Amateur radio operator clashes with code enforcement - The Marietta Daily Journal

Amateur radio operator clashes with code enforcement
The Marietta Daily Journal
Jon Gillooly [email: jgillooly@mdjonline.com]
October 8, 2012, 01:03am EST


KENNESAW – Lifelong amateur radio enthusiast Ritner Nesbitt, a grandfather of 10 who lives down the road from Dominion Christian Schools in west Cobb, has attracted the unwelcome attention of the county’s code enforcement department.


http://www.mdjonline.com/view/full_...th-code-enforcement-?instance=home_lead_story

 

Good Luck Mr. Nesbitt, I support you fully. All amateur radio operators should be aware of your struggle, as we all might one day face the same challenges to our hobby as you are facing now. The FCC supports your rights and this support supersedes and overrides local, county or state ordinances, a fact which has been brought home to all these well meaning but misguided local authorities time and time again.
It always interests me to hear these authorities try to get around federal guidelines by saying that they are only doing what the people want and that we as amateur operators should just go by what the folks that live around us think is proper and no further.
Hang in there and please keep us informed as to your progress.

Michael
WA4ALA

 

There are a lot of dairy farms in my region, and from time to time somebody buys land next to the dairy, builds a house and then starts trying to shut the dairy down because of the flies and stink. All these anti-tower folks want to talk about their "rights" to not have to see radio towers....it's not like they didn't know there were towers next door when they moved in.

 

I think he's cooked. And not in a good way.

While he can claim that by ignoring the first 70ft tower for so long it's exempt, the fact that he just put up the 140 is going to bite him and hard. I think it's coming down.

Then to pull the BS "arguing that ham radio operators are licensed by the Federal Communications Commission and therefore are exempt from local ordinances"

I think he just screwed himself. Reading the article it sounds like he had a good thing going, and he just spoiled it.

 

The FCC in no way exempts hams from obtaining appropriate permits where required by law. Unfortunately he is going to lose big on that one. It's even possible they can make him remove his 70 foot tower if he didn't obtain a permit for that one. When in doubt, *ALWAYS* obtain a permit so when folks come complaining, they are informed a permit was obtained and the tower is legal. Of course, this assumes one carefully researches all the relevant city and county ordinances to determine what is required.

Arbitrary height restrictions on ham antennas have generally not been upheld, but requiring a permit over a certain height has, as part of routine safety requirements.

This guy shot a cannon across the bow of the local authorities and he's unfortunately going to pay for it. He should have done his research first, which is to find out what is required to legally install a 140 foot tower BEFORE one spends the big bucks on it. I hate to say it, but it's the failure to think that too many hams fall prey to that is causing non-hams to look on us with disgust.

..............Bob

 

While I support his efforts to keep his towers, I have to agree with N1VDJ. While Mr. Nesbitt is correct that being a federally licensed operator gives him certain privileges - but nowhere does it state his license guarantees him the right to put up whatever he wants or at what height. In fact, PRB-1 is going to work against in this case because it states that local governments must reasonably accommodate amateur operations, but they may still zone for height, safety and aesthetics concerns. Cobb County can easily argue, and probably win, that 140' is not reasonable...and they'd be right because most of us enjoy the hobby quite content with far more modest set ups. Had Mr. Nesbitt gotten the permits and variances required for the 70 and 140' towers this would be an open and shut case for the most part. However, he failed to do that using the "I'll just do it and ask for forgiveness later" mentality. I don't think arguing that they were there for X number of years so he should be allowed to keep them is going to work.

As for his neighbors - yes, they have certain rights but the right to dictate what goes on another persons property isn't one of them. I don't recall seeing anything in the Constitution or elsewhere that states you have the right to a beautiful view from your backyard. Mr. Nesbitt's towers were there before some of the neighbors lived there. If they were such an eyesore, why did they buy there? It's like buying a house near an airport and then complaining about the noise.

 

I have to agree, Had he left well enough alone when he already had the 70 ft tower, he may have gotten away with it.
But NOOO, lets push our luck because we know better.....
Well he shot himself in the foot and now its going to cost him.

As for the idiots who buy a house near an airport and then start complaining, they ought slap the crap out of all of them, but problem is they get enough whining going that they are listened to also.

 

One of the reasons that I live in the middle of the Sonoran desert and have a round trip commute of 130 miles each day is because I want my towers and masts. You will never win the battle with the mentality that their property value is someone diminished because their neighbor put out lawn jockeys or painted their mailbox day glow orange. I can imagine how people felt when their property values actually did plummet up to 75%, not because of the lawn jockeys, but because people could no longer get a loan they couldn't afford.

If I was going to invest $30K in an antenna, I would research the ordinances that applied at least as much as I researched the gain and frequency coverage. I have a feeling we are going to see an add for 140 feet of tower on sale cheap in Cobb County, GA.

 

We have indeed become a land of slaves where what we do on our own property is none of OUR business. Some git, who does not like to 'look at towers' has more right than the actual property owner and are succesful when they whine to our public 'servants' decree - often without recourse- how we shall live. Let the politicians drop their own towers at city hall. Oh - I forgot - they are exempt.

The more that I'm around people, the more that I appreciate my dog.


73 de Ray
W7ASA ..._ ._

 

The government still has the right to zone for safety concerns, among other things. The funny thing is, I looked at the Cobb County ordinances, which are online, and ham radio towers less than 70 feet are pretty much exempt from all the other onerous requirements that Cobb County has. However, one *still* has to abide by local, county, state and federal building permits/requirements.

If the guy had properly permitted his 70 foot tower by given the county what they wanted, which would have been quite minimal, he likely would have had some friends on the county board when he applied for his 140 foot tower, though it clearly would have been uphill as he would have had to explain why he needed that 140 foot tower when he already had a 70 foot.

