It’s pretty obvious that going digital is noisy. It’s the fast ‘edges’ required between 1 and 0. Simple as that. However, things aren’t helped because of bad design and bad ideas. Where this matters is as follows:
TVs, microwave ovens, power supplies, mini-split HVAC systems, TVs, internet, streaming, VoIP. It all adds to radiated noise in the electromagnetic spectrum, lifting the general noise floor. This makes conventional communication modes less effective, leading to even more digital modes which increase the problem elsewhere. This is quickly killing off radio in the low end of the spectrum and can only get MUCH worse with high power switching in electric vehicles and especially wireless charging [what could possibly go wrong?!]. As an extreme, amateur radio is suffering terribly – making radio usage in cities, towns and even villages almost impossible. Add solar power and wind power generation electrical processing and switching and it moves into the countryside. There’s no escape.
Satellites are a major contributor. This affects both light pollution and radio pollution. Two of the major optical telescope manufacturers have recently closed and astronomers at all levels are having to ‘go remote’ with shared telescope facilities. This in turn removes the variation between different locations and equipment, making discoveries less likely. There’s also the problem of RF pollution from thousands of Starlink and other satellites seriously causing professional radio astronomers ‘into the noise’.
It’s high time that standards of design, monitoring and international laws were enforced and added to, before we rapidly descend into a whole lot of problems being unfixable.
Oh, this sounds familiar with chemical pollution of the environment and also climate change in the atmosphere. Wake up!
