I have developed a tool to assist in evaluating the effects of BPL on a radio receiving installation. The tool allows you to determine using your own Antenna and receiver installation parameters, the effect that BPL might have on your installation.

Broadband over Power Lines is technology for carriage of high speed data, principally for Internet Access, over the existing power line network.

Current BPL technology works by conduction of signals in the radio frequency spectrum up to about 100MHz. Existing power lines networks are not ideal RF transmission networks, they will radiate radio frequency energy causing interference to radiocommunications services, and they will be susceptible to interference from nearby transmitters (radio or otherwise).

The European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation, CENELEC, is developing a standard for "Electromagnetic emissions from access powerline communications networks". Access powerline communications networks are commonly termed Broadband over Power Lines or BPL.

The proposed CENELEC standard does not automatically apply globally, though countries like Australia draw heavily on international standards, such as CENELEC's for their own jurisdiction.

This proposed standard would set limits for the conducted energy and radiated energy of BPL systems. The radiation limit is specified for example as a field strength in dBuA/m in a measurement bandwidth at a specified distance on particular frequency, and its impact will not be immediately apparent to most radio users.

Do you know what the impact of +4dBuA/m in 9KHz at 3m is on your receiver?

The BPL Interference Evaluation Tool allows evaluation of the impact of BPL interference under the proposed CENELEC standard given a set of location / application specific parameters.

Go to the BPL Interference Evaluation Tool at http://www.vk1od.net/bpl and enter the details for your site and discover the impact.

If you understand the potential impact, you will understand that BPL is the most serious risk that faces amateur radio today.

16 October 2004