Re: [d@DCC] More research on Bill C-2: DVD players interfer with military

From: Russell McOrmond <russell _-at-_ flora.ca>
To: General Discussion <discuss (at) digital-copyright.ca>
Date: Mon, 3 May 2004 14:26:36 -0400 (EDT)

On Mon, 3 May 2004, Darryl Moore wrote:

> Is there any information on these 'AVR cards'? and/or the tests Industry 
> Canada did.
> 
> I've used used Atmel AVR chips in embedded designs in the past. If I had 
> some specific chip numbers or schematics, I couldn't tell you for sure 
> whether they would cause interference, but I could give you a good idea 
> of the likelihood of such interference.

  The page at
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/insmt-gst.nsf/en/sf05761e.html
seems intended to include images of specific "devices" that were causing
interference.  Unfortunately all the images are missing.

> Has Industry Canada not published their test results? If not, why should 
> anybody take them seriously?

  They may have, but I have not yet found the specific test results.  All 
I know is what is on those pages and what I just heard in a telephone 
conversation.

Interference to Public Safety Radiocommunication Systems from Pirate 
Devices used in Direct-to-Home (DTH) Satellite Equipment
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/insmt-gst.nsf/en/h_sf05659e.html

Direct-to-Home (DTH) Satellite Broadcasting
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/insmt-gst.nsf/en/h_sf05562e.html


  Mr. Jim Thiessen from Industry was very helpful, and may have also been 
the person who convinced the committee to ask me in as a witness.

Just paraphrasing from notes I quickly jotted down:

  The research goes back a few years now.  There are military aircraft
that fly by the Cold Lake base.  As they land they fly over the city of
Cold Lake.  They monitor 2 channels: one that they communicate with the 
control tower, and one that is an emergency channel.

  They noticed interferences on the emergency channel, so investigated.

  It turns out that some "pirate devices" were emitting this interference.  
The devices mentioned were associated with Bell Expressview and DishNet 
(US based, not licensed for Canada).  They had circuit boards that were 
half-in/half-out and thus exposed without shielding.

(Details missing here.  Talk of 54'th harmonic of the set-top device and 
two frequencies:  121.5 and 223)

  Other devices were also found to emit interference, but not on a 
particular frequency.  The article I read about the DVD player related to 
a single DVD player that was a specific model.  Whether this is a CSA 
approval issue rather than a Radiocommunications issue is a topic for 
another day.


  We spoke a bit about technology upgrades and how I believe that upgrades 
in the receivers would be a better approach than legislation.  He 
mentioned that this is slowly happening with other vendors.  It takes some 
time to migrate over to a new receiver that has better technology, but 
that signs are that this is quite effective.

  I hope we have opened up discussions such that the Spectrum/Radio folks 
will keep in better contact with the Internet folks.  I invited him to 
come to a GOSLING Gaggle some Friday, and pointed him to this forum so he 
would be more aware of what we are working on.

-- 
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
 Open letters with Susan Crean http://www.flora.ca/creators/
 Petition for Users' Rights http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/
           All citizens are "rights holders"!

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