopardize it?  “What must the FCC have been thinking?” The civilian GPS manufacturers and the military both strongly oppose the plan.  Yet the FCC continues with it.  [The utterly bizarre and high intricate politics behind this proposed system, which details are to byzantine to explore here, do explain much of the apparent illogicality. (hint: “think $$$”)].

Next time, in the final installment of this series, we’ll postulate how an engineering-competent FCC might approach spectrum management.

What do you think?

“Let’s save the universe for RF!”

The Old RF Curmudgeon

Since 1963, LBA has been providing RF equipment and engineering consulting services for radio and television broadcast and wireless communications.

It could get messy, LBA Group’s Chris Horne warns.

Horne’s warning came in a discussion at last week’s 4G World 2011 Expo at Chicago’s McCormick Place exhibition hall. LBA’s chief technical officer was part of a WCAI three-person panel that weighed how to parse spectrum by rebanding 2Ghz in the mobile broadband spectrum and by holding incentive auctions.

Congress is considering auctioning of extra TV spectrum for use by wireless carriers. Besides freeing up spectrum to meet increasing wireless phone demands, the auctions could raise up to $30 billion for the strapped public treasury. The auction idea was handed to a so-called congressional “supercommittee” that has been saddled with reducing public debt by a trillion or more dollars. The lawmakers are 30 days away from the mandated end of their deliberations, so the fate of the incentive auctions could be determined in pretty short order.

In the panel discussion, Horne stressed the importance of the rebanded spectrum being made available in a comprehensive way to avoid interference problems. Fracturing the spectrum into smaller pieces without fully integrating the consequences of the partitioning will create a whole new set of issues, he said.

Horne was joined on the panel by Don Brittingham of Verizon Wireless and Paul Sinderbrand of Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP. Paul Kirby, senior editor of TRDaily, moderated the discussion.

LBA’s Chris Horne (left) and Paul Sinderbrand of Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP were two of the three panelists dissecting the spectrum issue.

All three of the panelists stressed the need to implement spectrum change in a way that will avoid piecemeal problems; one suggestion was to pair the AWS-3 band with the 1755-1780 MHz band. Furthermore, Brittingham said he would have wireless carriers share the 1755-1780 MHz spectrum with satellite signal systems, perhaps through a dynamic spectrum access procedure.

Some 12,000 industry members, half of them executives and senior leadership people, crowded into the massive McCormick Place venue during the four days of the expo.

Since 1963, LBA has been providing RF equipment and engineering consulting services for radio and television broadcast and wireless communications. Please contact Mike Britner at mike.britner@lbagroup.com to discuss specific requirements.

6.  Nextel (1990s).  Back when it all began they were known as “Fleetcall,” but their real intention became apparent with the re-naming of the company after a few years.  Their mission: to construct a new wireless dispatch/telephone-interconnect network that, to the uninitiated consumer, would appear to be “cellular telephone” service.  In reality, however, Fleetcall attempted to do this using Private Land Mobile Radio (PLMR) [i.e., “two way radio”] allocations and frequencies, and for much of its history it remained a private carrier, not a (cellular) communications common carrier.  Using its heavy financial and legal resources, Fleetcall overwhelmed the FCC and ran, almost unchecked, willy-nilly through the (then-thriving) PLMR radio industry.

Fleetcall did not hold allocations of contiguous frequency blocks in individual markets, under single system licenses, as do the cellular/PCS licensees.  Every licensing action Fleetcall took involved individual (narrowband) operating frequencies at specific locations.  Thus battling Fleetcall was equivalent to fighting an entire ant farm simultaneously.  And in that Fleetcall’s TDMA digital operations were on frequencies that were interspersed with the analog FM frequencies of Public Safety, Land Transportation, and other private licensees, co-existence problems did frequently result.  When such problems effectively shut down geographically- and frequency-proximate Public Safety wireless dispatch networks, the affected police chiefs, sheriffs, and fire chiefs “were not amused.”  Nor was the FCC of much help, as they did not have the staff to handle these large numbers of issues.

Eventually, however, the advance of technology caught up with what was by then Nextel (later to be acquired by Sprint).  Nextel’s individual narrowband TDMA channels would not permit the rich feature mix that the kind of wideband technologies (CDMA, adopted by Sprint, and GSM) used by the true cellular/PCS carriers could offer.  Nextel could not participate in the emerging advanced cellular markets, since the new technologies required dedicated wide-band radio channels.  So Nextel decided to create its own individual wide-band channels, again in the PLRM spectrum, by “relocating” the frequencies for all the other licensees to one end of the allocated band, and keeping the (now-contiguous) other end for its exclusive use.

