Commission Impossible

Hi Lon:

I received my Amatuer Radio license when I was 16, and in various jobs over the years spent time in intense RF (radio frequency) environments and have been actively working with RF for more than 30 years. Some might use me as an example of what can happen to you if you’re not careful :- )

But seriously, I’d bet that I am one of the very few in town who has ever read FCC Office of Engineering Bulletin 65 which sets out human exposure to RF and worked thru the simple math to calculate exposures.

http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Documents/bulletins/oet65/oet65.pdf

In regards to one of those cell phone towers, I’d bet, I’d guarantee, that any place that you could reasonably place a human would be at an exposure level of some fraction of 1 percent of the level deemed to be safe.

Among other factors, the antennas are designed to put signal out, as evenly as possible, over a large area and not in immediate proximity to the tower.

Meanwhile, the problem is that there is a finite frequency spectrum allowed for cell phones. That spectrum can only handle X number of simultaneous users. As the number of users exceed X, you must construct more transmitter sites (cells) that serve smaller areas with incrementally lower transmission power, so that you can re-use that set of frequencies to handle another set of X number of users in the next cell.

Yes, we have more and more individual sites, but they use ever reducing amounts of transmission power, and cover smaller areas than in years past. This is the primary method of increasing user capacity in the systems.

That Sorenson guy is smart. Vote for him. If you like Grendl vote for him too. It should be intellectually stimulating to see the two of them discussing issues. If Grundl feels honest and cares about his legacy (and he is and does), he will provide a positive check on the new moderate-conservative majority. That's Gruenld, with a "u"

I'm voting Sorenson, Herbert, and maybe Gruendl or Dailey. I think Mary Flynn is active with League of Women Voters; LWV apparently did a study that concluded the Upper Park didn't need improved trails....and they didn't even ask me a single question! LWV = psuedo-non-partisan.

Hey Mark,

I do a little RF design work. All FCC part 15 unlicensed devices (low power). So I haven't grown my 3rd arm yet.

I think the RF electromagnetic emmissions concerns are just part of a long litany of reasons the city should do nothing on this project. If you throw enough poop against the wall some of it might actually stick.

Balanced against that is the possibility of some mountain biker or hiker breaking a leg or arm and dying alone in the park because they couldn't call for help. Or early reporting of a wild fire not being communicated. Or some kid not getting treated promptly after a water accident because emergency services aren't called.

Or god forbid what if some checkerbloom was picked for a Mother's Day bouquet and the child couldn't be reported to the Friends of Bidwell Park flora abuse hotline. 1-800-LUV-BULB.

This is totally ridiculous.

Mark,

Regarding the need for improved trails in Upper Park, what is the definition of "Improved"? If it does not mean "improving the trails we currently have", then I agree we do not neen improved trails. In fact, I don't believe that a single new trail should be created in Upper Park until the parks department can adequately maintain the trails we have.

If you've been in Chico for very long you know exactly what I'm talking about: erosion. Many of the best trails have lost nearly all of the top soil because the parks department refuses to update trails with waterbars and other modern trailbuilding features. It's pathetic how bad the trails have become and, until they are restored, building new trails is uncalled for.

Sean: That would be Michael Jones on the trails.

Lon: It is pretty amazing what we can do with Part 15 Low Powered devices with limited designated (intentional) radiators these days. I've seen an amazing level of change since I started playing with them in the mid '70's.

Another point on the RF issue is that the amount of man made RF pales in comparison to naturally occurring sources. It’s like a thimble full of water in the Ocean.

The difference is that man made sources are organized into patterns (modulation schemes) that can convey information.

Sean,

Michael posted the comment relating to "improved trails" (not Mark). Michael is a trail builder an advocate, and I'm sure he can give you an idea of what he meant.

The Bidwell Park Master Management Plan update, which has yet to be adopted, has been in the works for years, and cost more than $1000-per-page, specifies that no "net gain" of trail milage will be built.

There were discussions of removing redundant trails, and adding trails that make connectivity better. Some of the redundant trails serve recreational needs. For example, upper trail and upper-upper trail (using some mountain bike nomenclature here) do tend to go to the same places. But they provide different recreational experiences to mountain bikers (of which I am not).

When I was part of the Master Management Plan Citizen's Committee I recommended numerous times that trail and parking improvements within a 1/4 to 1/2 mile of existing parking be a priority. These have the most use and are best suited for multi-use all-weather design.

I've always thought that volunteers (specifically recreation interests) could best handle improvements to trails that are further out.

Paul, if he's out there can fill you in on work done on the Maidu and Bloody Pin trails by mountain bikers.

Michael can fill you in on lost opportunities for Annie Bidwell Trail and other paths he worked on before he suffered the wrath of the local environmental movement.

