Donations needed for Amateur Radio Antenna Defense Foundation

There you go spreading your usual misinformation again....

In the past 10 years that WINLINK has been available, the FCC has never acted on any alleged complaint about the use of WINLINK by boaters. WINLINK continues to play a major role in the boating community....

Further, under Section Part 97.403 ... "No provision of these rules prevents the use by an amateur station of any means of radiocommunication at its disposal to provide essential communication needs in connection with the immediate safety of human life and immediate protection of property when normal communication systems are not available."....


Even you should be able to understand that....


Basic Lesson in Beams...typical front to back is about 20 - 25 DB (4 S units) and front to side can be as high as 40db (6+ S Units) ... So even with a S9 noise behind my beam at 30 degrees azimuth it is only S5 when I point South West and S3 when I point west (where most of the boaters are) ....Added to the fact that the beam gives 6 -9 db gain (depending on the band) or 1 - 1.5 S Units of gain....

I usually can work boaters very well on SSB and provide them with Winlink connections through my node when needed..

I might note that I am invariably unable to copy those same boaters on the wire antenna that is at 38' apex as it lacks sufficient gain and it is unable to null out the noise from Mt. Soledad.. it runs NW to SE....broadside to Mt. Soledad... again.. physical layout of my property constrains my running it in a more effective directions....

The beam, of course, being smaller and rotatable.. can move to null out the noise....

As I result I can usually work Boaters in distress from my beam...

Something that would be difficult if not impossible from my location with my wire antennas.....

But then I expect that you would just call me a liar again.... and let those people drown while waiting to hear them on the wire antennas....


Your pontification on getting the FCC to regulate the noise from Mt. Soledad is also unrealistice...

As I said, much of the estimated 10MW comes from the "secret" US Navy transmitters up there... We have actually walked up to the top several times over the years with directional noise antennas and field strength measuring devices to see if there was anything we could do.. The near field signal strengths are very intense. so much so, that even at maximum attenuation, my instruments are swamped when I get within a few hundred feet of the towers...being that my tower is about 2,850' from those towers, (BTW.. the physics is 1/ R Squared... not 1/R as you incorrectly stated earlier]I do seem to escape most of the near field noise....

For the most part, the TV and FM stations look pretty clean on the spectrum analyzers and seem to be well within compliance as to spurious emmissions...so there is little there we could complain about... However there is a lot of second, third and fourth order inter-modulation products from the large number of different transmitters which makes for a less than desirable receiving environment for those of us who live nearby.

The US Navy on the other hand puts out "stuff" all over the place...Looking at signal strength instruments, they are responsible for more than half than power. Talking to my friends in the Navy, it would seem that no one knows how to tell or wants to tell the Navy to fix their signals.... especially since these are "Secret" signals necessary for "National Security"

But I sure that you are such an expert in these matters too.. that I would love to hear your pontifications on how to tell the Navy to clean up their act...

 

REALITY CHECK...

No argument that those in the disaster areas might be only left with Wire Antennas... albeit even you have to admit that if a tower survived, then it would be the preferred communications node....

But when they are trying to communicate outside of the disaster area...such as in Katrina....

The real Heavy Lifting for EMCOMM communications was NOT on WIRE Antennas.. but rather it was handled by remote stations equipped with major antenna systems....

Which of course puts the lie to all the nonsense you have been spouting against gain antenna systems....

 

Who could possibly argue that when it comes to antennas, the bigger, and the higher, the better, almost always.

The only exception to the "higher" rule is NVIS, which exists on maybe three amateur bands and nowhere else.

While this is easy to recognize, the subject of this post regards regulations and their impact on EmComm. I'm not much of an EmComm'er so it's hard to speak from that perspective; but as an active ham (on lots of bands, 1.8 through 432 MHz) I'd say bigger and higher is best for home stations, but there's a lot of merit in having an effective mobile station as well. My home station might be disabled due to a natural disaster but usually my van won't be. A great and effective mobile station can be very helpful.

Hoping your home survives "the big one" (whatever that is) is wishful thinking.

Helping with EmComm for a remote disaster like Katrina or more recently the Haitian earthquake, where we are in a safe zone and just facilitating traffic, is very good; but when the disaster hits close to home, we may not have any homes from which to operate.

I can take a lot of my station "on the road" very quickly and once I know my family is safe, might be able to help out using the mobile station parked at an advantageous location. Food for thought.

 

Where Do I Begin?

Given enough abuse by boaters avoiding Sailmail, it will happen.

Yes, yes, we know about that. Not really applicable here, though. We have the allocation and the right to use our bands according to the class of our license. This rule was meant to empower the amateur to use any frequency in the spectrum, if no other means are available in a true emergency. You know, like a ham using a modded HT during katrina's aftermath to talk to a Coast Guard helo for coordination purposes.

