White Spaces Test "Rigged," Says Google Co-Founder Page 323
Davide Marney writes "As reported by the Washington Post, Google co-founder Larry Page claims that an FCC field test of white space wireless devices was 'rigged' to make the test device fail to detect wireless microphone broadcasts. A Google spokesman explained later that testers had hidden the wireless microphones within the same frequency as local television stations, preventing the test device from detecting them."
fantastic (Score:5, Insightful)
It's great to hear debate on this issue... but this is a scientific issue, and we should test it with science. Google is a big company. They should conduct their own experiment and publish the results if they want to refute the FCC test.
Re:fantastic (Score:5, Informative)
It's hard to test these things without the FCC's help... you need to set up a scale model of TV station signals, and that requires an FCC license to do.
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It's hard to test these things without the FCC's help... you need to set up a scale model of TV station signals, and that requires an FCC license to do.
Only within the Continental U.S., Hawaii and some U.S. territories. Let Google go offshore somewhere and set up a test facility. I doubt Mexico would care very much (probably just grease a few palms.) Or just run their tests inside a giant shielded area ... maybe an aircraft hangar.
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Only within the Continental U.S., Hawaii and some U.S. territories. Let Google go offshore somewhere and set up a test facility. I doubt Mexico would care very much (probably just grease a few palms.)
I'm not Mexican but work here. It would be equally easy to grease the correct hands in gringoland so don't think you are in the land of perfect innocence!
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... equally easy to grease the correct hands in gringoland...
Not from what I've heard. I've never been to Mexico, but is it true that traffic cops expect you to bribe them?
Re:fantastic (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure some Mexican slashdotters will be more disgusted at you calling Mexico a "third world" country.
Re:fantastic (Score:5, Informative)
Mexico is categorized as third world, though... It's not a value judgement on the worth of Mexico, it's simply a categorization used during the cold war which still lives on.
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Actually, Mexico is in the first world. Well, it was, when that and terms in its family had meaning. Since Mexico was pretty firmly in the US sphere of influence, it lands squarely there. A country like the former East Germany would have been in the 2nd world, along with other Soviet aligned sattelite states. A country like, say, Kenya, would be in the 3rd world of unaligned non-powers. Mexico could be called poor, except that it is actually a resource rich country with a lot of potential that is being wast
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As far as I remember, it was never considered part of the "First World." It was never really politically aligned with the US or the USSR, so it falls into the third world. Being in the US's 'Sphere of Influence' doesn't really mean much, what matters is how closely a nation aligned with US policy.
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Perhaps the best current term would be "developing," though even that is not fully accurate. Mexico does, however, serve as a good example of the type of country you get if you let libertarian ideals of no regulation and limited government go to their natural conclusion: a few rich families control basically everything worth controlling, and a majority of everyone else is dirt poor and suffers.
Do you really have to go out of your way to bash some political ideology you don't like? This is about as disingen
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Perhaps the best current term would be "developing," though even that is not fully accurate. Mexico does, however, serve as a good example of the type of country you get if you let libertarian ideals of no regulation and limited government go to their natural conclusion: a few rich families control basically everything worth controlling, and a majority of everyone else is dirt poor and suffers.
Do you really have to go out of your way to bash some political ideology you don't like? This is about as disingenuous as saying that the United States' current economy problems is due to socialism. You come off more as a wacko paranoid over libertarians than anything else, especially because Mexico has really nothing to do with libertarianism, either in civil or economic matters. I might as well claim our shit economy is due to socialism's natural conclusions--hey, it's an outcome I don't like, so it must be the result of come political ideology I also don't like!
Come back with a real argument, then we'll talk.
Sorry to be the one to have to break this to you, but he's right.
And by the way, the current economic problems in the US are mainly due to deregulation also.
If you're trying to claim that no regulation and limited government are not the core Libertarian ideals, then I'm really not sure what to say.
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Mexico isn't even in the "top 10" of nations or places in terms of economic freedom, for one. For two, you're not even really making an argument, just an assertion.
