Or operate portable only. I live in a high rise senior facility now. I've operated on my patio and I know of at least one other ham operating portable from his balcony. It can be done but quite frankly I prefer operating from a nearby State Park. I've been attempting to get the ham operating from a balcony to join me...but for some reason he prefers the dismal results from the confines of his apartment. 10X the QSOs from the park compared to the high rise apartment! And the apartment QSOs are limited to the NW states for both of us on site . The park offers all states and some DX! Setting up in the park takes some effort. But the results beat the apartment by a long shot! I no longer operate from our patio. My office space is dedicated to my other hobby and HF rigs are in go bags. I'm happy with this scenario. One of our sister senior facilities has established an ARC shack but the antenna is indoors. Again this limitation is not worth the effort in my estimate. The hams living at my facility agree and decided not to bother. A roof top vertical would be great but is against facility policy. So...I stick with portable.
Wow, man, good lord, I mean it seems to me reading this stuff that those out there have a lot of disfavour of folks that live in HOAs and who are or may be potential HAMS! And WB2WIK is correct, already ruled on. If you do not like HOAs your choice is to not live in one of those communities. But quit commenting on those that chose to live there. It is their choice, not yours. So enjoy your 50, 100, or thousand-acre plots with the antenna farm on the land and let those with a quarter or half-acre figure out how they will get on the air. I have yet to see anyone in this forum offer help to someone living in the dreaded HOA community. And remember, good comments welcome. Hate me if you want, it is just my opinionated thought!
Well the thing is, there are some folks who want federal law changed to do and end around on this issue with HOAs. Why should laws be made to opt you out of rules you willingly agreed to? Only thing that was asked to sign a vague petition to allow for "reasonable" antennas with no clear definition of what counts as reasonable. I want an antenna up for 160m? In what case is there going to be a reasonable antenna for that? How exactly should one be helping here? You can do any or all of the following: 1. Move somewhere else 2. Operate from a portable device at your home(HT etc) 3. Operate mobile in your car or truck, install your antennas there. 4. Take your radio stuff to a park and do a POTA activation. 5. Find a local club and operate at the club station. 6. Use one of the many remote controlled stations online. There are plenty of options for getting on the air that don't involve a scale model of the Duga radar.
Wouldn't a pre-existing antenna or paint colour, originally in compliance, be legally "grandfathered" in place? I don't argue that they can't change the rules to prohibit new antennas or non-conforming shades of new paint, but can a property owner really be forced to dismantle or re-paint what was already there, at his own expense? Can one be legally compelled to spend thousands of dollars to bring a property into compliance to some newly enacted whimsical rule, when it had been perfectly legal from the outset? Even though still satisfactory from a safety standpoint, the plumbing and electric in my house would likely be close to 100% in violation of current building codes if it were built to-day, but no-one can compel me to upgrade, because it was already in place long before those local codes were enacted. In the town on Cape Cod where my wife's parents lived, I remember a couple of new houses down the street being built, but one wall or porch of the original houses that were torn down, were left standing and integrated into the new construction. I asked why they did it like that and not tear the whole thing down and start from scratch, and was told that keeping some of the original foundation and at least one significant piece of the original construction in place, made it legally a "re-model" and not new construction, and subject to far less stringent zoning and building code requirements.
Just to keep some perspective on the issue of HOAs I shall relate a story about a retiree who decided to get away from it all! He moved out to the boonies and started building the dream home he and his wife wished to retire in. During the building of his dream home he became aware of what a nutcase his neighbor was and quickly decided to sell the place even though construction was underway. There is a reason for HOAs. Just because you feel your personal freedoms are more important than your neighbors enjoyment of their property does not mean your neighbors agree. I understand antenna restrictions. I don't understand antenna bans. The previous place I lived allowed stealth antennas even though the HOA charter banned antennas. I easily gave up my ham license when I moved there. A ham acquaintance got me interested in stealth antennas so I got licensed again. I enjoyed my stealth antenna until I started operating portable. Then realized how compromised stealth antennas were and eventually gave up my home shack. IMO portable operating sure beats the heck out stealth antennas.! If it were not for portable operating I would retire my ham license in a heartbeat if limited to a stealth antenna. I did it once....I could do it again. But I have other hobbies more important to me than ham radio. Not everyone may share that advantage.