Hey, thanks. I needed that. What a great tool you have up the hill to validate the near field pattern of your antenna. A stationary, constant noise source.

E field is 1/R. H field is 1/R. Their vector cross-product is 1/R squared. Power density is 1/R squared, not E field intensity, or the calibrated voltmeter we call an "S-meter."

It must really **trash** your VHF radio. Too bad.

 

No, frankly, most of what was done of major significance was short haul work. FEMA arrived with Satellite trucks and such soon afterward.

There are hundreds of hams in the southeast that check in to southcars each and every day. On 40 meters. 99% use wires. From Louisiana to South Florida to Virginia. No arrays needed to pass traffic and such.

If someone in CA wants to talk to the southeast during the day, well, 20M would be a good choice if propagation is short enough and your beam would help you out. I never said a beam wouldn't add a few dB. About an Sunit. 10dB is about an S-unit, as I seem to remember. I could be wrong about that.

Anyway, the last time I looked at the Google terrain map of your QTH, Mt. Soledad is just about the same direction as would be your shot towards New Orleans. Maybe I'm off a degree or two. That would put it right toward that S-9+ noise source atop the hill. But, who knows, maybe you hit the "180 reverse" button on your SteppIR and went long path. My bad.


73.

 

No, frankly, most of what was done of major significance was short haul work. FEMA arrived with Satellite trucks and such soon afterward.

There are hundreds of hams in the southeast that check in to southcars each and every day. On 40 meters. 99% use wires. From Louisiana to South Florida to Virginia. No arrays needed to pass traffic and such.

If someone in CA wants to talk to the southeast during the day, well, 20M would be a good choice if propagation is short enough and your beam would help you out. I never said a beam wouldn't add a few dB. About an S-unit. 10dB is about an S-unit, as I seem to remember. I could be wrong about that.

Anyway, the last time I looked at the Google terrain map of your QTH, Mt. Soledad is just about the same direction as would be your shot towards New Orleans. Maybe I'm off a degree or two. That would put it right toward that S-9+ noise source atop the hill. But, who knows, maybe you hit the "180 reverse" button on your SteppIR and went long path. My bad.


73.

 

My Ham passion other than EMCOMM is working FROM DX locations...which I manage to do several times a year....

I will be QRV Paris (Apr 28th through May 12th) where I will have my portable IC-706 station and I will try to work DX from France with a preference for W6's who normally have difficulty working Europe... I will also be QRV Dayton Hamfest from May 13th to 16th assuming I don't get volcanoed on the way back from France....

The apartment we have rented has roof access from the balcony
Apartment Roof Access
I plan to string a dipole (yes a measly Dipole) for 20 and 40M on the roof…

Looking at a map of the location,
Paris France QTH
I should be able to string the antenna broadside to the USA… which is why I chose the place….

When you get off your high horse, listen for me on 14.195 SSB, 14.070 PSK and 14072.5 Olivia... I should be on at Grayline times as much of the other times I usually will be sipping wine or doing some 4 letter word thing like WORK...

[People actually pay me because unlike you, they seem to think I might know a bit more than the average ham about something called communications systems]

I usually self spot onto the DX Spots to make it easier for the antenna challenged in the USA who are stuck with NO GAIN antenna systems such as Wires in the Sky....

73...

 

BTW.... We all understand your sour grapes attitude likely brought on by the fact that you cannot afford a real antenna system or the fact that by your own admission you do not work HF...


Just don't let your anger at your own personal failures in life spoil it for the rest of us.....


Hope to work you from France......next week.....

 

I agree! We also have estate areas where very expensive homes are and very well kept. But....go to an area of $100k-$200k homes in IN and seems to be either restricted neighborhood or lot of clutter.

 

In my neighborhood, when CC&R's finally expired after 30 years, real estate values skyrocketed.....

People started improving their houses, adding second story's and in some cases more than doubling the size of the original homes... All that individualization and freedom to finally improve on the property made the neighborhood much more attractive which resulted in significant real estate appreciation....

The easiest way to think about it... is if you buy a house with CC&R's its like buying a car with a speed governor set to 45 MPH.... with the old ladies on the neighborhood clipboard police squad watching that you do not take off the governor.. however once you can legally remove that speed governor and no longer have to answer to the little old ladies on the Clipboard Police Squad, that car becomes worth a lot more money...

Hopefully the ARRL is successful in Congress in the next year or two with their proposal to exempt ham radio antennas from CC&R's..

 

Funny, but I know I said early on that I get on HF routinely, primarily with my ICOM 703+. Primarily 40M and occasionally, 75M and 160M. I don't like the politics on 75, so mostly just when contests are happening.