In any case, you're making the same error ideologues on any side usually make--that because you perceive that country to have X, and since it also has quality Y, then Y is due to X. Truth is, you have to account for historical, cultural, political, and environmental factors which could also be influences or factors in any country's corruption o
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I wasn't aware that Mexico was Libertarian
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Well I don't know, you could be right. But I was told my version by my history teacher and he sounded pretty confident, and he was really, really old. you kind of got the feeling he was there.
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Well that's too bad, because it is a "third world" country whether it likes it or not.
Re:fantastic (Score:4, Informative)
First, he didn't call it a third world country. Second, it actually is a third world country. [wikipedia.org] So the only reason Mexicans would be disgusted is if they were stupid and easily offended.
Re:fantastic (Score:4, Interesting)
There's no need to go to the Third World. In another country that doesn't have a corrupt equivalent of the FCC beholden to special interests, Google can go ahead with the tests.
Seriously, Google needs to be thinking about the future and the U. S. ain't it. Someday, and not very far out, the U. S. (or whatever ends up replacing it on the North American land mass) will be the Third World Government getting bribed for Science!!!
Japan maybe, France, plenty of countries will want to get a jump on this technology. If the U. S. wants to fall behind because a few rich people can corrupt a regulatory body so they can buy a few more ivory backscratchers, so be it! Lord knows it's a drop in the bucket compared to what has been outsourced or legally crippled because of our little masters of the Universe on Wall Street. We're getting near the end of Atlas Shrugged here or the beginning of 1984 or sometime way before the beginning of Revolt in 2100. Take your pick, dystopias in real life all end the same way.
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Get off your damn high horse (Score:5, Funny)
We're not talking about setting up a machine that sprays toxic waste into the atmosphere or some sort of plant that will poison groundwater supplies, we're talking about setting up a goddamn broadcast antenna. Just like the ones Mexicans watch TV on currently. The original poster's point was that since the agency that decides whether or not you can SET UP broadcast antennas in the US is also the one that's being accused of RIGGING the test and LYING about the results, you'll have to find somewhere else to set up your antenna.
So take your trumped up "disgust" and stick it in your self righteous ass.
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Of course there are. There are also lighting requirements to prevent aircraft from smashing into them in the dark. But my point was that Google wouldn't be attempting to do anything nefarious and thereby exploit Mexico's third world status, not that there's no danger whatsoever from a radio antenna.
Can someone explain this article a bit better... (Score:3, Insightful)
... because for someone who hasn't been following this in detail, TFA doesn't even make clear what exactly Page is claiming happened.
Re:Can someone explain this article a bit better.. (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the summary:
There's unused radio spectrum (called "white space") between the TV channels that are designed to give the stations protection. Google (and others) claim that small radio devices can transmit on those frequencies and not harm the TV signals, TV stations of course fearful of anything that might cost them viewers disputed that.
So the FCC set up a field test of a Google device and other devices to see if everything work right. The result of that test was a "fail" for Google's side... but the news is that Google is claiming the wireless microphone channel being tested equated to a local TV broadcasting channel, and therefore was unfair.
White space is not just for protection (Score:3, Informative)
The white space between channels can be used by auto-tuning software to determine where the channels are by detecting energy levels. Fill the white space up and this sort of auto-tuning cannot work. Modern digital tuners probably don't need this, but older, cheaper designs probably do.
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Conveniently, within about a year, all tv stations will have to broadcast in digital, requiring new all-digital tuners. So it won't matter, as the older, cheaper designs wont work anymore anyway.
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I am not sure how things work in USA, but here in Europe for at LEAST the past 8 or 10 years, the TVs would tune based on recognition of the various aspects of analogue TV signaling (such as v-sync, etc) as these have a fairy constant "heartbeat" to say the least. Once a channel is locked in, then the tuner uses the Teletext circuitry to fine tune it, as well as Identify the actual channel, so its kept in the right order (BBC1 = 1, BBC2 = 2, ITV = 3, etc).
Therefore the whitespace is not really needed for mo
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Where they trying to show that the Google device did not interfere with the microphone? But if it was at the same frequency as a local TV station, it would have not worked whether or not the Google device was on - the TV signal would have interfered.
