I finally figured out a good analogy about the LightSquared and GPS fiasco. ---------------
There is a "music room" where people can go and, with headphones, listen to their own music. No one disturbs anyone else. Everyone is happy.
A LightSquared rock band comes into the room and begins to play at max volume, and then insists there should be no problem because the headphones work just fine in providing the isolation between what each person is listening to.
Therefore the interference to everyone in the room is not their fault, but the fault of the Headphone Manufacturers!
Bob, WB4APR
You forgot to weave the FCC Commissioners into the story somewhere......they will figure out a way to screw things up
TK, K7TRK
-----Original Message----- From: amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] On Behalf Of Bob Bruninga Sent: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 10:46 AM To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] Lightsquared Analogy
I finally figured out a good analogy about the LightSquared and GPS fiasco. ---------------
There is a "music room" where people can go and, with headphones, listen to their own music. No one disturbs anyone else. Everyone is happy.
A LightSquared rock band comes into the room and begins to play at max volume, and then insists there should be no problem because the headphones work just fine in providing the isolation between what each person is listening to.
Therefore the interference to everyone in the room is not their fault, but the fault of the Headphone Manufacturers!
Bob, WB4APR
_______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
Bob, I was involved with the 800 mhz fiasco with the public safety bands and the "Phone company!!??" Because of the deluge of complaints and the monies involved by repairing this, you would think they would learn from a huge mistake.... Somehow, we forget the adage "we must learn from our mistakes or repeat history" and politician$ only $ee what they want! Thanks for pointing out another history lesson... 73, Dee, NB2F
-----Original Message----- From: amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] On Behalf Of Bob Bruninga Sent: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 1:46 PM To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] Lightsquared Analogy
I finally figured out a good analogy about the LightSquared and GPS fiasco. ---------------
There is a "music room" where people can go and, with headphones, listen to their own music. No one disturbs anyone else. Everyone is happy.
A LightSquared rock band comes into the room and begins to play at max volume, and then insists there should be no problem because the headphones work just fine in providing the isolation between what each person is listening to.
Therefore the interference to everyone in the room is not their fault, but the fault of the Headphone Manufacturers!
Bob, WB4APR
_______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
In this case that would be wrong. The headphone manufacturers complained that good foam costs too much and were allowed to get away with tissue paper and now everyone pays for allowing lobbyists and lawyers run the FCC and ignore good design principles On Feb 29, 2012 3:01 PM, "Bob Bruninga" bruninga@usna.edu wrote:
I finally figured out a good analogy about the LightSquared and GPS fiasco.
There is a "music room" where people can go and, with headphones, listen to their own music. No one disturbs anyone else. Everyone is happy.
A LightSquared rock band comes into the room and begins to play at max volume, and then insists there should be no problem because the headphones work just fine in providing the isolation between what each person is listening to.
Therefore the interference to everyone in the room is not their fault, but the fault of the Headphone Manufacturers!
Bob, WB4APR
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
Hi Bob(s),
I think the difference here is that, continuing the headphone analogy, the headphone manufacturers created a line of very popular lightweight headphones at an affordable price, knowing that the environment they were going to be used in were to be music rooms and other places with quiet surroundings. Now LightSquared wants to come in and build a rock crushing plant in the adjacent room. That invalidates a base design criteria for the headphones. Certainly they would have designed noise cancelling headphones if they knew that the adjacent music room was zoned for rock crushers, but that's not what the landlord told them.
I saw a better analogy on the CNET website (Reporters Roundtable), where the poster likened it to a zoning violation. As I understand it, the spectrum adjacent to the GPS band is also (zoned) for satellite communication, which if LightSquared had kept to their original satellite-based business plan would have worked out just fine. Instead they've changed business plans, and feel they have a right to use the spectrum they own in a different (incompatible) way. We all know that the laws of physics don't work that way, and thankfully the FCC decided not to ignore them it this time.
Good design principles should consider all factors, including both performance and cost. Clearly one CAN build better GPS receivers, but that doesn't mean that they need to, or even should. If Henry Ford hadn't built the Model-T, I bet our highway system would look a whole lot different today.
