RSID: <<2022-11-11T00:31Z MFSK-32 @ 9265000+1500>>

Welcome to program 278 of Shortwave Radiogram.

I'm Kim Andrew Elliott in Arlington, Virginia USA.

Here is the lineup for today's program, in MFSK modes as noted:

  1:35 MFSK32: Program preview (now)
  2:50 MFSK32: Beam-hopping satellite moves closer to launch
  6:16 MFSK64: Legislation to enable right-to-repair
13:28 MFSK64: This week's images*
27:21 MFSK32: Closing announcements

* with image(s)

 

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From TechXplore:

Beam-hopping satellite moves one step closer to launch

by European Space Agency
November 9, 2022

An advanced broadband satellite that can offer high-speed
internet connectivity anywhere on Earth is ready to enter its
final assembly ahead of launch.

The beam-hopping satellite—nicknamed JoeySat after a baby
kangaroo—will be used to connect thousands of people on ships at
sea, on planes in flight and while traveling over land,
demonstrating next-generation 5G connectivity from low Earth
orbit.

Its fully digital beam-hopping and beam-steering payload can
switch between different places on Earth up to 1,000 times per
second and adjust the strength of the communications signals to
meet demand.

Developed under the Sunrise Partnership Project between ESA and
telecommunications operator OneWeb, JoeySat will demonstrate key
technologies for OneWeb's second-generation constellation, as
part of the ESA Sunrise project with support from the U.K. Space
Agency.

Its advanced digital regenerative payload was built, tested and
fully qualified by SatixFy in the U.K. and the payload
environmental tests were completed in the U.K. The flexible
payload is fully software defined and will be reconfigurable in
orbit.

It has now shipped to the OneWeb factory assembly line in Florida
where it will undergo further assembly and tests. Once these are
complete, Joeysat will be launched into low Earth orbit, where it
will loop round the planet at more than 26 000 km/h.

JoeySat was built in less than a year after the contract was
signed between ESA and OneWeb, using off-the-shelf commercial
parts and a lean management style. It is due to be launched
within the next few months.

Elodie Viau, director of telecommunications and integrated
applications at ESA, said, "Once again our Partnership Projects
demonstrate how ESA cooperates efficiently with industry to
anticipate crucial developments in a timely manner and create
real solutions. The Joeysat satellite demonstrator for OneWeb's
next-generation constellation is a brilliant example of this
cooperation."

https://techxplore.com/news/2022-11-beam-hopping-satellite-closer.html
 

Shortwave Radiogram now changes to MFSK64 ...
 

RSID: <<2022-11-11T00:36Z MFSK-64 @ 9265000+1500>>


This is Shortwave Radiogram in MFSK64

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From TechXplore:

Bills target corporate practices thwarting product repairs

by Benjamin J. Hulac
Roll Call
November 2, 2022

After Dyani Chapman's refrigerator broke, her landlord replaced
it with a new one, a cheaper route than fixing the original. When
her phone's screen cracked, Chapman faced a similar dilemma.

"When I went in and asked to get it fixed," repairing the screen
would have cost close to the bill for a new phone, said Chapman,
state director for Alaska Environment, an advocacy group. "It's
not even worth it."

In an era of nearly ubiquitous electronics, Chapman's experience
is common.

You buy a gadget. You use it until it breaks. You go to the
company that makes it. The company offers to repair it or sell
you a new gadget at a similar price. New gadget in hand, you use
that one until it breaks, and the cycle repeats.

While this loop helped catapult disposed electronics into the
fastest-growing source of waste in the country, according to the
EPA, there is bipartisan congressional interest behind bills to
make it easier for average citizens to repair what they own, a
potential boon to consumers and the environment.

After decades of providing directions, parts and guidance to
customers who wanted to mend a broken tool or machine,
manufacturers often no longer do so, advocates say, adding that
the original manufacturers of a given product often direct their
customers back to themselves or to approved third-party repair
shops.