If, on the other hand, the Google device was designed to avoid populated spectrum, it would have avoided that frequency in any case, assuming this feature worked at all.
So exactly what was being tested and what was the failure mode?
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How could that possibly be a mistake? How could the FCC not know that when it tested? Is this a new test or something?
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Easy fix, put the channels on YouTube or remove them altogether. After all what are the chances that they are broadcasting anything remotely interesting ?
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White space is not defined as the small padding between documented frequencies, thogh a spall part of it exists there. White space are the UNUSED frequencies in many markets.
You see, there are more than 40 TV broadcast chanels available, and a further 81 digital channels as well, but in any one market or area, typically no more than 10 are ever in use. There is some small bleed over from one market to another, so maybe 15-18 of the channels may have some signal detectable and thus needing to be avoides.
Wi
Oh My! (Score:5, Funny)
Next they'll be rigging voting machines
Oh wait . . .
--
Oh well, Bad Karma and all . . .
Re:Oh My! (Score:4, Funny)
McCain/Diebold - We can't lose!
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McCain/Diebold - We can't lose!
Even with Diebold on his side, I think McCain could figure out a way.
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That joke is so 4 years ago with John Kerry.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sources: CNN [cnn.com], CBS [cbsnews.com], Mother Jones [motherjones.com].
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> those organizations didn't donate that money, those organizations' employees did
Per the link: Their employees, political action committee or owners.
What alarms me as a non-USian is how politicised US companies appear to be. Why are PACs permitted within companies? Sholudn't the workplace be a zero-politics environment?
And why would an employee of, say, Google even declare his employer's name when making a donation?
Disagree (Score:2, Interesting)
I really, really don't like whitespace devices.
Companies like Google claim it will allow internet access in rural areas; that's also what they've said about BPL and WiMax and we see that those are being deployed mostly in major cities. The difference is that this time, there's no gain in major cities. (This is so much like BPL it's amazing, able to stomp on everything that's supposed to be in the band, not really benefiting anyone who's supposed to be benefited by this, etc.)
With digital TV coming, white
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Then how about a compromise?
Since this is a pda, adding a GPS wouldnt be a bad idea, in fact I think it'd be a nice addition.
With a GPS, one could check a database in which has a list of frequencies that are "off limits". Though, the bad side is the device will have a chance of interfering for the small amount of time in which the list is being downloaded. I cant see the list being larger than 20KB per 1 sq. km. , so perhaps 3 seconds of jamming potential.
The only real work would be the creation of the DB (
Re:Disagree (Score:4, Interesting)
These devices can start transmitting and wipe out a digital signal, and then how are you going to know what's causing it? At least with analog you could look at the noise in the picture and get some idea of what's causing it.
same way you did it then. use a reciever and walk around. Digital is not "magical" it's stil the same ANALOG Rf transmission carrying 1's and 0's instead of .5,1,1.5,6,9,about 2, kinda 4,.....
so you use simple RDF techniques and find it. Really really simple and around here 9-13 year olds do it all the time.
It's called "fox hunting" and they use a simple pocket scanner to find a hiddent transmitter that transmits only for 1 minute every 5-10 minutes.
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What kind of receiver would you use for this, and how would an ordinary non-Slashdot-reading person use one?
All I could tell with a portable receiver is that the digital signal is gone, there's nothing to indicate what's causing it. Not to mention portable DTV tuners are awful at receiving clean DTV, let alone anything else.
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You use a directional antenna and just wave it around until the output changes. Useful for finding all kinds of stuff.
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When the output is a black screen that says "No signal" because noise from the nearby White Space Device is wiping out everything, how does this procedure then work?