And thus began the 800 MHz “rebanding” proceedings, which “sputtereth along unto this very day!” The relocations are very expensive, highly contentious, lack a definite FCC leadership presence and, along with various other mangled FCC initiatives, have left the private Land Mobile world (and especially the important Public Safety contingent) in shambles.  Entire doctoral dissertations could (and probably should) be written on this single FCC regulatory failure. Available space here cannot do justice even to the engineering aspects.

{Disclosure here: During this period, LBA provided extensive consulting services to Fleetcall and NEXTEL, and continues to provide services to Sprint.}

7.  “900 MHz” (1990s).  This is one most readers won’t know about unless they have had specific reasons to establish operations on 900 MHz.  Over the course of years the entire non-governmental 900 MHz band (from 898 to 960 MHz) was allocated out by the FCC to various kinds of services and users, without any apparent long term vision or overall plan.  Ultimately there were 900 MHz high-powered licensed users, low-power licensed users, and low-powered unlicensed users, all jumbled together while trying to operate.  Some of the spectrum was also co-opted by the military.

Motorola 900 MHz Paging Transmitter

As examples, low-powered 900 MHz Multiple Address Systems (licensed, two-way) operated in close proximity (often both in frequency and in geographical location) to high-powered digital paging system base stations (licensed, one-way).  High-powered Automatic Vehicle Location beacon transmitters (licensed, one-way) shared spectrum with low-powered licensed and unlicensed users such as consumer wireless devices and Amateur radio.  Almost everyone was unhappy almost all the time.  The overall spectrum management effort was so badly botched that an FCC middle level manager, sitting at his desk in M Street, admitted “We really blew managing that band!”

{Disclosure here: During this period, LBA provided consulting services to hundreds of 900 MHz paging licensees.}

8.  Amplitude Compandored Single Sideband [ACSB] (early 1990s).  This is an interesting failure, even if not a terribly major one.  At the beginning of the 1990s the FCC was worried about a growing shortage of spectrum that could be used for PLMR operations (i.e., private dispatch, Public Safety, land transportation, etc.).  In major metropolitan areas almost all the available VHF/UHF operating channels had already been allocated and, in the days prior to the mass adoption of mobile telephone service, the demand for private “two-way mobile radio systems” continued to increase.

Positive Train Control – Finally, a 220 MHz Application

The shortage was exacerbated in part because of the relatively large occupied bandwidths (~ 20 kHz) used by land mobile radio’s analog FM emissions mode of that time, and in part because of historical FCC frequency allocation policies.  In the past the FCC had permanently allocated specific operating frequencies to various different classes of users (i.e., Public Safety, Local Government, Business, Land Transportation, etc.) as part of their authorizing Rules.  However if a particular frequency, allocated for example to an individual railroad, did not have an authorized user of that class or licensee in a particular location, that frequency often went unused.  Repeated FCC field spectrum utilization studies documented the vacancies in the midst of general need.

Prompted by equipment manufacturers, the FCC set up a new emissions mode, together with a hitherto “unused” band on which to operate: Amplitude Compandored Single Sideband (ACSB) on the new 220 MHz band.  The engineering idea was to use the (low occupied bandwidth) of single sideband emissions modes (successfully used in High Frequency band voice communications), but modified for land mobile needs.  The modifications included not entirely eliminating the RF carrier but rather allowing a ‘vestigial” carrier to remain to serve as a synchronizing signal for the transmission, and special speech-processing for the audio to improve the S/N ratio.  The “new” band was 220 – 222 MHz (purloined from the Amateurs), and the format was the traditional PLMR trunked mobile/base station/repeater system operating on duplex pairs of frequencies.

The land-rush was on, with a one-time “application window” and essentially no-cost system licenses for the winners (in the era prior to “spectrum auctions”).  But the technology proved unpopular with the end-user public, especially when compared to the quality of the existing analog FM systems and to the emerging cellular telephone service.   Within just a few years the new initiative had largely collapsed.  Later the FCC would move into other spectrum-packing techniques for the PLMR service, and eventually the loss of VHF frequencies to the Amateurs was partially compensated with access to other frequencies.

{Disclosure here: During this period, LBA provided consulting services to many 220 MHz licensees, and its principals hold (and still hold) 220 MHz licenses.}

9.  Broadband over Power Lines, [BPL] (early 2000s).  A brilliant FCC policy initiative intended at a minimum to make some sort of beginning on the developing problem of lack of universal broadband access for the citizens of the US (see below).  “Do it now, do it cheap, and regulate your way around the laws of physics” was the approach.  The concept was to stuff digitally modulated RF carriers down existing public-utility service pathways into every building in the country (almost!).  Unfortunately the land-line telephone network was already in use in part for data communications, and the existing water and natural gas pipes didn’t seem especially promising for the communications task, so it fell to the electrical power lines to do the job.  But first two minor physics constraints had to be “regulated out of existence.”