"It's so easy for manufacturers to block repair," Gay
Gordon-Byrne, executive director of The Repair Association, a
nonpartisan network of companies that advocates for so-called
right-to-repair legislation at the state and federal levels, said
in an interview.

Gordon-Byrne, who worked in the computer industry, said a
watershed moment came in 2010, when computer firm Oracle acquired
Sun Microsystems and then blocked the option for independent
repair for Sun-made equipment. "Oracle got people upset in 2010
when it took over Sun Microsystems," Gordon-Byrne said.

Opposite Gordon-Byrne and other supporters, who include farmers,
ranchers, tinkerers, hobbyists, consumer rights advocates and
environmentalists, are companies that make electronics and heavy
machinery who say passing repair laws would infringe on their
intellectual property, harm rural regional U.S. economies and
pose security problems.

"The dangers associated with someone remotely hacking into a
machine for nefarious purposes or an adversary of the United
States having access to this technology has broad security and
economic ramifications," Ken Taylor, president of a heavy
equipment company in Ohio, told the House Small Business
Committee in September.

Though two states—Colorado and New York—have passed
right-to-repair legislation, legislatures in 25 are considering
it, according to The Repair Association, and there are bills in
the House and Senate that would address various industries,
including farming equipment, electronics and automobiles.

In the House, Rep. Joseph D. Morelle, D-N.Y., has legislation to
require electronics companies to share records about diagnostics,
repair and maintenance with owners and third-party repair shops.

"This pandemic has magnified our need to be self-reliant and have
the ability to repair our own devices, especially when large
retailers are forced to shutter," Morelle said when he introduced
the bill.

The Federal Trade Commission, an independent agency, would be
tasked with enforcing Morelle's bill and other federal repair
legislation.

At a September hearing of the House Rules Committee, Morelle said
there is a "fundamental idea" that when someone owns a product,
they own all of it, including the prerogative to fix it.

Rep. Michael C. Burgess, R-Tex., called Morelle's bill "a
beneficial starting point for discussions," adding that it was
"interesting that the right to repair debate does not divide
itself neatly along partisan lines."

Waste

High costs to fix electronics and increased corporate control
over repair processes have led to mushrooming levels of
electronic waste, or e-waste, and rising demand for raw
materials.

"By encouraging replacement over repair, manufacturers'
monopolization of aftermarkets contributes to environmental
damage and resource depletion," Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director
for Open Markets Institute, said. "Decreasing the average life
cycle of a car by just a year can mean millions of more cars are
sent to landfills and manufactured over a decade."

E-waste also contains toxic materials, like lead and lithium,
which may leach into water and soil. Then, there is the air.
"When these electronics are incinerated, the toxins are released
into the air and contribute to an assortment of serious ailments,
including cancer," Vaheesan said.

About 50 million tons of electronic waste, or e-waste, are
discarded worldwide every year, according to a 2019 United
Nations report, which found the waste surpassed the weight of all
commercial airplanes ever made.

Eighty-five percent of the greenhouse gas emissions from
smartphones come from making them, and their production consumes
hundreds of tons of raw materials, according to the nonpartisan
Public Interest Research Group, or PIRG. "A single phone produces
the planet-warming equivalent of 122.7 pounds of carbon dioxide,"
the group said.

According to Nathan Proctor of PIRG, Americans toss about 416,000
cell phones every day.

"There are more than 162 Empire State Buildings' worth of
electronics discarded annually," Lisa Frank of Environment
America said.

A bill by Rep. Bobby L. Rush, D-Ill., would allow owners to
access data on their cars and aftermarket parts, while Rep.
Darrell Issa, R-Calif., introduced a bipartisan
automobile-specific repair bill. Reps. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y.,
and Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., have their own repair legislation on
electronics.

"Farmers operate in tight windows and on tight margins, and they
simply can't afford to waste time or money bringing their
equipment to dealer-authorized mechanics in the middle of a
season," said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., who has an agriculture
repair bill. Sens. Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican, and Ben
Ray Lujan of New Mexico and Ron Wyden of Oregon have also taken
an interest with their own repair legislation.

