Donations needed for Amateur Radio Antenna Defense Foundation

Not that simple. Sometimes out in the country has worse zoning restrictions than in the suburbs or cities.

 

Wow,
I never thought a pro-all-Hams in USA organisation would cause such kinds of posts....

AA1MN, I have no comment for you other than: Art is perceived by the onlooker as art or not! If you think, masts and antennas are not a piece of "Technical" art, oh well. :-(

W5JON, I did not know we needed more than a T-license for repeaters.....or satellites or moonbounce, but I do understand a J-Pole for 144 and 432 is nicely hid in an attic, not so, however, the antennas for sats or moonbounce (those are really nice pieces of technical art, like 2 over 2 on 2m, plus 4 over 4 over 4 over 4 on 70 cm to get the gain for 70cm moonbounce with 200W in), which may look very spiky to a soft-art lover of Pablo Picasso, but I do digress my sarcasm. ;-)

Rounding it up, for me it is a good thing and I will support them as good as I can.

73 + Build more and bigger antennas, LOL.

 

That is certainly and unfortunately true.

My XYL and I went to "look" at possible retirement properties a few years ago, and one place we looked was in the Ozarks of southwestern Missouri.

R/E prices are low, low, low compared to what we're used to in L.A. -- so that part was great.

Lot sizes are big, big, big compared to what we're used to, also. Typical residential lot was 3 acres.

But: They had tons of restrictions! Almost everywhere we looked, everything we'd naturally want was prohibited. I couldn't even install a perimeter fence 6' high -- prohibited. A tennis court? Prohibited. Outdoor, visible antennas other than an 18" satellite dish? Prohibited. More rules and regulations than I'm used to here in the City.

The heck with that! We didn't invest a dime there, and I'm very glad we didn't.

 

Terrain?

Not really. I've lived in the hills of Fremont and the flatlands of San Jose. Maximum antenna height, about 35 feet. A Ringo Ranger. 10 Watts on 2M. I could work repeaters a hundred miles away in many directions. There's a phenom called 'knife-edge' that allows over a ridge propagation quite decently.

Nope. I used to live in the pit of the San Joaquin and Santa Clara Valleys. And, for the last 7 of my 39 ham radio years in CA, way down the side of Mission Peak and the eastern ridge of the Santa Clara Valley and had ATTIC antennas. I was able to, on 40M, work lots of DX with only 100W. Of course, no problem working all over the Western US during the day, virtually any day of the week. And, it was a 40M dipole in the attic.......under a tile roof.

You don't need an 85 foot tower, or even a 40 foot tower to do that.

I now live in a small valley east of Birmingham. My antennas are wires, except for the ringo and are hidden in a forest. No problem working Europe, most nights, on my Icom 703plus, running 10W. I get lucky during DX contests and work all sorts of DX. I even worked that Ducie/Clipperton Island bunch on 10W LSB one evening. So, if I can do that with a measily 40 meter inverted vee, strung up about 40 feet at the apex, you can too.

La Hoya may be along the coast in SoCal, but that's not an excuse. Of course, you didn't say what your old wire antenna was. If it was a linear dummy load (G5RV), then maybe you ought to try a real wire antenna with a voltage balun feed.

73.

 

The 2003 antennas were a Alpha Delta DX-CC and Comet A2000 @38'... Bottom line...during the 2003 fires when it was really important that my antennas worked...they failed to communicate effectively..

So for all the anecdotal opinions of W6EM...

When the real disaster hit... the antennas were just not good enough to be effective.....

Fast forward to 2007.... SteppIR MonstIR @85' + Comet A2000 ... during the 2007 Fires I was able to act as Net Control for the FireNet for 3 consecutive nites....The antennas enabled me to "Make a Difference" in 2007... I was able to assist effectively in the saving of lives and property..... there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that there are people who are alive today who would not have survived if I had not had those antennas....

But by debating antennas we digress from the real issue....which is the Amateur Radio Antenna Defense Foundation.

1) this is not about HOA's;

2) Amateur antennas are a normal accessory use of residential property;

and

3) hams who bought homes with no antenna restrictions should not have them imposed after the fact by overzealous city or county officials

PRB1 was issued by the FCC to take care of Item #2 and #3...

