Petiton started to void HOA Antenna Restrictions.

Very well put.

It is also a shame when you are not allowed to display a American Flag on your own property.

 

I would like to start a petition to stop amateur radio operators from moving into know and/ or existing deed restricted communities,making these endless attempts to circumvent the contracts that they willingly and knowingly signed, attempting to your neighbors who do not want to look at ham radio antennas and forever pestering elected HOA officers who will forever safe guard the rights of the selected communities and subdivisions!

Our antennas,towers and such aren't a beautiful sight for all to behold. If in this 21st century you put yourself in the position where you cannot erect your antenna of choice, you deserve every minute of HOA harassment YOU bought into.

End of story...for heavens sake!

Same to you...

 

I bought my house in 2001. No HOA, CCR, or anything. If you buy a brand new house, chances are there will be restrictions. My house is 54 years old and is just fine. I understand the reasoning for HOAs, but most of them go way to far. If I am paying $XXX,XXX for a house and $X,XXX in taxes, I should be able to do what I want with my house and land within reason. Why should I have to ask someone permission to build a deck or install a hot tub on MY property. I do not find the McMansion developments where every house looks the same with barely any property and no privacy enticing at all. I hope the bills pass just on principal and hams currently under restrictions can put up at least dipoles and verticals or even a small tower.



Tom - AB3FL

 

Lots of signatures on the petition will make a difference I think. Eliminating this restraint will be good. Ham antennas do not degrade property values.

 

The Antennas don't, but the RFI is another issue.

They put houses so close together, that RFI could be a problem. Mostly on unshielded alarm systems.

At least TVI is pretty much a thing of the past.

 

I just cant imagine being so unhappy with where I live, and not moving somewhere else.. Just doesnt make any sense at all. Not all people
have the same requirements or values as you.. It seems a bit childish to call them names in a forum where they cant defend themselves..

NI7I

 

This one of the top items hams were known for, however in recent years seems the only RFI I hear of anymore is within your own house. RFI is not such a hard problem to solve either.

 

There was a time not long ago where a man's house is his castle. Good luck with that premise. Now we have petty control freaks intruding into everything they can wiggle into. As long as we have an unknowing majority of people suppressing the minority there will be problems like this. Just about everybody that signs into a HOA or CC&R will have no problems with such restrictions, so it's no sweat off their backs if you now have a problem. As it has been pointed out in numerous postings there are very few areas that do not have a HOA. You have to live some place and if your choices are that limited then you have no other choice but to put up with a HOA. For those that said you knew what you signed and it's your problem are the folks that would have let other restriction stay in place. Such as; no Blacks, no Jews, no Irish, no anybody else you consider inferior beside yourself and definately no radio amateurs.
You have to understand the goverment has the means to change this and they have in the recent past. There needs to be limiations on the amount of area in a community that can have HOA provisions. There must be recourse to alter the agreement when it is shown that the HOA rules are incorrectly conceived. Some folks have reported success in becoming a HOA officer and then changing things from within. Sometimes the approach works but not always.
73
Gary

 

Good and Bad. In my 50k plus population city, some areas there are no HOA & some there are. I had to obtain a permit from the city after submitting diagrams of the property just to put up a 55 foot tower. Yet the neighbor behind me has an early 80's gigantic satellite "dish" antenna on a mast and after his roof was repaired, a TV antenna hanging lop-sided on the roof. Another subdivision nearby has NO antennas but you can have a Directv etc antenna on the side of your house. Then again, I know of two fellows in my town - one who put up a 45 foot tower with no permit and no one complained, and another a FIFTY FOOT ! pushup barely attached to the side of his house and sitting in a 1 foot hole base. Totally unsafe.

The problem is people putting up 'Just anything they please' irregardless of safety or aesthetics in the neighborhood. From my front door, I can see two 50 foot towers with large yagi beams and its pretty clear the guys did it the right way, with guy lines and safety in mind. There are reasons for HOA restrictions.