Lobbying

Federal disclosures show trade groups and companies involved in
making electronics, video games, appliances, heavy machinery,
medical devices and automobiles, among other sectors, have this
year lobbied on repair bills.

"Repair mandates undermine the intellectual property laws
intended to protect video game devices and the actual games
themselves in ways that increase security concerns and weaken
critical anti-piracy features necessary to ensure the best
consumer experience," said a spokesperson for the Entertainment
Software Association, a video game lobby.

The Association of Equipment Manufacturers, which represents
companies like Cummins, Sherwin-Williams, Yokohama, Caterpillar,
John Deere and Chemours, said farm equipment today is more
technical to make it safer, more reliable and more efficient.

"Farmers should always have the right to repair their own
equipment, and that is why comprehensive repair and diagnostic
information is now available for the vast majority of the tractor
and combine market," AEM said in an e-mailed statement.

"Unfortunately, the so-called 'right to repair' legislation
special interests are pushing is not at all about giving farmers
the right to repair their own equipment," the group said in its
statement, "but instead about illegal tampering with equipment
that jeopardizes the safety, durability, and environmental
sustainability of farm equipment."

Daniel Fisher, senior vice president of government and external
affairs at Associated Equipment Distributors, which represents
agriculture, mining, construction, electric utility and forestry
companies, said his organization opposes right-to-repair
legislation.

"The bills, if enacted, have serious environmental, safety,
legal, economic, intellectual property and cybersecurity
implications," Fisher said, without naming specific legislation.
"The application of right-to-repair proposals to the equipment
industry is based on a false narrative that customers are unable
to fix their own tractors and machinery."

President Joe Biden in July 2021 signed Executive Order 14036,
which directed the FTC to pursue "unfair anti-competitive
restrictions on third-party repair or self-repair of items, such
as the restrictions imposed by powerful manufacturers that
prevent farmers from repairing their own equipment."

The FTC began soliciting public input Oct. 17 for a potential
rule to require manufacturers to provide repair directions for
major home appliances and other consumer goods, and last year, it
issued a sweeping report on the right to repair.

Separately, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., chairwoman of the
consumer protection subcommittee of Energy and Commerce, asked
the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of
Congress, to study consumers' access to repairs.

https://techxplore.com/news/2022-11-bills-corporate-thwarting-product.html

 

This is Shortwave Radiogram in MFSK64

Please send your reception report to radiogram@verizon.net
 

This week's images ...

 

Jones Gap State Park, South Carolina (Cathy Bester photo) ...

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A mother and son walk at Moonlight Beach, Encinitas, California,
November 2. https://bit.ly/3tfJcJo ...

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Sarum Lights: Renaissance, a light and sound experience at
Salisbury Cathedral. https://bit.ly/3G46k5m ...

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A pink stairwell in Peckham, London. https://bbc.in/3ElkHkm ...

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The footpath under the railway bridge over the River Nith in
Dumfries, Scotland. https://bbc.in/3hzm6uU ...

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Autumn colors at Hergest Croft Gardens, Kington, England.
https://bit.ly/3UL6D9m ...

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Cypress Trestle Bridge in West Vancouver, BC, on a snowy November
night. https://bit.ly/3tfWtBR ...

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Our painting of the week is "Scène de novembre à Beloeil" (1930)
by Marc-Aurèle Fortin. https://bit.ly/3G2w5To ...

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Shortwave Radiogram returns to MFSK32 ...




 

RSID: <<2022-11-11T00:57Z MFSK-32 @ 9265000+1500>>

This is Shortwave Radiogram in MFSK32 ...

 

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I'm Kim Elliott. Please join us for the next Shortwave
Radiogram.

Les McKeown of the Bay City Rollers was born
Leslie Richard McKeown, November 12, 1955.

He died in 2021.


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lesmckeown.com

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