BPL Deployments Ca. 2005

Power conductors and networks designed to be efficient at 60 Hz aren’t particularly efficient at transporting the HF band RF carriers used by the proposed BPL systems.  Line and transformer losses are high and transporting usable data signals over long distances is difficult.  Second, if HF carriers can indeed be made to travel through the power distribution network, they will inevitably radiate EM fields from the (unshielded) electrical distribution lines, which are themselves multiple wavelengths-long antennas at the RF frequencies in use.  That physical process is formally known as “radio,” and the result of the process as “signal jamming.”  All proximate users of HF radio systems would be placed in jeopardy by large BPL networks as they blanketed major metropolitan regions.  Ultimately this “do it cheap” expensive solution mostly died a natural death; however it has returned in a smaller, modified format as “home power line networking,” a quick and dirty alternative to Wi-Fi and Ethernet home digital networks.  The UK is now experiencing its first RF spectrum pollution problems from this stinker.

10.  “Noise temperature” (early 2000s).  This concept didn’t get much publicity, and mercifully it didn’t last long either.  But yet, as had happened previously, it reappeared at a later time.  The basic concept was that unregulated low power communications activities could be “dropped in” on top of licensed RF operations in a geographical area and could lawfully continue to operate until they began to create interference.  The recollection is that this “field experiment” would occur primarily in the fixed, point-to-point microwave bands.  Existing, licensed equipment would have to be modified to detect and to report interference from the unlicensed operations; such detection would establish the maximum “noise temperature” that would be tolerated.  The exact reporting and administrative/enforcement provisions were not clear.   Established licensees rejected this concept in droves, and it died a quick and merciful death.

11.  TV White Spaces (late 2000s).  But then it returned!  Now the provision is that semi-regulated unlicensed operation would occur on locally-unused TV channels.  Again some sort of “noise temperature” function would be defined and some sort of administrator would keep tabs of the ever-changing kaleidoscope of activity, keeping the unlicensed devices just below the boiling point.  Curiously this one may die because of the FCC’s own parallel initiatives with respect to broadcast television: squeezing the broadcast assignments into ever less total spectrum, thus eliminating any white spaces, and, ultimately, driving over-the-air broadcast television into extinction.

In the next piece we’ll plod through the third and last section of the list of dismal FCC spectrum management engineering mistakes, before advancing some engineering reform suggestions in the final part.

What do you think?

“Let’s save the universe for RF!”

The Old RF Curmudgeon

Since 1963, LBA has been providing RF equipment and engineering consulting services for radio and television broadcast and wireless communications. RF safety and RF interference resolution are specialties. Contact Mike Britner at mike.britner@lbagroup.com to put LBA expertise to work for you!

The Sept. 30 filing in WC Docket No. 11-59 is LBA’s latest effort to help win over the industry to AM collocation as an engineered response to the shortage of wireless antenna placements. Commissioners were told that, with an estimated ten thousand AM radio station towers across the country, literally thousands of opportunities exist to “economically and reliably affix wireless antennae to AM towers without degrading or altering the radiation power of the AM station.”

This is not theory. LBA has engineered, patented, and successfully applied collocation technology.  The AM colocation process of sharing these structures is cost-effective and technically feasible.  An isolation device specially engineered for a type of AM tower is simply attached to a tower and to the wireless broadband system. Normally, no other significant changes are required to either system.

Yet resistance to this common-sense solution hangs around like a migraine. As the language in the filing puts it: “There is simply too much embedded ignorance, fear, uncertainty and inertia for the two industries to come together to take a step that would be in their mutual interests.” To help overcome all of the above, LBA proposed to the FCC that it introduce four additional encouragements for wireless operators and AM station owners:

• Promote collocation through press releases and workshops, targeting both AM broadcasters and wireless providers. Without actually ordering collocation, the FCC could popularize it as a solution simply by raising general awareness of its utility. With the commission’s official stamp of approval on collocation, perhaps fence-sitting station owners and providers will take another look at it.
• Pre-empt state or local governments from requiring new permits for AM tower modifications so long as the change qualifies as collocation under the Nationwide Programmatic Agreement for the Collocation of Wireless Antennas. If local review is a reform too far, the FCC might at least require that such review be speedily concluded, perhaps within two weeks. This either would hasten completion of a project or, if a permit were denied, begin the appeals process in a timely way.
• Reduce the AM station regulatory fee by 50 percent when station owners allow broadband antennae on their towers. When a subsequent regulatory fee was due, the owner simply would provide a photo of an affixed antenna and be granted the discount.
• Streamline the STA process—if even required during an AM collocation project—by giving expedited approval to the STA approval, and waiving the STA fee normally collected.

LBA simply believes that the need to expand broadband fits perfectly with the need of AM station owners to produce more revenue from their towers. As the filing stated, “If even a fraction of the ten thousand AM towers are put to this use, the Commission will have taken a presently dormant resource and vitalized it for a new, forward-looking purpose.” Everyone wins.