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It's kind of funny that we're all fussed about this particular topic when my classmates and I more or less solved this problem from a system's level in an rf class for homework. The problem was similar though not exactly the same. Given the sensitivity of moder
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So, the signal is not going to be able to impact TV signals, but will deliver high speed internet to rural areas at the same time? I live in a rural area, and let me tell you TV signals aren't usually strong in those areas. I haven't heard white space devices described as wireless routers (in which case I'd be inclined to believe you), I've heard them described as ISP wireless transmitters. My internet provider is a wireless ISP who operates on 900 MHz, I'm three miles from their tower, and when they sig
Summary for non-engineers (Score:5, Informative)
Summary for non-engineers:
Google (among others) want to use the newly freed analog TV frequencies to provide long range wireless internet.
Short range RF microphones i.e. wireless stage mics that aren't using IR currently operate in this area as well. current analog TV doesn't interfere, I'll spare details.
Some claim the wireless internet system that has been devised will interfere with these microphones. Google group says they won't because the devices are capable of detecting a microphone transmitting and work around the issue (change freq).
FCC setup a test, device failed to avoid microphones frequencies thus, knocking it out of commission and failing the test.
Google chap claims the testers had the mic transmitting on a frequency used by the local TV channel and this transmitter was so strong that the system could not detect the microphone because it was effectively masked.
Google chap says this was done on purpose.
The end.
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That's a good summary for engineers, too. I'm an engineer, but I wasn't able to figure out what the complaint was about from TFA.
Please mod parent up.
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Better Off Dead (Score:2)
Google spokesman explained later that testers had hidden the wireless microphones within the same frequency as local television stations, preventing the test device from detecting them.
Hey, can I get one of those? That might be fun to play with:
"Hey there Lane, I know this is a little awkward, me being a cartoon and all, I was just wondering how you'd feel if I took out Beth." -- Bernard "Barney" Rubble
I'd call it rigged too. (Score:3, Insightful)
What we're hearing about now is outrage over test results which have not yet been published. When they are, they will "show" that wireless Internet devices that Google is trying to get accepted by the FCC were unable to detect a wireless microphone. We've supposed to then believe that the wireless Internet device, having failed to detect the microphone when it checked that chunk of the spectrum, would then begin transmitting on that piece of spectrum, thereby disrupting the microphone. The sound bite is "device which fails to avoid interfering with wireless mic is bad and will not be allowed."
It takes only a moment to see that it was a rigged test because the wireless Internet device did NOT interfere with the microphone, because it did successfully detect the local television station that was broadcasting on that frequency and therefore did not try to use it. Analog TV stations are some seriously high power broad spectrum noise. Any frequency-hopping wireless Internet device would be useless attempting to use the same frequency and would obviously move on to another part of the spectrum, thereby avoiding interfering with the TV station and any other device being masked by it. That part will be conveniently left out of the headlines. The fact that the wireless microphone itself may have been useless while attempting to use that frequency, due to interference from the television station, will also be left out.
So basically the rigged test will be used to deny Google's hopes of fielding devices to use unused spectrum, thereby maintaining the television broadcast industry's lock on chunks of spectrum that they're not even using. It's an inefficient waste of spectrum that dates back 50 years to the days of radios that had just enough vacuum tubes to put a signal into the air, and had none left over for complicated automatic frequency usage detection algorithms. Nor had the Ethernet exponential back-off anti-interference algorithm been connected to the problem. The regulatory regime is antiquated, but the entrenched corporations that have a vested interest in spectrum are defending what they see as "their" airwaves merely on principle.
It wouldn't take a working group all that long to come up with new technical requirements that could be used as FCC regulations that would make use of ALL allocated but unused licensed spectrum, without ever interfering with older dumb devices. Software radios that receive before broadcasting, analyze the results, move on to another frequency if usage is detected, exponentially back off that frequency if it's still in use the next time around, transmit only during some defined time slice, and never broadcast more than 1 watt of power could use that spectrum without legacy device interference and without mutual device interference. Google knows it. The TV industry knows it. The TV industry feels besieged after having parts of spectrum that has been their exclusive stomping grounds for decades sold off to the highest bidder while they get squeezed into digital broadcasts. Google claims they're pulling dirty tricks to defend the spectrum they have left. Just sitting here looking in from outside, I have to agree.