 

Over 260 amateurs have already signed the petition calling for the FCC to void land use restrictions on antennas imposed by home owner's associations and developers and replace them with more reasonable criteria for permitting antennas. I urge you to take the time to complete formal comments to the FCC regarding proceeding 12-91 and I also urge you who have not yet signed the petition to click on the link listed below and follow the simple directions for signing. When you sign the petition you will be given the opportunity to include an optional written statement explaining why you chose to sign. I think it's important that the issues that the FCC seeks comments on be discussed in online forums and I would hope that some of these threads are included as data to be delivered to the FCC - but I certainly don't know how to do that! This petition is starting to gain a certain amount of momentum and I would again urge you to sign the petition and to also directly contact as many of your fellow amateurs as you can to get them to at least consider signing as well. Like the cranberry growing guys say in the commercial while standing waist deep in the bog...Thanks for your support.

http://www.change.org/petitions/fed...ns-by-homeowner-s-associations-and-developers

 

HOA's are yet another sign of a society which becomes more meddlesome and litigious, ignoring sense and tolerance for mindless conformity. It doesn't matter an iota if some anal schmuck finds antennas unaesthetic, nor if in some theoretical otherworldly economy one could simply pick up and move away from such tyrranies, nor the supposed excuse that these covenants are private contracts. The fact is that by such sleights of hand, we are being regulated out of rational, just freedoms. This sort of meta-governance hurts us all. Covenants usurp the proper role of public law in maintaining a safe community, and even go further to delineate the most private matters of a person's home.

Specifically regarding ham radio, it should be emphasised that this is much more than a hobby. If tv dishes are exempt from covenants under the dubious proposition that they are useful for public good, then how much more ham radio infrastructure? Ham radio should be exempted. Period.

The question I have personally is indeed, why have so many accepted and even enjoyed this meddlesome devolution of community? I find it unfathomable why anyone would pay cash money to be so hindered. I would never buy into such a scam...

 

In my town, all new developments are required to have a set of CC&Rs....they must be aproved by the town, but the people do not get to see them or comment on them before they are aproved....in fact, the only ones that get to see them are looking to buy a home in the development

No way to stop the BS unless you buy a home there...good luck with that

Mel
N7OKL

 

That sounds like Nancy Pelosi's assertion that "we have to pass the bill to find out what's in it".

When Government mandates it, I take a different view.

 

Why when you develop and mature in your hobby you have to change qth to expand your station? If I owned a Lexus and changed up to a Ferrari why should I have to change my qth because my passion doesn't fit with the local social status? Knuckle dragging morons invade good people everywhere and they succeed in their narrow minded laws to control because good people do nothing to stop them. If you have not stood up to your rights then take it like a man, you are only to blame for the situation that per-vales. I give my local council heaps of grief and they take a wide berth of me. Animals do the same, display their true color so the predictors know, 'don't eat me'. it's not worth it. If you get trouble about antenna restrictions don't fight the system but focus on the individual causing the problem, make it personal. We say in NZ, there is more than one way to skin a cat.
ZL4IV

 

This is an excellent move, and I support it wholeheartedly. The situation is the same in the UK, where an apparently growing intolerance to anything 'out of the ordinary' is deemed unacceptable and worthy of utterly ludicrous planning regulation for anything larger than a small TV antenna.

The RSGB, by their own admission, have made very little progress, if any with the issue. Indeed, their advice leaflet plays down the importance of amateur radio enthusiasts, saying: "Remember being a licensed Radio Amateur or a member of Raynet does not give you any special privileges under planning law". Whilst that's true as a statement, I'm not sure that it's the right message to focus upon. There is nothing that prevents an applicant highlighting the potential civil contingencies use of radio, or the far more important daily exchange of goodwill between nations, irrespective of the political tensions between some of them. Are these meant to be things we keep quiet about? It does seem so, for a recent planning appeal concluded that amateur radio was merely a private hobby, of no wider public use. That is where the hobby has allowed itself to get to in the UK.

I would expect it will take some time to effect changes, but it will come, provided enough people add their voice and take their own, diplomatic and reasoned action. We are all relatively well-educated, not too badly off economically, mostly of the 'silver vote' age, and should be a powerful voice to influence politicians.

I'm making my own little effort by having a member of the Welsh Assembly around on Monday. We'll be using GB0NAW for the event, so why not show your support and give us a call?