Almost as an aside, LBA noted in its filing that failure to utilize existing AM towers as a broadband expansion resource makes the public less safe. That’s because collocating antennae on existing AM towers would, in many cases, close gaps in the 911 emergency response system, creating a more integrated, effective system.

Since 1963, LBA has been providing RF equipment and engineering consulting services for radio and television broadcast and wireless communications. Contact Mike Britner at mike.britner@lbagroup.com to discuss your AM co-location application.

First, the answers to the questions posed above: it took just fifteen minutes of thinking and writing to produce a list of sixteen (presumptively rebuttable) engineering errors in the FCC’s management of the RF spectrum!  So let’s take a look at what they have done and how they have operated in the past, and what “reform” of the spectrum management process might look like.

But first, let’s be exact about the rules of this “game.”  We’re considering the quality of the FCC’s decisions in spectrum management only from an engineering point of view, that of the traditional “best engineering practice” stricture.  The criterion is “What should/would/could have been done, or not done, in a particular instance if the “best engineering practices” were the only basis for decisions?”  What might have been done differently if the increasingly pervasive toxic political smog (generated by both major parties, as they sought to service the needs of their supporters, donors, and “fat cats”) hadn’t crept through the swamp hollows of D.C and into the FCC?  And also what might have resulted if the FCC’s so-called “regulators” also didn’t fervently hold and practice a bedrock belief that their issued “regulations” could summarily trump and modify the laws of physics as needed and at will?

Space is so short, but let’s give it a try.  Every point to be presented here could be greatly expanded.  Reasonable, knowledgeable engineers can and probably will differ about the details, importance, and inclusion-or-omission of individual points, and you engineers are invited to contribute your thoughts.  LEPs (lawyers, economists, and politicians) will inherently argue the interests of their “sponsors,” but those positions are a given.  In any case, the size of the list is the major “take home” message here.

1.  Relocation of the original FM broadcast radio band (1946).  In the second half of the 1930s the newly-inaugurated Frequency Modulated Radio Broadcast Service originally operated at 42-50 MHz, with stations and consumer receivers already in service and their numbers increasing.  Immediately after the end of World-War II the FCC, under external pressure, unilaterally moved the Service to its present 88-108 MHz location to clear spectrum for television broadcasting (see point 2, below).  This move instantly made obsolete all the previous growth of FM radio broadcasting and retarded the development of the new Service for at least a decade.

Analog TV is Dead – ATSC is Wandering in the Broadband Jungle

2.  Establishment of six low-band television channels (1946).  The FCC “dropped them in” at 48 – 88 MHz (with 72 – 76 MHz reserved for other services).  But this low-VHF spectrum is subject to the peak of the external RF noise background that arises from both natural and man-made sources, as well as from intermittent Sporadic E-layer ionospheric propagation.  And the FCC simultaneously relocated from this difficult band an existing service (FM radio) with good noise immunity and instead inserted an envelope-modulated service (NTSC analog broadcast video) with virtually no noise immunity!  Eventually the FCC eliminated Channel 1, which had been reserved for low-powered, public television.  Today ATSC broadcasters know that “RF noise looks too much like digital data” and many low-band television assignments have been relinquished in favor of (lower noise) UHF channels.

3.  Eleven meter (27 MHz) Citizens Band (1958).  Almost every transmission engineer/ham/shortwave listener knew instinctively that assigning this HF band to an untrained, undisciplined set of licensees was the wrong thing to do. For much of the eleven year solar cycle very efficient long-distance ionospheric propagation is present on these frequencies.  Thus the intended “localness” of the service is lost.  But the regulators thought, “We’ll just tell our licensees to ignore the distant signals and not to attempt to make unauthorized contacts.”  Sure!  And the FCC learned from the experience: if you equip an untrained population with cheap, available transmitters, effective control of the spectrum through licensing and enforceable Rules evaporates.  New “free speech” possibilities quickly evolve into “dirty speech” and aggressive behavior realities.  Meanwhile alternate spectrum with none of the liabilities, at 450 MHz, went unused.   Sayonara, eleven meters!

4.  AM radio stereo broadcasting (1980s).  This was an early attempt to “regulate by political dogma!”  AM radio broadcasters wanted to have a stereo transmission capability for their stations, to better complete with FM radio.  Five different prototype AM stereo systems were developed and submitted to the FCC for testing and, eventually, a final selection and authorization by the FCC of one of them for general broadcast service.  But the FCC at that time was particularly subject to the strong winds of political dogma, and they announced: “We’ll just authorize all five, and ‘let the free market pick the winners!’ ”  The broadcasters, understandably, looked at the ensuing regulatory chaos and thought, “If I install one system and that one doesn’t catch on with the public, I’ll have squandered several hundred thousands of capital dollars.  So the best course would be to not place any bets!”  And thus establishment of the new transmission mode went nowhere.  The radio broadcaster trade associations pleaded with the FCC to make a clear regulatory decision, and eventually the FCC did “pick the winners.”