Re:I'd call it rigged too. (I wouldn't) (Score:5, Interesting)
It takes only a moment to see that it was a rigged test because the wireless Internet device did NOT interfere with the microphone, because it did successfully detect the local television station that was broadcasting on that frequency and therefore did not try to use it. Analog TV stations are some seriously high power broad spectrum noise. Any frequency-hopping wireless Internet device would be useless attempting to use the same frequency and would obviously move on to another part of the spectrum, thereby avoiding interfering with the TV station and any other device being masked by it. That part will be conveniently left out of the headlines. The fact that the wireless microphone itself may have been useless while attempting to use that frequency, due to interference from the television station, will also be left out.
The test is not rigged. I have been doing RF coordination for entertainment professionally for about a decade now and I can assure that with this test the FCC has highlighted one major strategy that we use in crowded RF environments.
An analog television station is not the high power broadband noise machine you make it out to be. An NTSC analog signal takes up 6MHz of bandwidth in the radio spectrum. That signal is actually made up of three distinct signals that are modulated into one channel; those signals are a video carrier, a chromance sub-carrier (color) and a sound sub-carrier. Those signals take up a few 100kHz of bandwidth and are separated by a few 100kHz.
The standard RF microphone used for stage, television and film production has a peak bandwidth of ~ +/- 56kHz or a grand total of ~112kHz total deviation. With that small usage of bandwidth we can fit three microphones into an operating analog television channel without causing interference to the primary spectrum user.
The FCC test seems to be showing that Google's engineers are unaware of this strategy employed by RF coordinators and that if their device decided to employ the same strategy, it would interfere with the operating microphone within the analog television channel.
Mind you, this becomes moot on 19 February 2009 as we cannot do this trick with a digital ATSC signal. That is the high-power noise generating machine you are refering to.
-e
Re:I'd call it rigged too. (I wouldn't) (Score:5, Insightful)
Then, given that all you'll have to work with is an impenetrable square wave, and given that the FCC knows this, what is the purpose of demonstrating that you can play funky tricks by squeezing a microphone into space that will no longer exist? How can it be anything other than rigged? You said yourself this trick will not even be possible in just a few short months. How is a test that tests an environment that will no longer exist anything but a con job? My definition of "rigging" a test is creating a test that is not a faithful representation of the actual operating environment to the detriment of the applicant.
I know, I know, never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity. So some idiot designed the test, thinking he was being clever, when it had nothing to do with the environment that will pertain by the time any action could be taken to approve whitespace devices.
I still say that the Google devices checked for signals right where the 6 Mhz of spectrum was supposed to be in use, and immediately moved on, chalking off the whole block as occupied. Why check further when the licensed user is very much clear and present? It doesn't even require naivete to make that decision. It only takes a conservative engineer. Just because people like you are willing to squeeze your signal into that occupied frequency doesn't mean they were. (I don't mean that pejoratively. I'm referring to you as representative of your industry, representing long-established practice.)
And you and I both know that the theoretically lovely 6 MHz NTSC analog signal gets bounced around by structures and atmospheric effects until it gets smeared across 20 MHz or more. The buffer zone built in to the 6 MHz allocation has never been enough to prevent signal bleedover into the space of other stations.
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I am the Game-Day frequency coordinator for a major-league sports team (contractor to the league). Some of my colleagues were in on the test and I have read their individual on-field reports.
My recollection is that a good many of the WM's tested in this experiment were in "good, clean whitespace." Let's think it through - a WM hidden in an occupied analog TV channel should be protected by the much stronger carriers of that station. If the whitespace-using net gear is equipped to use such small interstit
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Doesnt that mean that Microphones would fail too, when analogue disappears?
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you are incorrect. it dates bac kto the days when the recievers and transmitters were giant hunks of stinky crap and did not have good filtering to reject out of channel interference. Old zenith tv's would suck in the IF frequency of a radio from 6 feet away. they had no shielding, used 35% tolerance components and were built like garbage.
Today the digital tuners can easily reject out of band and ajacent channel signals easily The transmitters finallly have decent filtering on the output so they are
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The transition period would *have* to be years.