Instead, he essentially told the county to, well, you know what - and now they are reacting as anyone charged with enforcing the law would. And the law is essentially 100% on the county's side.

This is a great example of HOW NOT to go about putting up a tower - one simply ignores every regulation present and tells the county to heck with them. It's much better to detail in a lengthy application just exactly how one is going to meet each and every requirement and show the county officials you are their friend, so when others come to complain, the excellent application you filed answering every question one might have will provide the county regulators with everything they need to know to answer the complaints.

It's a little more work on the front end, but save a WHOLE lot of time and money on the back end.

....................Bob

 

I beg to differ with W6SDM, there will probably be 280 feet of tower, 4 rotors, a bunch of antennas, and probably a bunch of radio's for sale from Cobb County, GA. Mr. Nesbitt has unfortunately crossed the wrong people and they will demand removal of all of it; even that which does not violate any regulations. All applications by him for new installations will be summarily denied. And the fines imposed while he fights it will be the capstone. This is how an unhappy government organization reacts.

What is worse is that this will make it doubly difficult for any Ham who follows process. They will probably have excessive demands placed upon them such as overdone engineering approvals and 100% approval by all people within a certain distance. These are extra-regulatory but the cost of lawyering up to fight will be what is used against Hams.

But as to some of the comments by his "neighbors", who believe their "rights" extend as far as they please them to extend, are way off base. If the towers are up legally they should have to recourse. It is very much like those that move into the vicinity of an established airport and then complain. I know how that goes as I have been associated with the Dallas - Fort Worth area since the 1960's and know how this happened around DFW International Airport. It was built in a lightly inhabited area, people moved in around it, and then complained about the noise and danger. It is always their "right" to have what they want even though they put themselves in the position.

 

All plausible exemptions aside, growing a 140' tower in a neighborhood on a hill that defies the county ordinance may be pretty tough to defend in court. Let's look at some facts.

In my opinion, stacked yagis are pretty awesome, but in a neighborhood, it's seemingly overkill, and he didn't do himself a favor of erecting the 140' tower. But, the location is quite nice -- there are many trees hiding the structure. It really grinds my gears that people have an opposition to something they wouldn't normally see, except for Jodi Siciliano:

The base of Nesbitt's 140ft tower is located about 180ft from the middle of Siciliano's driveway (using Google Earth/Whitepages), separated by 100ft of dense foliage. Another home to the south is about 162ft away from the tower but still guarded by trees. Also, given towers usually fall down, not sideways, they should be safe, regardless of the fact that the potential fall zone (110% of the tower's height) seems to be clear. Those two houses are likely the only ones that see Nesbitt's towers, while the rest of the community might have trouble finding them. I "drove" around in street view and couldn't see them from any angle, but I'll admit that's not the best way to go about doing that; very poor quality, unknown timestamp...what can I do for being in Missouri, eh?

Siciliano's moved into the newly built house in 2006, aware of the 70' antenna, but the 140' was built in 2010, so I can see how this is some cause for concern for her and the county relating to the county codes & ordinances.

So what I'm saying is that the 140' tower is safe, mostly hidden behind cover, and compliant to federal regs. The 70' tower is even below the treeline (those pines/oaks can get up to 100ft, and doing some trig with shadows on G-Earth showed this is probably the case.

According to the article, it is unclear whether Nesbitt needed a permit for the 70' tower, being a radio amateur:

Reading the Cobb county code section 134-473 6(a),

So from what I understood, a permit is unnecessary for the 70' tower. The 140' one, however, must comply to the code along with all other rulings and applicable regulations. I won't go into detail, but as it stands, the 140' tower is very close to being compliant, aside from its appearance.

Nesbitt's definitely not barking up the right tree with his beliefs that the federal government governs his antenna situation. PRB-1 states that local governments must reasonably accommodate amateur operations, but they may still zone for height, safety and aesthetics concerns. 70' is "reasonable" in Nesbitt's case. 140' is just calling for a fight.

I too wish Mr. Nesbitt good luck in the case, but he should count his blessings having had the nice stacked array for this amount of time. I'm wondering what he could do other than persuade the court that he should be grandfathered in, comply and remove the 140ft tower, hope and pray that he can apply for a permit, get rid of it all and start playing QRP with wires more, or just move to New Mexico. I feel that the local gov't will have no problem in trying everything they can to completely remove the towers.

Apologies for the long post. I got bored between classes and thought I this article was a good facilitation for researching antenna regulations in my free time, and good for educating the public of the ubiquitous HOA/CC&R vs. Ham Radio battle.

Couldn't have said it better. Back to DSP homework, anywho.

 

Personally, I find cookie-cutter houses in cookie-cutter neighborhoods
sprawled across the landscape "unsightly" and "not nice to look at".

I'd take down that tower and replace it
with several small parabolas pointing in every direction.

It would drive the complainers nuts.
They'd think they were being slowly roasted.

 

And this comes from a major newspaper? The only thing this "journalist" should be writing on is toilet paper.

What does being "a grandfather of 10" have to do with anything?

How does "lives down the road from Dominion Christian Schools" pertain to the story?

And this is just in the first sentence..............Gimmie a break.




Tom KCØW

 

This is all why I operate in "stealth" mode,...just give me a simple wire antenna such as my G5RV that is hardly even noticeable to others,and everyone is happy. I have no tower up at all,...just my trusty G5RV that has been working quite well for me,...I LOVE simple wire antennas! All that said,I have to agree that Mr. Nesbitt has shot himself in the foot over this tower deal. As I understand it,if he had just stuck with the 70 ft. tower,he'd been fine and would have gotten away with it! Did I read that right?

73
Dewey
KC9SYJ