Cedar Rapids BPL Trial Information

This page last updated on Tuesday April 11, 2006 10:06 PM

News Flash:

The FCC has issued the Report and Order on BPL. Read the 81 page document here.

Alliant has terminated the BPL Trial in Cedar Rapids early.

See the well written ARRL Article for all the details. It appears all our efforts were worth it!

Steering Committee Information

The next meeting date is to be determined.

Committee Members are W0SR, W0EJ, K0YA, WA9ENA, K0DAS, K0VM, WB0OAV and KC0OX (facilitator). Please see the BPL Steering Committee Mission Statement.

The committee currently has three primary objectives:

Contact HF stations in the trial area and determine if they are experiencing BPL interference. Help then confirm it is BPL, and assist them in filing a complaint through the proper channels.
Conduct Field Strength Measurements to determine expected distances from BPL installations that will suffer interference.
Educate the general Amateur population on the effects of BPL, and assist them in commenting on the FCC Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) addressing BPL.

For details on specific activities, see the following Steering Committee Meeting Minutes.

Steering Committee Activities

Minutes from the meetings held on 13 April 2004, 27 April 2004 , 7 May 2004, 17 May 2004, 24 May 2004, 3 June 2004, 9 June 2004, 16 June 2004, 7 July 2004, 9 Sept 2004, 30 Sept 2004

View Comments and Reply Comments the FCC's BPL NPRM.

There were more than 1000 comments filed on Docket 04-37. To view them, go to http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/

Look in the upper right corner of the web page and click on "Search for filed comments". That will bring up a search engine block. Simple type in "04-37" in the upper left corner of the search engine and then go directly to "Retrieve Document List" button. Don't hit or enter anything else. That will produce a full listing of all filings, 100 to the page. (Thanks to WA9ENA for these instructions.)

An Organized List of NPRM Comments Filed we prepared by Ed Hare at the ARRL..

These Cedar Rapids area Amateurs filed Reply Comments:

Cedar Rapids, IA BPL Interference Committee - The Test Report (Large File!) 6516214728

Dale Svetanoff - 6516214727 6516214274 (same Test Report as above)

Spenser, Jim (a.k.a. the "Poster Child") - 6516183068 Detailed Complaint History 6516214720

Alan Erickson - 6516214275 6516214274 (same test report as above)

Thomas Vinson - 6516182782

Fred Spinner - 6516182527

Ron Breitwisch - 6516214735