Your assertion that I can just "go show the boss the new mic" and he'll cough up the cash would be great if there *were* cash. While some of users of these things have more cash than Warren Buffett, there are a lot of people like me, in the community theater world (and churches, schools, small theaters, etc...) who made what is, for them, massive investments in these mics expecting them to last 10 or 15 years. They simply don't have the money to upgrade gear
Bah, I got confused by the title (Score:2, Funny)
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Wow. Just wow.
But, hey, the election will probably be rigged... again...
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And The FCC's Reply... (Score:2, Informative)
Ya gotta learn how to play the game, this is gov't after all guys and apparently you didnt lobby quite enough for this.
Crybaby (Score:3, Insightful)
This is exactly how spooks and the like hide a microphone (bug).
The best way is to have it transmit within the exact same frequency or spectrum that another service uses.
If you use low enough power for your transmitter, you minimize collateral receivers being able to pick your signal up, while at the same time making it near impossible to track or find the bug.
Google's guy is just pissed he got one-upped. The FCC did this entirely within the realm of what would happen in the real world.
Sometimes it sucks to come out from behind the keyboard and discover real world stuff, huh?
--Toll_Free
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! (Score:2)
Check out the comments on TFA (Score:2)
I'm not saying that an opinion should be solely based on whether or not an industry group employs unethical tactics like astroturfing, and not on the merits of each side's arguments; but if you did, you would side with Google. There are dozens of comments on the Washington Post page that are clearly (to me) part of an "online strategy" by those opposing opening up whitespace.
Shure's Side of the Story (Score:3, Informative)
Tests rigged? That's not what I get from the director of advanced development for Shure Brothers Microphones, Edgar Reihl.
He was there for the tests last month.
See this article in Broadcast Engineering magazine:
http://broadcastengineering.com/hdtv/reihl-sheds-light-wsd-tests20080819/index.html [broadcastengineering.com]
Re:You go, Larry! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Vested interest does not necessarily lead to bias, though it certainly could have done so in this case.
You know.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd also say that the same applies to any other discipline. If you see a flaw in someone's argument, call them on it. People are human and do make mistakes. And amateurs have access to information that many professionals would have killed for even a few years ago.
Now, this doesn't mean that a doctor or other expert has to listen to every crackpot, and that every amateur ought to be given the same weight as a noted expert. Sometimes, the proper answer to a question is indeed "Stop wasting my time." The trick is to know what time is when.
Re:You know.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd like to give you my vote on your post and add a comment:
Get a second opinion. You will be shocked at how often two doctors disagree on what might seem to be simple diagnoses, meaning that at least one of them is just quite simply WRONG.
Doctors get it wrong a little more than three quarters of the time in my experience.
Doctors are human (Score:4, Informative)
He was having pain in his left calf whenever he did light/moderate excercise. I don't mean running, I mean walking around the mall. He would cramp up after about 5 minutes, then when his muscle relaxed, he could continue walking for quite a while.
He went to at least three doctors and all three told him different things. 1) he just needed more exercise. 2) it was a torn or damaged muscle 3) he needed more potassium. This is in spite of the fact that he had the symptoms for three years before his death.
Actual answer: Severe atherosclerosis which lead to myocardiac infarction (heart attack), and death.
It was surprisingly easy to figure out from the symptoms and a few websites. I was shocked that none of them thought to mention the possibility, and that they all discounted each others diagnoses.
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Did you read my post? I said my experience. That's tens of doctors across 100s of diagnoses.
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Actually, that statement might get a nod of agreement from my doctor. I am one of the fortunate few who has what is sometimes regarded as an overqualified GP. But aside from all the paper qualifications, he has the two that are most valuable, namely (1) a moderate-sized ego (so isn't ashamed to admit when he's been barking up the wrong tree and look elsewhere for a diagnosis) and (2) a wide streak of cynicism.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
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Bull shit try, "gtts. ii d ear QID".
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Also, Larry has a countless team of engineers and scientists working for him, so a better analogy would be "as a computer programmer with a team of 100 doctors supporting me, I like to stand over other doctors as they...."