As a disc golfer I can tell you that impacts on the BLM disc golf site are magnified by policies that preclude park users from taking an active role in maintaining the site. These policies are a result of legal threats from environmental interests.

A lot of the energy and enthusiasm recreation interests would have applied to our trail system has been lost.

In my opinion it has been lost due to antagonistic attitudes towards recreation. And much like our road system, failures to keep up with use patterns create angst about the activities that cause the problems. In the park, that creates a desire to limit recreation opportunities at a time when our kids need all of the low-cost excercise they can get.

Mark,

Right-you-are. The advent of spread-spectrum modulation schemes has really allowed low power RF designs to flourish. Although spread spectrum is not necessarily below part 15 transmission levels.

For the non-RF among us; spread spectrum (one type anyway) transmits data on frequencies that "hop" with the transmitter and receiver keyed to know where each will be "hopping" to next.

The average power output over the range of hopped frequencies is much lower than any specific transmitted frequency. Spread spectrum was a unique design concept that allowed higher power devices to operate under FCC power limits.

Since spread spectrum and digital signal processing became affordable a number of unique modulation techniques have been developed, and continue to be developed. These have increased communication rates and allowed for technologies like DSL and cable modems to become fast and common place.

We can thank the cell phone industry (which I do not work in) for providing the money to fund advanced research and development of communication technology. And in the process changing dramatically the economies of scale required to allow our computers to network wirelessly and quickly.

Actually, it was “discovered� a very long time ago, but I believe that it was the military that brought it into use 60's or early 70's. Specifically, I believe that it was the Israeli’s who first commercialized it in their military communications equipment.

At the time, FHSS was cool on three fronts:
1) Stealth. Because the dwell time (duration) was so short on any one frequency, radio detection and location methods didn't work (your enemy could not track you while you communicated).
2) Security. Unless the receiver knew the pattern by which the transmitter was going to be changing frequencies (millions of times per second) that receiver was unable to "listen in".
3) Noise immunity. It can dynamically hop around frequencies that contain too much noise, and maintain communications in the harshest environments, and is most successful in avoiding jamming.

DHSS has a standardized direct repeating sequence in which it uses the frequencies, whereas FHSS is random (or at least it tries to be) and can be dynamic....

Though, you're right, the cell phone industry is one heck of an R&D driving force these days and definately drives down the costs on chip sets.

That concludes today's lesson in odd knowledge :-)

Actually... all technilogical advances can be traced back to William Shatner in the original Star Trek series.

That includes spandex pants.

"many of the best trails have lost their topsoil"? Trails have topsoil? I mean yeah there is soil on top but isn't topsoil revered for its growing potential? Do we want our trails to overgrow? Well, yeah, I know some people would like to see all trails closed and overgrown with Bidwell Park returned to its post ice age status.
Annie wanted the park used and enjoyed. That means trails and access to everyone. Access also means safety. Even though I hate fake Christmas trees a couple of well done and placed cell "trees" will even fake out the hawks.

If the "Friends of the Mastadons" had done their job 50,000 years ago we wouldn't have to revert the park today.

Unfortunately they were oppossed by the politically active "Friends of the End of the Ice-Age". This doomed the Mastadons...after the EIR was complete of course.

The entire natural cycle of people-free-life was later disrupted by "The Friends of Agriculture and Domestication of Animals".

This group later splintered into the "Friends of Groups Who Are Friends of Things", which has caused serious problems due to the large number of friends spontaneously created.

I've worked around radio and TV all my life, and like Mark Sorensen, have an amatuer radio operators license. I don't fear it in the least, nor worry about any sort of long term effects.

There has been no proven nor clinically demonstrated link between radio waves and illness, even thought there have been attempts to do so.

Our sun produces radio waves, stars and galaxies produce radio waves, and our earth has a varying electromagnetic field within which we live. Its all part of nature. If it were harmful we and many other lifeforms wouldn't be here.

This is the same sort of health scare tactic used with the Humboldt Dump cleanup. It's just bogus.

I've seen similar cell towers that look like trees all over California and the west. One not too far away is near a new office building off of Highway 20 near Penn Valley. Looks just like the cedars near the parking lot and is hardly noticeable.

We had Hwy70/149 environmental delays and accidents which resulted in the loss of life which could have been prevented if those delays hadn't held up the new interchange. Most recently a little boy lost his life at that dangerous intersection which was to have been repaired years ago.

In the case where life and death situations in upper park can hang on a couple of minutes difference in first repsponders arrival, it is irresponsible to not allow this cell phone tower to go through.

Besides, Hooker Oak park isn't some pristine natural state land that needs protection, its a MUNICIPAL PARK.

Folks that want to help Bidwell Park just need to pick their battles better. The council should not cave to this type of misguided pressure.

Right-On Brother!

Sorry my post made it appear that Mark was the new trail advocate.

