In the wake of continued FCC inaction in response to several previous complaints, on January 5 the ARRL filed a renewal of the complaint against the Ambient Corporation's Broadband over Power Line system in Briarcliff Manor, New York. The BPL system is operated by Ambient, on power lines owned and operated by Consolidated Edison, under an experimental FCC authorization.

The latest communication points out that the FCC, without adjudicating ARRL's repeated complaints about interference throughout the amateur 20 meter band, renewed Ambient's experimental license for an additional term, from August 1, 2005 to August 1, 2007. "The Briarcliff Manor BPL system currently (still) causes harmful interference to Amateur Radio communications and it is not compliant with applicable FCC part 15 regulations," according to the ARRL complaint. "Neither," it continues, "is it compliant with the terms of the experimental authorization granted by the Commission, most recently on August 1, 2005."

It continues: "ARRL reiterates its request, now more than a year old, that the BPL facility.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 requirement.of the Commission's Rules and the terms of the experimental authorization. Finally, information about it must be listed in the BPL publicly accessible database."

Appended to the January 5 complaint letter was a 25 page engineering report entitled "Additional Testing of BPL System in Briarcliff Manor, NY." ARRL Laboratory Manager Ed Hare, W1RFI, wrote the report after conducting further tests at the site December 5, 2005. The report points out that he had conducted similar tests twice before during 2005, and three times during 2004. In this earlier testing, Hare found significant violations of FCC rules regarding Part 15 emissions limits.

The January 5 ARRL complaint, entitled "Continued Request for Immediate Cessation of Operation," was signed by ARRL Counsel Christopher D. Imlay, W3KD, and was sent to the FCC's Joseph Casey, Bruce Franca and James Burtle. Casey is Chief, Spectrum Enforcement Division, while Franca serves as Acting Chief, Office of Engineering and Technology, and Burtle is Chief, Experimental Licensing Division. A copy was also sent to the counsel for Ambient Corporation.

For more about BPL, see the BPL pages on the ARRLWeb.

Information courtesy of the January 6, 2006 ARRL Letter