ARRL Request Poses Interference Risk for Utility Operations, EEI and UTC Say
The Utilities Telecom Council and the Edison Electric Institute continue to disagree with the American Radio Relay League on whether reallocating the 135.7-137.8 kHz band to use by amateur radio operators would cause interference to power line carrier (PLC) operations. Both filed reply comments this week in docket 12-338, which concerns possible changes to the Parts 1, 2, 15, 74, 78, 87, and 90 of the FCC’s rules.
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"The record reflects that utilities and PLC providers are unanimously opposed to an amateur allocation at 135.7-137.8 kHz on a secondary basis,” said the electric utility associations (http://bit.ly/170t4Lp). “They, like UTC and EEI, are opposed because an amateur allocation would undermine the reliability of PLC systems that are used to protect the reliability of the electric transmission system.” EEI and UTC said six separate utilities have filed comments explaining they still make broad use of the band. Dayton Power and Light, for example, said it uses PLC systems to protect voltage power lines of up to 345,000 volts “and specifically uses the 135.7 kHz to 137.8 kHz bandwidth to control flows and to respond to line faults caused by downed power lines, potential overloading, voltage fluctuations and other abnormal conditions on several of its major transmission lines,” the filing said.
ARRL said the utilities have nothing to fear (http://bit.ly/10cCH4q). “What ARRL has demonstrated in its comments in this proceeding is that there is no risk of interference at all from Amateur stations to PLC-carrying transmission lines using the 135.7-137.8 kHz band at 1 Watt EIRP [Effective Isotropic Radiated Power], where the geographic separation between the two is 1 kilometer or more,” ARRL said. “Even within that range, the likelihood of interference is exceptionally low. Nothing in the record to date rebuts that showing."
The Aerospace and Flight Test Radio Coordinating Council said, on another issue raised in the docket, the Federal Aviation Administration should coordinate any implementation of WiMAX facilities for surface communications near airports using the 5091-5150 MHz band for flight test operations (http://bit.ly/103E7iO).