You would sure think so, but that wasn't the case. They just gave a timeframe for compliance. Attorneys said it was legal. It actually led me and my dad to run for the HOA Board, and we fixed all of it.
Yes. This myth seems pretty common here. I’ve read some anecdotal ‘I knew this guy who….” stories but that doesn’t make them true
I can't understand what instigated the ADS (Antenna Derangement Syndrome) that currently prevails with HOAs and zoning laws in the first place. People, even those living in subdivision developments used to put up outdoor radio and TV antennas all the time, and no-one thought anything about it because it was perfectly normal. Then, all of a sudden, it becomes the nationwide norm (in the so-called Land of the Free) that it's forbidden to put up any kind of outdoor antenna on one's own property. Yes, I can understand the opposition to some ham who lives on a postage-stamp size city lot and wants to put up a 70 ft tower with tri-band beam, or the guy who strings so many dipoles all around his house that it grabs attention and looks like a spider web, but I can't see why it would be any else's business or concern over a simple piece of wire strung between a couple of trees on someone's property, or an inconspicuous vertical mast in the back yard.
You are thinking like a reasonable person. This is no longer allowed. I guess you missed the memo? The anti-antenna business started when CATV systems became commonplace in most neighborhoods. I remember when cable hit our neighborhood in the late 1970's. It was all the rage. The neighbors started taking down their antennas. We kept ours because my Dad wasn't the type to pay for cable TV. I've been "pay tv free" since 2007. People look at me like I have a third eye in my forehead when I tell them I don't have satellite and get all of my television reception OTA. I've had several people say to me "I didn't know you could still get TV with an antenna".
Regarding grandfathering...in the state of Colorado ...HOAs don't have to grandfather anything in their charter document. That charter document can be modified with a quorum vote of residents. Most HOAs require a 2/3 or 3/4 of resident approval to modify a charter document. I know that from living in an HOA community for 24 years and on the HOA board for 3 years. This was during the time that Colorado was rewriting their State Laws governing HOAs. The state was attempting to make HOAs resident friendly. They did make finances more transparent but in many areas the HOAs are still untamed. They can still place a limit on the number of flower pots on your front porch or ban flagpoles.....flags may be displayed on a short building mounted flag staff but not a free standing pole in most Colorado HOA communities. I've always attributed the flagpole ban to the so called stealth flagpole antenna!
A lot of the restrictions and regulations are insidious because "they can be" and there's no authority to stop it. For me, best way is to vote with my wallet and just never buy into one. Plenty of others will.
Isn't it hilarious there are people who refuse to take a free vaccine because "nobody's gonna tell me what to do!" and "my body, my choice..." and then they live in homes where there are dozens of regulations telling them exactly what they can and cannot do with their homes and properties, and most of those regulations have nothing to do with the government or safety. They're just rules for the sake of rules. But they live under them while declaring "nobody's gonna tell me what to do."
We really need to get past the thought that one owns a home. Very few do or are left that did. Once you understand what Allodial title is you can break from the misleading idea of ownership. You really are caught in the feudal system where your ownership is subject to a lord and in this case its local government. Hence eminent domain. Your in fact just a higher class of renter and subject to your lord and his wishes. Ownership is a fairy tale to keep the population in check. You don't even own your car. Original titles are the manufacturers certificate of origin. You never even see them anymore they go direct to the state and they give you a usury title. Not knowing this is thinking like a slave. Amazing how many do though and will fight like hell to disprove a truth. Can you imagine peoples attitudes towards their masters if they did?
‘truth is stranger than fiction’ exemplified- Virtually everyone lives by/under rules, most of which are not entered into voluntarily. Yet somehow it’s the voluntarily entered into HOA rules which some respond to with catatonic stupor. And ironically and almost inevitably, it’s the ones who don’t live in an HOA complaining the most.
Nevertheless, we endure pissweakers who answer our CQ, or break into our QSO, and then explain that they don't have a better signal because the HOA won't let them put up a decent antenna.