5.  Digital cellular telephone (1990s).  When the founding analog cellular authorization was adopted in 1984, it utilized a single transmission system standard, analog AMPS.  Customers could fairly easily move their subscriptions among competing carriers and might, in an emergency, access any available network to seek help.  Then, during the conversion to digital networks in the early 1990s, unbelievably the FCC adopted the same idea that had failed just a few years earlier in AM stereo broadcasting: “We’ll let the free market decide the transmission standards.”  So, in stark contrast to almost every other first world country, the US cellular market got multiple and incompatible digital transmission standards.

This actually inhibited competition for subscribers among the carriers, as consumers immediately faced a monolithic monopoly with their new carrier once they purchased a particular handset.  They then later incurred extra costs if they wanted to change carriers and thus needed new handsets!   Lack of effective competition involving carriers all using the same system standard has kept service prices high and has been a dandy little profit generator for the carriers!

Today the thinking is that the handset manufacturers should build even more complex (and expensive) phones that can “recognize and operate with” all digital transmission formats.  But to guide us in evaluating this idea, there is an already-established working model for a poor engineering design that is subsequently “improved” by ever-increasing numbers of add-on “engineering fixes:”  it’s called the automotive carburetor!

Next time we’ll plod through the second section of the “Sweet Sixteen” list of dismal FCC spectrum management engineering mistakes.

What do you think?

“Let’s save the universe for RF!”

The Old RF Curmudgeon

Since 1963, LBA has been providing RF equipment and engineering consulting services for radio and television broadcast and wireless communications.

“Basic Tower Construction Class” is Sept. 19-23 at ComTrain headquarters in Austin.

LBA will present a half-day course on “RF Safety Management.” Presenters will be Mike Britner, VP of Sales for LBA Group, Inc., and Chris Horne, LBA’s chief technical officer. Other presenters at the event include representatives of Rohn, Andrew, and Anritsu.

The LBA representatives will explain to company managers the hazards of excessive radio frequency exposure and OSHA compliance standards. They also will provide insight on creating a safety plan and setting up policies to implement it.

The half-day RF safety awareness seminar is available to any company needing it, and is online for group and individual training (http://www.lbagroup.com/associates/rftraining.php). The class is the latest RF safety offering from LBA, which has expanded its safety awareness program in response to the proliferation of wireless transmission structures across the country. LBA Group has provided RF services to the wireless industry since 1963.

“We’re pleased to add our knowledge to that of other industry professionals at the ComTrain event. Companies that raise the awareness of managers to the hazards of excessive RF exposure are far less apt to expose their employees to danger,” says LBA Group CEO Lawrence Behr.

LBA Group is an active member of the National Association of Tower Erectors, which is an advocate of safety for tower erection and maintenance personnel. LBA also works closely with two industry best practices groups—Carolinas Wireless Association and the Wireless Communications Association International.

LBA Group, in cooperation with university educators, has developed the OSHA RF awareness course with certificate of completion so that wireless tower workers and other technicians can easily test their knowledge of RF safety. Their personal safety depends on them knowing of the health effects of RF and how to work safely in an RF environment.

Working in Complex RF Environments Requires RF Awareness Training!

That environment, obviously, is only going to become more pervasive. At least a quarter million cellular telephone antennas are bouncing signals around the United States in 2011. Another 30,000 AM, FM and TV stations are emitting RF signals. And now, in-building DAS distributed antenna system proliferation is bringing concerns about RF exposure inside, too.

This RF clutter reflects the mushrooming demand for the wonderful technology of wireless communication. We are proud to be a part of the industry. Yet RF threats to health that probably seem abstract in theory are quite real to anyone working near wireless hardware. Wireless industry technicians and tower climbers are the first focus of concern because they are the most obvious people needing to be aware of RF risks, working directly with towers, stations and other transmission areas. Yet the presence of so many wireless towers and dishes places many other workers at risk as well—landscape personnel, roofers, sign installers, and building maintenance staff, to name a few.

LBA developed its online RF safety awareness course by calling upon its INARTE-certified RF engineers for the technical content, and consulting with educators to ensure the integrity of the online learning product. The resulting course is a fully interactive learning experience that is comprehensive in its content and intuitively accessible and usable, with a certificate for successful completion.

Knowledgeable technicians shouldn’t have any difficulty sitting down before a computer, brushing up on their knowledge by reviewing the preliminary quiz format, and quickly testing out. Workers needing to proceed more slowly can repeatedly log in and out of the course and complete it at their own pace. Content is introduced and recycled throughout the learning module so that when the comprehensive final exam is taken, course mastery and retention is assured.