Unfortunately Hams have had to resort to the courts to force municipal officials to obey the law.

I applaud the founders of ARADF for finally doing something to protect all hams by helping to lessen the huge financial burden on the individual ham when he tries to make his municipality obey the law.

 

You might consider stamp collecting as a
hobby rather than amateur radio.

God Bless America - Land of the Free.
(covenant restrictions may apply)

Good for you for voting with your pocketbook.
Too bad others don't or wont.
They all too often consume what they're dished up, rather than what they really want.

 

Part of the principles that guided our Nation's Founding Fathers, was the right to self determination, and private property rights. You want to tell me to not erect my antenna, on my property. I tell you essentially the same thing. If you don't like the "unsightly antenna", YOU move, to a place where the erection of a local antenna will not effect your scenery.
Sorry, but your argument can cut both ways.

 

How would anyone know? It's stealth!

 

Amen, brother.
Let freedom ring.

 

I have NO quarrel with HOA's. My belief is that if you want to erect an antenna, look for a property that hasn't got an HOA, or CC&R. My gripe is with the fact that I own a home, that has been in my family for 3 generations, but the local city recently enacted an ordinance that declared the neighborhood an "Historical Neighborhood". They want to tell local residents how to paint, exterior decorate, and landscape their property, that they have owned for close to 100 years. They use the mantra, that, "It wasn't like that in 1928, when the house was built". Well, in 1928, they burned their trash in incinerators in this neighborhood, and folks could have livestock there. That is no longer the norm. Reasonable changes ought to be allowed.
IF, you don't like the sight of antennas, you are free to move to a neighborhood that has CC&R's or HOA's that prevent them. But, if my grandfather hand built a house, then passed it to my father, and he to me, and there were no restrictions, from the inception of this neighborhood, why should the city council have the power to tell me what I can and cannot do on MY property?

 

Thank you for making the point for the Amateur Radio Antenna Defense Foundation which is that:

1) this is not about HOA's;

2) Amateur antennas are a normal accessory use of residential property;

and

3) hams who bought homes with no antenna restrictions should not have them imposed after the fact by overzealous city or county officials

PRB1 was issued by the FCC to take care of Item #2 and #3...

Unfortunately Hams have had to resort to the courts to force municipal officials to obey the law.

I applaud the founders of ARADF for finally doing something to protect all hams by helping to lessen the huge financial burden on the individual ham when he tries to make his municipality obey the law.

 

Let's try to keep this civil. Nobody is arguing a beam at 40m won't work better. What W6EM is pointing out is that he still has a hobby despite being restricted to attic antennas. Is his (or my) wish to have a better performing station more important than that of his neighbours to not have a giant eyesore dominating the landscape? I don't think so.

Having read all the posts here I agree it is unfair to have antenna restrictions imposed after the fact or for hams to have to run up huge legal bills to defend them. Perhaps the argument as to whether deeds or covenants should be allowed to prohibit antennas is irrelevant here.

As far as I am concerned people have the choice of living where they are allowed to have towers or outside antennas or living where they are restricted. They also have the choice of living in harmony with their neighbours or saying **** them. I am happy for those who have neighbours who don't mind their antennas, but we are not all as lucky. For many of us (and our XYLs etc.) living in harmony with our neighbours is more important than being able to pursue a hobby to the nth degree. Having a legal right to erect a tower wouldn't solve anything, because it wouldn't make the neighbours like it. As has already been stated, there are plenty of other things that people aren't allowed to do (like keep poultry) that we are probably happy with. Why does ham radio deserve to be an exception?

 

You must be speaking from your own experience there. Sorry to read this.

 

Years ago HOAs violated civil rights for the common good. For example, some of them prohibited people of color and Jews from buying homes in HOA controlled neighborhoods. It was all done for the common good, to keep the neighborhood white and property values high.

Sometimes the common good isn't what is best for all.

I will never live in a HOA controlled area but that is becoming increasingly difficult to do.

 

I do think so.

I bought my property, and I want to do what I want with it, with due consideration for health and safety.

An eyesore isn't a valid health or safety concern. It affects neither health nor safety. It's a property value concern, something which isn't my concern.