topic for the licensed hams in forum presently living under

Thanks for the info Robert.

This is a big deal, I think.

I'm a ham by the way.

Bruce, DOGGRADIO STUDIO 2

This opportunity to comment is important also to non-HAMs, because the general public will also benefit if HAMs are able to operate during emergency conditions, as vital information may thus become available.

I may also take the opportunity to add a comment about part 15 stations, which may also find themselves in a position to provide communication to their immediate area and obviously require antennas as well.

The issue of communications antennas should be an easy situation to resolve, since communication is both a right and a public necessity, but it's typical of the general mentality that very stupid people find themselves deciding what's best for others.

Please cool me down with a garden hose before I go on a biting spree and leave teeth marks.

this stuff with CCR's date back to 1980 when the cable Co's started paying off municipalities, HOA's, Apartment Complexes and Trailer Parks to Disallow antenna's so as to prevent reception of over the air tv and radio and satellite as a way to eliminate competition and choice in order to force people into buying into cable tv service.

over 30 years later we are still paying for them. we have a major chance to start reversing the trend started more than 30 years ago.

were hams and were here and people have to just accept that fact. we are not going away.

I remember when the anti-antenna clamp-down began. I had just installed a C-Band dish, payed for by members of public radio, and installed in my yard out of sight behind bushes, with permission to download OTR (old time radio) from Yesterday USA in Texas, plus other programs.

But neighbors can see out their upstairs windows and neighbors talk behind backs and some neighbors reach wrong conclusions and cling to them like a dog with a shoe in its mouth.

A husband and wife living 1/2 block away made the leap that my dish was interfering with Channel 5 TV reception and they clung to their pursed lips and scowls while I explained that my dish was passive and not a transmitter and could not cause VHF TV interference, after which they continued to sing the same song, "HE is interfering with our TV!" To make these people even more absurd, they were BOTH scientists (so they claimed), both employed by Monsoon Chemical Company (name changed to avoid conflict with the guilty), involved with "odor research" which I think meant poisoned gases (just then Agent Orange was happening).

Come to think of it those neighbors both had European accents and both claimed to be from Germany. Need I say more.

Anyway, the city, always responsive to complaints but never to rights, ordered me to dismantle the dish which they claimed was "illegal." I spoke to the emperor of buildings and explained that FCC Federal Jurisdiction transcended his local ordinance, and he generously invited me to sue in court (for what, $20,000?), which I declined. My solution was to lay to dish on it's back to gather rain-water for my new mosquito breeding hobby.

Civilization will be smothered by itself.

this is why even though management is somewhat antenna friendly here i still hide them. if they are not visible there is no chance for anyone to complain

"I spoke to the emperor of buildings and explained that FCC Federal Jurisdiction transcended his local ordinance, and he generously invited me to sue in court (for what, $20,000?), which I declined."

I would have gone ahead with it. Because he whom accuses must prove their accusation. The Neo-Nazi scientist couple would have lost..as would had the city building inspector.

It's not about money. Its about principle..and technical facts.

This is why the corrupt get away with what they get away with more so today..because people back down and don't protect their rights and honor their duty to prevent such corruption.

Same with the cable co's paying off HOA's and all banning antennas. People should have stood up to it.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

There is power in numbers.

RFB

My idea for turning the tables would be to move the dish and disguise it with a little wood fence and some hanging flower pots (not in its reception path). Someone in this group was told to take down his Part 15 antenna, so he put up a flagpole (who would dare to question patriotism?) with the antenna inside and the TX inside a planter box at the bottom.

I thought that was great! Maybe not quite as noble, but a fabulous solution nevertheless.

I don't have to worry, tho'. All the boats in the harbor have multiple antennas on them, including dishes.

One more note: The discussion on the services of ham radio in emergencies ... If you hold a ham radio license you can have a 50' antenna tower. Once up, you could hang anything you want on it.

Here in Friday Harbor, the local club has several self-contained go-boxes. In a disaster, we can get online in minutes, put emergency services back in operation almost seamlessly.

No! A similar FCC rule applies to anyone who wants to watch TV over-the-air, instead of pay a cable or satellite company. If there's a TV station you want to watch, but can't pick up to your satisfaction, you have the right to raise your antenna until you can!

My city tries to restrict "hams" to crank-up towers only, max. height 50', and then only when you're using your ham station. Otherwise, you're supposed to crank it down to 25' or less.

Two years ago I put up a guyed TV mast that stays at 50' all the time --- simply told the city that there's almost ALWAYS, SOMEBODY in my house watching TV. They haven't questioned the OTHER antenna on the mast. Stand up for your rights any way you have to!

Can you imagine the tiny size brain of dweebs who are snooping on your antenna height? Those type people are creatively negative and gain their satisfaction by tearing things down and ruining things that belong to other people. They are not civil servants. They are un-civil wreckers.

Don't take the antenna down. Make the dweeb sit down.

Hadn't thought about that ... and, now that you bring it up, the new digital service, while it may have "better picture and sound", it has lost range. No such thing as a slightly fuzzy but eminently watchable picture anymore; either you get it or you don't.

That would certainly make it reasonable to raise a tower if you are otherwise out of range. Hardly anyone on my island tries to get free TV anymore, we're too far away to get a signal (except one up on the border that just runs old TV shows).