LBA is offering the course at low group rates—just $110 a person. That is far less than some competing courses, and is priced such so that companies can economically train up entire crews. The certificate is renewable annually to keep workers compliant with OSHA practices. The course also features unique administrative reporting capabilities to aid safety compliance managers.

The RF safety awareness course was created through Wireless University® , which is our body of expertise and industry knowledge that is regularly fed by white papers, other technical publications, and interactions with technical academia. LBA Group has provided RF services to the industry since 1963 and along the way has acquired expertise and expert credentials.

The awareness course developer is Chris Horne, PhD, P.E., LBA’s chief technical officer who has years of RF and wireless industry experience. Course administrator is Byron Johnson, the contact person for companies interested in signing up their employees for the awareness training.

We urge industry safety managers to take advantage of this course certificate process to relieve OSHA compliance issues, and to ensure a high level of employee safety in the wireless workplace environment.

LBA also offers RF safety planning and program services, including site audits, industrial hazard evaluations, zoning support and RF personal monitors.

Overall, the event was about what I expected which means that it was a bit of a disappointment for me.  That is, a disappointment when it is compared against similar commercial events such as IWCE, NAB, APCO, etc. which do, of course, have the advantage of greater funding than does the Hamvention.

I guess it is the case here, as it is with most hobbies, that after one becomes a professional in the allied commercial fields, purely hobby activities begin to look a little “limited” by comparison.  Thus I took from Dayton the overall impression of its being a combination of a large consumer electronics show and a fraternity convocation.

I know that there were individuals attending Dayton who are responsible, knowledgeable, courteous, and skilled hams, but they tend to get diluted out by the mob.  In contrast, numbers of other hams were majestically parading around the venue wearing helmets with radiating VHF/UHF whips atop them (FCC RFE Rules, anyone?), and/or bright “Glo-Winky orange,” hunting-style vests boldly embroidered with their first names, call signs, and clubs.  And a surprisingly large number of attendees were piloting convention-rented motorized scooters through the narrow aisles.  Apparently the “health” of the ARS is not particularly good, within several different contexts.

Dayton Hamfest Exhibit Halls

The facilities, the Hara Arena complex, in general are pretty worn and tired, and even this was aggravated on Saturday by a break in the main sewer line to the facility.  That resulted in all the interior rest rooms being closed, with the only option for relief from multiple cups of coffee being a long hike in the warm, humid air out to the Port-a-Potties well distant in the parking lots!

In terms of industry and convention trends, I submit the following observations.  First, the event itself may have already begun a long-term decline over time.  Certainly the big manufacturers and retailers will always be there, and there will always be seminars such as “Bicycle mobiling through Kansas while simultaneously working a 40 meter CW contest!”

But the key indicator of the event’s success (or lack thereof) is the flea market in the surrounding parking lots.  This year’s sellers’ space occupancy seemed to be about 75% of capacity; there certainly were empty spots!  People who had attended the show in previous years commented that the current occupancy wasn’t up to past levels. Presumably on-line auctions, the national recession, and possibly a decreasing interest by today’s licensees in working with used/surplus electronics have removed some of the incentive for attending and selling.

Dayton Hamvention 2011 Parking Lot Fleamarket

Within the used ham gear in the flea market there was an abundance of Heathkit, Drake, and Collins gear.   I also saw quite a few Hammarlund tube receivers, of the kind after which I lusted fifty years ago as a new and impoverished ham.   But there were not many bargains to be had, as the on-line auctions quite likely serve to “normalize” the prices for used gear.  There were assorted electronic parts of various qualities and plenty of vendors of peripheral items as well (such as hats, knives, sunglasses, posters, buttons, photographic equipment, even one vendor of bed sheets and another of porn!).  And a good supply of uninteresting food was available for purchase both on site and off, for which meals an honest appraisal might be “they probably would sustain human life.”

Of note were the many huge commercial trucks and luxury motor homes parked both within the flea market and just outside in reserved parking.  Many such vehicles sported operating electrical generators, air conditioning, and attached crank-up triangular towers or tubular masts!  I even saw a converted ENG van.  While a few of these “self-propelled towers” had HF antennas atop, the majority had VHF/UHF vertical whips.  And, undoubtedly, most of the trucks/vans contained operational ham repeaters.  Yes, these days you can now “bring your empire with you!”  And the RF intermodulation products around the site were impressive.