Greg KO6TH
On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 4:30 PM, Robert McGwier rwmcgwier@gmail.com wrote:
In this case that would be wrong. The headphone manufacturers complained that good foam costs too much and were allowed to get away with tissue paper and now everyone pays for allowing lobbyists and lawyers run the FCC and ignore good design principles On Feb 29, 2012 3:01 PM, "Bob Bruninga" bruninga@usna.edu wrote:
I finally figured out a good analogy about the LightSquared and GPS
fiasco.
There is a "music room" where people can go and, with headphones, listen
to
their own music. No one disturbs anyone else. Everyone is happy.
A LightSquared rock band comes into the room and begins to play at max volume, and then insists there should be no problem because the
headphones
work just fine in providing the isolation between what each person is listening to.
Therefore the interference to everyone in the room is not their fault,
but
the fault of the Headphone Manufacturers!
Bob, WB4APR
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite
program!
Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
This is my opinion. It is a mistake in engineering and policy to invalidate all spectrum in the neighborhood of a service by allowing poor front ends to control the adjacent spectrum forever. This decision was made to lessen the cost at the expense of never allowing anything next door. That is poor policy and is especially troubling now when we see spectrum being forcibly removed from some services and put up for auction.
What this really says is that the FCC and others, having made the really poor initial decisions on GPS receiver manufacturer, FORGOT the decision, and like BPL and other things before them, let LightSquared go spend tons of their venture capital/backers dollars without doing an engineering analysis of the impact on GPS.
I blame no one but the FCC who are now doing nothing but throwing LightSquared under the bus of their bad decisions. LightSquared should also have done the tests but it is easy to understand why they may not have wanted to spend lots of money testing and proving their scheme would wreck GPS services.
Bob N4HY
On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 12:18 AM, Greg Dolkas ko6th.greg@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Bob(s),
I think the difference here is that, continuing the headphone analogy, the headphone manufacturers created a line of very popular lightweight headphones at an affordable price, knowing that the environment they were going to be used in were to be music rooms and other places with quiet surroundings. Now LightSquared wants to come in and build a rock crushing plant in the adjacent room. That invalidates a base design criteria for the headphones. Certainly they would have designed noise cancelling headphones if they knew that the adjacent music room was zoned for rock crushers, but that's not what the landlord told them.
I saw a better analogy on the CNET website (Reporters Roundtable), where the poster likened it to a zoning violation. As I understand it, the spectrum adjacent to the GPS band is also (zoned) for satellite communication, which if LightSquared had kept to their original satellite-based business plan would have worked out just fine. Instead they've changed business plans, and feel they have a right to use the spectrum they own in a different (incompatible) way. We all know that the laws of physics don't work that way, and thankfully the FCC decided not to ignore them it this time.
Good design principles should consider all factors, including both performance and cost. Clearly one CAN build better GPS receivers, but that doesn't mean that they need to, or even should. If Henry Ford hadn't built the Model-T, I bet our highway system would look a whole lot different today.
Greg KO6TH
On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 4:30 PM, Robert McGwier rwmcgwier@gmail.comwrote:
In this case that would be wrong. The headphone manufacturers complained that good foam costs too much and were allowed to get away with tissue paper and now everyone pays for allowing lobbyists and lawyers run the FCC and ignore good design principles On Feb 29, 2012 3:01 PM, "Bob Bruninga" bruninga@usna.edu wrote:
I finally figured out a good analogy about the LightSquared and GPS
fiasco.
There is a "music room" where people can go and, with headphones,
listen to
their own music. No one disturbs anyone else. Everyone is happy.
A LightSquared rock band comes into the room and begins to play at max volume, and then insists there should be no problem because the
headphones
work just fine in providing the isolation between what each person is listening to.
Therefore the interference to everyone in the room is not their fault,
but
the fault of the Headphone Manufacturers!
Bob, WB4APR
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the
author.
Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite
program!
Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
In this case that would be wrong. The headphone manufacturers complained that good foam costs too much and were allowed to get away with tissue paper and now everyone pays for allowing lobbyists and lawyers run the FCC and ignore good design principles
No, its not just "good foam" that is required, it is surrounding each Headphone and each Human wearing them with an 80 dB Accoustic chamber to solve the problem of the LightSquared Rock band in the room!
There are TWELVE or more orders of magnitude (120 dB) between a nearby transmitter and a nearby GPS receiver. That is, the transmitter is 1,000,000,000,000 times stronger than the sensitivity of the nearby GPS receiver. It is absurd to expect every $20 GPS to have 120 dB filters.
Ham radio only needs 40 dB out of band rejection to be within FCC specs. NASA demands 80 dB out of band rejection. LightSquared wanted every $20 GPS MFR to install 10,000 times more filters than even NASA!
No, the analogy is correct. That is why the FCC has always (when they had real engineers anyway) had band plans that SEPARATE Transmit bands from weak-signal satellite receive bands. It is ludicrous to allow a bunch of clueless lawyers try to buy their way into putting Transmitters in the the RECEIVE ONLY satellite bands.
Bob, WB4APR
From: Robert McGwier [mailto:rwmcgwier@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 7:30 PM To: Bob Bruninga Cc: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Lightsquared Analogy
On Feb 29, 2012 3:01 PM, "Bob Bruninga" bruninga@usna.edu wrote: I finally figured out a good analogy about the LightSquared and GPS fiasco. ---------------
There is a "music room" where people can go and, with headphones, listen to their own music. No one disturbs anyone else. Everyone is happy.
A LightSquared rock band comes into the room and begins to play at max volume, and then insists there should be no problem because the headphones work just fine in providing the isolation between what each person is listening to.
Therefore the interference to everyone in the room is not their fault, but the fault of the Headphone Manufacturers!
Bob, WB4APR
_______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
Okay, we agree with Shakespeare ... kill all the lawyers, at least then we could be allowed to do the engineering AHEAD OF TIME.
On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 5:24 PM, Bob Bruninga bruninga@usna.edu wrote:
In this case that would be wrong. The headphone manufacturers complained that good foam costs too much and were allowed to get away with tissue paper and now everyone pays for allowing lobbyists and lawyers run the FCC and ignore good design principles
No, its not just "good foam" that is required, it is surrounding each Headphone and each Human wearing them with an 80 dB Accoustic chamber to solve the problem of the LightSquared Rock band in the room!
There are TWELVE or more orders of magnitude (120 dB) between a nearby transmitter and a nearby GPS receiver. That is, the transmitter is 1,000,000,000,000 times stronger than the sensitivity of the nearby GPS receiver. It is absurd to expect every $20 GPS to have 120 dB filters.
Ham radio only needs 40 dB out of band rejection to be within FCC specs. NASA demands 80 dB out of band rejection. LightSquared wanted every $20 GPS MFR to install 10,000 times more filters than even NASA!
No, the analogy is correct. That is why the FCC has always (when they had real engineers anyway) had band plans that SEPARATE Transmit bands from weak-signal satellite receive bands. It is ludicrous to allow a bunch of clueless lawyers try to buy their way into putting Transmitters in the the RECEIVE ONLY satellite bands.
Bob, WB4APR
From: Robert McGwier [mailto:rwmcgwier@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 7:30 PM To: Bob Bruninga Cc: amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Lightsquared Analogy
On Feb 29, 2012 3:01 PM, "Bob Bruninga" bruninga@usna.edu wrote: I finally figured out a good analogy about the LightSquared and GPS fiasco.
There is a "music room" where people can go and, with headphones, listen to their own music. No one disturbs anyone else. Everyone is happy.
A LightSquared rock band comes into the room and begins to play at max volume, and then insists there should be no problem because the headphones work just fine in providing the isolation between what each person is listening to.
Therefore the interference to everyone in the room is not their fault, but the fault of the Headphone Manufacturers!
Bob, WB4APR
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
participants (5)
-
Bob Bruninga -
Dee -
Greg Dolkas -
Robert McGwier -
Ted