Lon:

While "topsoil" may not be the technically-correct term, it was clearly close enough that you understood the point of the post. I have no interest in seeing trails closed, only seeing them properly managed by the parks department. If they can't manage the current trails then they should not be creating more miles of trail that will only fall into disrepair.

If access creates a mandate for safety, then the parks department clearly needs to invest in thousands of yards of high-density foam to cover all those nasty rocks along the trails, they're a clear and present danger to the children. And perhaps we should install a chain link fence to keep people away from the creek, you know, for their safety.

As a person that mountain bikes, walk the trails and explores the creek in Upper Park, I happen to love the untamed aspect of that portion of the park. I have no problem with the antennas at Hooker Oak, but let's try and keep what little wild-ness remains in Upper Park, you know, as Annie would want it (tongue firmly in cheek).

Hey Sean,

Thanks for posting. I think Ron made the comment about topsoil.

The blogs are kind of strange, in that the "poster" is shown underneath the line below the post. So I can see where there would be some confusion.

From now on I will try to end my posts with a signature.

On "topsoil"; loss of top-soil is one of the arguments for reducing access to recreation, and Ron does have a point. If the park dept. is planning on putting gravel on all trails I'm not sure top-soil should be a great conern. But I understand that you were speaking about erosion and expansion of trails. And the trails in Bidwell Park could be in much better shape.

The local environemental leaders have used "thin-soils" to describe areas on lava-cap (example North-rim), and "rare-thin-soils" to describe areas where access should be limited.

Whenever "rare" is used in reference to Bidwell Park people should recognize that that term is usually only related to areas in the park. There may be tons of areas locally with soils similar to Bidwell Park. These areas may be abundant and protected by the Chico ecological reserve, as well as private and government property in the area. But if there's not a bunch in Bidwell Park it is labeled "rare".

I support your continued use of Bidwell Park for mountain biking and hiking. What is so frustrating is that the City of Chico spends truckloads of money that has no benefit to the majority of park users. We should be improving trails and not spending tens of millions of dollars on property we intend to give away to environmental supporters.

Lon

Mr. Beardsleys policy of closing trails or denying access by preventing trail expansion concentrates more traffic on fewer trails. This way he can claim higher impact and use as evidence the damage to over used trails. It is a self fulfilling prophecy.

It's long been known that it is better to concentrate more traffic on fewer trails, if they go to the same place. I don't really think it's Dennis's personal policy. I remember some old trail ratio formula from many years ago that showed how ten times more foot traffic doesn't even make twice as much trail impact or erosion.

Something like that.

Maybe some trail expert might chime in on this?

I think maintenance is most important.

The short disc golf course is a great example of lack of basic maintenance creating problems that are blamed on the amount of use.

I was just walking down the Deer Creek trail off Hwy.32 to the fish ladders last Sunday. What a pretty trail. It goes right along the creek for most of the way. It seems to be in great shape even though it gets a lot of use.

Gregg

Sorry for coming into this a little late (out of town all week)...not sure I will be on track with previous thoughts.

Sean I would agree that user groups would seem to be the best resource for trail maintenance. Unfortunately, the only experience I have had has been very disappointing.

On behalf of the Chico Mtn Bikers the entire Maidu trail was adopted and we put 25 hours of work into it rebuilding waterbars. We did good work and had a good time.

Only problem was that a couple of weeks later work was done on the trail without our knowledge. That new work basically tore down the upper waterbars (to be rebuilt) and added three inches of gravel to the upper half of the trail. Several riders now consider Maidu to be the WORST trail in Upper Park to mtn bike.

We had a great talk with the work supervisor, Dennis Beardsley and the volunteer coordinator. They were very open to our suggestions and frustations. We left the meeting with a couple of ideas moving ahead.

1 - don't work on an adopted trail without at least having communication with the adoption group first.
2 - if using gravel in the future (which was stated as being a fact) use gravel with a red rock base for a more "natural" look.
3 - it will be really hard for me to rally the troops again to go out and work on that trail. I won't speak specifics about work done on Bloody Pin since I wasn't directly involved but I know there was some frustation there as well.

Now - onto new trails.
Do we need them - probably not at this time.
Do we need to close "redundant" trails - not really.
I don't think EDAW even walked most of the trails they proposed to close. The looked at a map and said, "yep - looks similar and goes to the same end point. Redundant - close it down".

Based on that logic, I suggest we close down Peterson Memorial Way (N. Park road) since Vallombrosa already covers that ground. How about 5th ave - we already have 4th and 6th..flawed approach - I think so.

Do we need to do a better job of trail maintenance - absolutely.

Good start is to not alienate user groups willing to lend a hand. We'll give another try on the Maidu trail but I really hope it goes much better the 2nd time around. See you out there...