Kenwood Display in Ham Arena

The “big name” radio manufacturers all had large floor-space displays, and most of them had a “convention debut” product or two to show.  These generally were the ever more “creeping-featuritis” new products that are easily and eagerly anticipated.  (A few of the expensive new HF models will even shine your shoes while you operate in the contests!)  There was a “gold plated” European-made HF ham transceiver on display with a reported price tag of $18,000!  For about two-thirds that price you can get the new top-of-the-line Japanese HF contest transceiver, which is garish in appearance and just too reminiscent of a video game!  With this kind of top-end hardware, “one can become a Walter Mitty and command the Starship Enterprise in your own shack!”

One of the major new product developments, however, is the arrival of Chinese industry in the radio market.  Several Chinese manufacturers are cranking out low-end VHF/UHF hand-held transceivers, some of which will operate anywhere on their included bands (on both ham and adjacent commercial freqs).  On a selling price basis, these are undercutting the big Japanese manufacturers and the hams are buying!  The bottom end of the range is a functioning $40 dual-band walkie-talkie; a British friend has already bought one.  The top price for a market-competitive Chinese dual-bander is about $125, and this buys a radio with US support, FCC certification, and most of the other things that you might expect.

I attended a presentation given by a US consultant who permanently lives in Hong Kong and who works as a liaison between Chinese manufacturers and US importers.  He said that the lead Chinese outfit, Wouxon, is serious about penetrating the industry, has non-Chinese industry experts advising it, and is positioned to make a concerted run in the market.  They should be expanding out of hand-helds into VHF mobiles, and almost certainly then move into HF transceivers.

The major US ham retailers are now selling Wouxon products, which action means that the brand is “launched.”  The same consultant has contacts at the ICOM Company, which continues to manufacture in Japan.  ICOM feels that they can hold off the challenge from China, however, as Japanese manufacturers and workers are more efficient than are the Chinese and the wage rate for Chinese workers is beginning to rise.

ARRL Extravaganza at Dayton

The ARRL was there with a vast amount of floor space.  Their unstated theme seemed to be “a wealth of services that the ARRL, your Big Brother, can provide you, Jimmy Ham, to meet your every need and expectation.”  It reminded me of the kind of display that an outfit such as Fidelity Investments might put out to attract new investors: “Turn it all over to us, and just sit back and enjoy the ride!”

The RSGB (the Brits, of course) were there and I talked with those folks, with whom I have a tangential connection.  Good people, very friendly and helpful.  And also there was no sign of an official FCC presence at the convention, at least as far as I could tell.

Plenty of currently-unlicensed Dayton attendees were ready to sit for the (sold out) one-day ARS license “exam-cram” course.  Immediately following the class they then would launch their own Kamikaze-like attempts to creep past the 70% correct-answer passing level on the FCC written test.  After this big day presumably these new licensees were then equipped to take to the air using their shinny new Hamvention-purchased transceivers and ink-still-wet licenses.  The more capable ones will then begin to learn the fundamentals of radio technology, FCC Rules, and ARS operating practices all over again, this time in a more permanent manner.

Overall, I’m glad that I finally made it to Dayton and experienced the Hamvention for the first time.  I gathered some very useful information through contacts with various attendees and manufacturers, but I didn’t take any purchases home with me (too much electronics crap already on board there!).

With this trip completed, I now have both pictures and pleasant memories of the Hamvention and no particular desire to return in future years.  However if/when you attend Dayton, “Your own mileage may vary!”

What do you think?

“Let’s keep the universe safe for RF!”

The Old RF Curmudgeon

Since 1963, LBA has been providing RF equipment and engineering consulting services for radio and television broadcast and wireless communications.

PIM has become increasingly important with the explosion of wireless data services and the increasing need for bandwidth, antenna sharing and collocated transmitters. In order to ensure compatibility and robust service, the performance and quality of wireless base stations are becoming critical to network success. One parameter that is very sensitive to wireless network performance is passive intermodulation (PIM). This webinar will explain the causes of PIM in the network, including an in-depth look at how to best perform PIM measurements. Preventive measures to avoid PIM from the presenter’s experience will be shared along with a summary of common specifications and standards. You will also learn about previously unpublished field test results.

DATE: Thursday, July 21, 2011

TIME: 4pm EDT / 20:00 GMT

This webinar is open to all and free of charge!

Summary:

It should be somewhat apparent to the reader of these past postings that life for the typical American in 1960 was quite a bit different from what it is today.  And this was certainly the case for our area of interest, telecommunications technology.

Americans in 1960 did have technology to use, although it was admittedly primitive by present-day standards.  What may be less clear, however, is that the citizens of 1960 had a different and more relaxed attitude toward technology than do most current users.  This 1960 attitude manifested itself in at least two ways.

Listening in on the Party Line

First, there was not an overwhelming demand for “instantaneous aural/visual/data communications.”  In 1960 a person would send a written or typed letter to a friend or relative living in another state in the certain knowledge that, at best, a written reply to the sender would not be arriving for at least a week, and possibly even quite a bit more time.  Similarly, the huge majority of people could not place telephone calls from their automobiles or while walking or shopping or sitting at sports events.  No one in those days had the expectation that they needed this capability, and thus many telephone calls were necessarily delayed until the caller reached the location of a stationary telephone.