So actually yeah, go Larry!
LS
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It's up to engineers working on a production system to bring something out of beta, kthx.
That would be the "D" component of R&D.
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That's the *development* of research ideas. It is not the *production* of research ideas.
Methinks you don't have a clue what R&D is about.
But it won't be how they're deployed in the field (Score:2)
In heavily saturated markets, the wireless mic frequency may sit between a TV video signal and the same channel's audio signal.
At least until things go all digital, then audio and video are muxed into one square wave leaving no room to stick a mic signal. This exasperates the dilemma facing wireless mic operators.
And if the wireless mic being tested was sharing a channel with an ANALOG TV transmitter the test was totally bogus: The situation they tested would no longer occur after Feb '09 because there wou
Re:But it won't be how they're deployed in the fie (Score:3, Informative)
FAIL!
There will be no full power analog TV broadcasters, but the transition date of 2/17 does not apply to -LP, -CA and translators.
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And yes that little PDA can easily wreak havoc on a Broadway show, NFL broadcast or any other production. That's why we regulate the spectrum...devices operating on the same frequency will interfere.
That's not why the airwaves are regulated. The airwaves are regulated because large media companies wanted to reduce competition. Airwaves were originally homesteaded [criminalgovernment.com]. Courts were ruling that the first person to setup a transmitter and broadcast on a specific frequency had the right to that frequency and othe
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Your history might be right, but your reality is slanted a little too much to the era of tinfoilism.
You need to take your tinfoil hat off because it's distorting reality.
Falcon
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Sure thing:
As reported by the Washington Post, Google co-founder Larry Page claims that an FCC field test of white space wireless devices was 'rigged' to make the test device fail to detect wireless microphone broadcasts. A Google spokesman explained later that testers had hidden the wireless microphones within the same frequency as local television stations, preventing the test device from detecting them.
HTH
Re:Usually I like Google, but in this case.... (Score:5, Insightful)
who the hell modded this insightful?
this test was designed to see if allowing broadband internet applications unlicensed use of white spaces would interfere with current hardware, such as wireless microphones.
how can such a test be conducted when there's already other sources of interference on those frequencies? unless they rule out the interference being caused by local TV broadcasts, then they can't use the test results as an acceptable metric.
frankly, i think the public would receive more benefit from broadband internet being given this dedicated spectrum rather than TV stations or wireless microphones. especially if it's used for public/municipal wi-fi deployment via WiMAX or other last mile solutions.
the internet is a public generalized data network. that means it can be used by anyone, and anyone can develop new applications for it. cellular networks, TV, radio, etc. are all closed proprietary networks which are controlled by a handful of corporations. no one is allowed to develop new applications for these networks, and thus little innovation or technological progress has occured in these networks compared to the public internet.
if we can establish a national wireless broadband infrastructure, it could be used to deliver/broadcast text, video, audio, or any other form of digital data. not only would it be a major infrastructure upgrade, but it would be a democratization of the media by decentralizing media distribution. we would just have wi-fi appliances for streaming internet radio stations rather than AM/FM radios, giving indie artists as much exposure as mainstream artists who currently dominate traditional media.
i mean, why should a few media corporations have exclusive usage rights over such a large range of the radio spectrum when the public would receive so much more benefit from those frequency ranges being used for broadband internet access?
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well, i didn't mean that about wireless mics. i meant radio frequencies licensed to TV and radio networks, as well as cellular networks.
we will always have white spaces that equipment like wireless mics, wireless phones, etc. can be used on. those applications don't need to be licensed dedicated frequency ranges.
but applications like communications networks do require licensed spectrums. and since we only have a limited spectrum to use, it should be put to the best use, which would broad internet. with the
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>>>this test was designed to see if allowing broadband internet applications unlicensed use of white spaces would interfere with current hardware,
I object because just because the white space gadget can't "see" a station does not mean it's not in use. Take channel 5 in Washington D.C. for example. It's 70 miles distant from my house in Pennsylvania, but still watchable with my giant antenna. ----- Now somebody turns-on a white space gadget & starts using channel 5, because the gadge
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Re:Usually I like Google, but in this case.... (Score:4, Interesting)
I never needed a wireless mic. 99% of the general population will never use a professional wireless mics. The very limited niche of baby-mics and things like that can be easily served by a single spectrum, 10-20KHz wide. When white-space internet becomes available, it will be easy to make wireless mics work on it. So put a cork in it, wireless mics are NOT a real issue.