It isn't what I can afford so much as it is what I choose to use. My trees are my friends, so they offer opportunities to experiment with all measure of HF wire antennas. My latest project is a 3 element colinear. I've built one for 20M, but will also for 40M if I like its performance over the pond as it were. The balun and the stubs are a bit of a hassle. Of course I can't rotate the wires, but ample real estate allows for duplicity. And, I have always liked the increased area of collinears. They hear quite well. From the first three element one I made in 1961 when I was a novice and used it for 2 meters with my measily Heathkit Twoer. It was on an old TV mast at about 30 feet. I used to talk to a guy in Palmdale. Over the southern Sierras from my then-QTH in the flatlands of Bakersfield. My twoer, one watt or so, AM, with a regenerative detector receiver. Worked him over about a 5000 foot mountain range using a phenomenon called knife edge. (The Sierras in the vicinity of Tehachapi dip down a bit from their otherwise lofty 8,000 foot ridges). Distance was in the neighborhood of 100 miles as I remember. Palmdale's in the Mojave Desert, north of Los Angeles.

Do remember that you could take along your surplus Alpha Delta fan dipole. At least don't try to use a 40M dipole on 20M, the impedance is sky high. Of course, you could make a small fan dipole and use that or insert some dog-bone insulators with jumpers you could open, but that's a bit more effort.

I chose to move to my present location from Florida, after retiring from CA employment. Florida was nice, but too hot and humid for us. The mountains of the Western Appalachians through north-central Georgia and Alabama are a great place to live, frankly. And, there's room to put up all measure of antenna configurations. The views are spectacular from the ridges, and the trees are like what most Californians have to drive for hours and hours to see in the higher Sierras. Even old John Muir enjoyed his 1000 mile walk through the South and what its landscape has to offer.

 

That is good to hear! I've never heard of restrictions expiring, did your neighborhood vote them out or did they have expiration date to begin with?

Thanks
Leroy

 

Hope is a marvelous thing. However, unless and until ARRL truthfully can show what a reasonable accommodation antenna looks like, it will not happen.

Puffing and blowing about emcomm uses of amateur radio really won't take in the long haul communication aspects, since as many accurately say, FEMA's satellite trucks are deployable to just about anywhere in the continental US in a matter of hours, if need be.

As somewhat of an activist for amateur radio antennas over the years, I've had quite a bit of experience with the "deaths in the inbasket" of many ARRL-sponsored bills to preempt CC&Rs.

The only reason that the OTARD regulations exist at 47CFR1.4000 to preempt CC&Rs for satellite and broadcast TV is because Congress forced the FCC's hand, in order to support a fledgling satellite TV industry.

Senator Lieberman's bill to require a DHS study of amateur radio emcomm use is but a miniscule and feeble attempt to get a foot in the door. Even at that, the bill has been sitting, withering away, in the Energy and Commerce Committee's in basket. Even if it passes, surveying how much amateur radio is used could be dangerous to our spectral allocations. Many are rightfully concerned that such a spectrum survey could result in a loss of our spectrum from under utilization. Lieberman is known for switching his allegiances at the last moment.

Perhaps the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau's interests in allowing public safety agencies and now hospitals to use our VHF bands will help in the preemption fight. Hard to say. It probably will, if those same organizations writing hundreds of letters of appeal to the FCC would do the same thing for Congress, if a preemption bill based on emcomm needs were to find its way into the inbasket.

 

Reasonable Accommodation Defined.....

If you take a look at 47CFR1.4000, you'll see a maximum size denoted for dish antennas. One meter in dimension. Thirty nine inches in diameter.

What this says to me is that the FCC recognized that the size of such dish antennas would be smaller..

They also did not prevent HOAs from setting aside zones where such are to be installed, so long as decent signals are receivable. Aesthetics isn't ruled out as a consideration.

The FCC has said "NO" so many times to appeals to it for preemption, that the dead horse carcus has long-since gone to the glue factory.

Even if the Congress passes something in the future, the FCC will likely use some very tightly defined dimensional constraints as they did with satellite dishes to limit the size and location of amateur emcomm antenna preemptions of HOA CC&Rs. (Something like a flag pole or vent-tenna).

 

Actually, that limitation makes sense since from anywhere I know of you can get a solid satellite signal with a dish 1m in diameter or smaller; thus the "limitation" allows anyone to do exactly what needs to be done.

But the OTARD regulation also provides for directly received VHF-UHF (non-satellite) broadcasts, with a fairly reasonable "height above the supporting structure" limitation that should also work almost all the time for anyone close enough to actually receive an OTA signal. It won't work for those 200 miles away from the nearest TV transmitter, unless they happen to live atop a mountain. But those are people who really need satellite or cable TV to be able to receive anything, and they represent a really small minority of the population.

I'm only 24 miles from 6000' high Mt. Wilson, where all our L.A. TV stations transmit, and I don't even bother with a TV antenna. Why clutter my roof or tower with antennas I can't transmit with?