Did 1960s society shatter because of the unavoidably “long” delays in correspondence or conversation?  Not at all!  Friendships endured and business was conducted successfully, even without minute-by-minute “update blasts.”  Everyone was adjusted to and comfortable with the idea that the communication techniques of the time were not instantaneous.

In 1960 the existing tools of telecommunications technology certainly were acknowledged and used daily by the citizens of the country, but they had not achieved the supreme importance that they seem to have gained today.  They were a customary and unexceptional part of life, not a central fixation of the culture.

Second was the fact that the technology that then existed changed relatively slowly and at rates that consumers could manage.  Citizens who purchased electronics in 1960 did so with the expectation that the new item would remain in service essentially until such distant time that repairing it was no longer economically justified.  They demanded that their technology would not become technologically or (by today’s standards, far worse) “fashionably” obsolete during its normal service life.  The technology of the time was relatively simple, usable by most people without large amounts of training, and economically repairable.  After installation a new technological system was expected to provide years of service.

Fixable and Built to Last

An example of the rate of change was the advent of color television broadcasting, which occurred in 1954.  In that first year stations (and networks) might broadcast only three or four hours of color programming per week (the new color broadcasts could be received very adequately on existing black-and-white television sets, although these sets of course produced only black-and-white images!).  It was not until the late 1960s or early 1970s that stations began to transmit all programming in color.  Gradually consumers began to purchase new color sets as the amount of color programming increased.  However, even then the old black-and-white receivers were set up elsewhere in the house and continued providing service as “second’ or “third” sets.

Thus to the country in 1960, the idea that a new television or radio in those days would have only a two year “effective service life” before obsolescence would have been considered preposterous, and a manufacturer who offered such a device would probably fail in the market.  The citizens of that era were not fixated upon “breaking news!” new technology, did not see any value in the concept of “unceasing continuous upgrades,” did not demand a “new toy” every several months to keep them stimulated.  They accepted and used the technology that was available, appreciated what it could do, and did not give it any undue attention.

Conclusions:

So, were our forbearers just wretched poor slobs who were cursed by their time and place for not having all the technology that we today have?  Not at all!  No one then alive ever sat around cursing the horrible realization that “I’m going to have to wait another forty years before I can get my first Play Station!”  “Twenty-first century technology” simply wasn’t necessary, wasn’t important, was never missed.  The people of the year 1960 carried on their daily lives successfully, lived and loved, worked and accomplished, triumphed and failed…..and did it all without permanently installing on their persons a quarter-million active semiconductor junctions residing in various personal electronic devices.  They controlled their technology, and not vice versa!

This narrative and the conclusions may well be taken by some readers as reflecting an “anti-technology” view of an old timer; someone who does not understand the technological “wonders” that have been visited on the modern world, a miserable and wretched individual whom time has past by and has dumped on the side of the highway.  That’s an easy and quick conclusion to draw, and some uncritical readers may do so.  But it’s wrong!  There is nothing “anti-“ contained or intended in this expressed viewpoint.  And no lack of understanding or adoption of new technology by the author!

Technology Marches On!

Today’s electronic technology is quite understandable: it’s still the same basic circuit elements (amplifiers, oscillators, switches, filters, etc.) that have existed for almost 100 years.  The new consumer technology consists, for the most part, of less expensive, large-scale extensions of earlier technology. The Curmudgeon has investigated and mastered most of the new technology, often beginning to use it when it was first introduced and long before its use became “trendy.”  For example, he received his first “Internet” e-mail address in 1983, when the network was then known as ARPA Net, he purchased his first home computer in 1986, his first business-related cellular telephone went into service in 1993, he first did two-way wireless texting for business purposes in 1997, and home broadband connectivity arrived in 2005.  There’s no generation gap in understanding and ability here!  But there is a generation gap in viewpoint about the value of and the necessity for the avalanche of current technology, and about its proper place in a human and humane life.

At the bottom level of all this modern state-of-the-art electronic glitz and hype, it’s just human-created technology.  It’s not society, culture, art, truth, creativity, natural beauty, interpersonal relations, family, love…………..or life!  Technology should never substitute for any of these human pursuits.  Neither should it obliterate the RF spectrum in the name of “novelty” and “convenience.”  Technology does not have to enslave; it can be controlled by individual choice as our ancestors once did.

“FOLKS, IT’S ONLY TECHNOLOGY!  Just deal with it!”

What do you think?

“Let’s save the universe for RF”

The Old RF Curmudgeon

Since 1963, LBA has been providing RF equipment and engineering consulting services for radio and television broadcast and wireless communications.