The real issue here is the fear of traditional broadcast of new technology in general, and Internet in particular. You know you have an ethics problem when Microsoft calls you on it [wikipedia.org]:
The Federal Communications Commission's Office of Engineering and Technology released a report dated July 31, 2007 with results from its investigation of two preliminary devices submitted. The report concluded that the devices did not reliably sense the presence of television transmissions or other incumbent users, hence are not acceptable for use in their current state and no further testing was deemed necessary.[4] However, on August 13, 2007 Microsoft filed a document with the FCC in which it described a meeting that its engineers had with FCC engineers from the Office of Engineering and Technology on August 9 and 10. At this meeting the Microsoft engineers showed results from their testing done with identical prototype devices and using identical testing methods that "detected DTV signals at a threshold of -114 dBm in laboratory bench testing with 100 percent accuracy, performing exactly as expected." In the presence of FCC engineers, the Microsoft engineers took apart the device that the FCC had tested to find the cause of the poor performance. They found that "the scanner in the device had been damaged and operated at a severely degraded level" which explained the FCC unit's inability to detect when channels were occupied. It was also pointed out that the FCC was in possession of an identical backup prototype that was in perfect operating condition that they had not tested.
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ROTFLMAO !
The arrogant one is you, thinking that the US population should be denied a very useful WiFi network because you might not still receive an analog television signal via antenna from another state. Perhaps nobody told you that you will not be receiving that signal very soon anyway?
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And it's not just about me. There are ~50 million other people in the same boat - relying upon over-the-air television. You have no right to cut them off from TV with your interfering web-widgets.
Wait, ~50 million other people use huge 25dB antennas to get channels from out-of-state TV stations? Somehow I think you're making that up... or did you perhaps mean that a rare few would be "cut off from TV", and the vast majority would be totally unaffected?
What makes you think you're guaranteed to be able to receive some weak signal from a 70-mile-away station anyway? I don't know what "region" you're in, but if I'm reading this [fcc.gov] correctly then a 100kW TV station could broadcast on the same channel if it
Re:Usually I like Google, but in this case.... (Score:4, Interesting)
OK. Read the above sentence carefully then the next (you wrote them, I know, but I don't think you read them.)
So riddle me this: If you live in such a remote area, why is there a danger of your airspace being overtaken by WiFi gadgets?
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you mean like our socialist road and highway system?
besides, i never said to nationalize all ISPs. the current internet is a public network and it isn't government run--it's not even entirely American-run. regardless of whether ISPs are government-run or privatized, using current TV/radio/cellular spectrums for rolling out WiMAX broadband infrastructure would still be better.
it's simply more efficient to have one generalized digital communications network rather than several redundant networks making less e
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Spread spectrum isn't a magic bullet. SS users wind up raising the noise floor around the frequencies they use. Low power 900 MHz SS has all but ruined the band in some places.
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Good! Find them some spectrum (be sure to buy it at auction at market rates) and then pay to replace the millions of dollars worth of existing equipment that's currently in use with your new equipment.
Somehow, I imagine it suddenly sounds much less like a good idea.
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>> Get rid of them [the wireless mics] and put them in their own set of frequencies.
> [...] replace the millions of dollars worth of
> existing equipment [...] sounds much less like a good idea.
and that's a different situation for the users than switching from analog to digital TV receivers because ...?
(Me watching DVB-T happily since 4+ years)
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Because switching from analog to digital frees up soon-to-be former TV channels 52-69 for public safety and wireless communications and generates revenue for the government, whereas this would be relocating functional equipment that's not in that reclaimed band and benefits almost nobody.