On Thursday 08 February 2007 15:50, Mike McCarty wrote:
>Gene Heskett wrote:
>> On Thursday 08 February 2007 11:06, Wolfgang S. Rupprecht wrote:
>>>Joe Smith <jes@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>>>>I'm sure you're not poking fun at Linux because the maintainers are
>>>>unwilling to break the law, are you?
>>>
>>>I'm poking fun at the manufacturers that claim they can't allow
>>>open-source drivers for their wifi radios.
>>>
>>>BTW: I don't recall seeing a law that says it is illegal to write
>>>open-source drivers.
>>
>> Here in the states, the FCC gets into this loop somehow. I've got a
>> current copy of 47CFR coming, so I might be able to quote something
>> eventually.
>
>It has to do with "type acceptance" and all that implies.
The 'type acceptance' provisions were pretty well tossed out the window
for us commercial broadcasters quite some time back, and replaced with
wording that said we were responsible for our emissions saying that all
parts of the 73.69x stuff *will* be complied with. And they officially
do not care how we go about it as long as we do. For instance, vis-a-vis
transmitter control in the event of a loss of the controlling link. In
one message the language was given that if we "aimed a cannon at it",
that would be compliance.
The net result is that I have carte blanche to feed our old GE's visual
final amplifier with a somewhat newer Harris whose TPO is not sufficient
to make our licensed power by several dbk. The final combination will in
fact have more filtering vis-a-vis lower sideband suppression, and better
harmonic filters than the GE that's been sitting there making great pix
for 50 years this coming summer. Its also possible, if I should decide
to use it, that the noise into the upper adjacent channel might be
reduced, but how effective this is depends on the overall linearity of
the system after these low level video filters. Currently I am running
the visual linearity corrector after the video low pass filter as its
induced, above the cutoff, distortion then tends to cancel some of the
noise generated by the non-linearity of the amplifiers. The last time I
checked that, it was good for about a 6db reduction in out of channel
noises.
Why am I doing all this? Simple, I have the last set of Eimac made
4-1000's on the planet in the visual driver of the GE now, with an
estimated life of another 60-90 days even if babied. We have to maintain
operations until February 17th, 2009, and no one is going to spend $250K
on a new transmitter when its only going to get a 2 year use lifetime.
>In order
>for a device to be type accepted, and hence legal to sell, it must
>not only satisfy certain techical specifications, but also not be
>"easily modified" by the end user so as to violate those same technical
>specifications. In some cases this means having an integral antenna
>which cannot be removed and replaced with a larger one without
>doing damage, as an example. Providing drivers which could be
>modified to initialize the chipset on the board to provide
>frequencies or powers outside those specified for the application
>might constitute making an "easily modified" device.
I think some of this may be that today, such gizmo's are going to be
stretched and modified by those who want to get that last mile and to
hell with the applicable rules, because of ignorance or a scofflaw
attitude. Like Bill C. said, "Just because I could".
Electronics in general no longer seems to have quite as much of the smoke
and mirrors magic respect it had 60 years ago when I first started
experimenting with it. And this is good, but not for the regulators who
would like to protect us from ourselves as it makes their job ever more
difficult.
>IANAL
>
>I have constructed quite a few Part 15 devices, and am reasonably
>familiar with CFR 47.15
>
>Mike
>--
>p="p=%c%s%c;main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}";main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}
>Oppose globalization and other One World Governments like the UN.
>This message made from 100% recycled bits.
>You have found the bank of Larn.
>I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
>I speak only for myself, and I am unanimous in that!
--
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above
message by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2007 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.
