In article ,
Rockinghorse Winner wrote:

[unneeded text deleted]


Or load up your rain gutters.

Guess it's time to mention the "awntenna" again. :-)

http://www.wintertime.com/OH/73.jpg

The folks at "73" got diagrams 1a and 1b reversed, so take
that into account.

Here's a closeup of the indoor verted-vee ("rabbit ears")
backup antenna mentioned in the article:

http://www.wintertime.com/OH/sebastian.jpg

That article was written 24 years ago (yikes!), so I'm sorry
to say that Sebastian is no longer with us. I have a cat now,
but her ears are way too short for HF.

I ended up working around, I think, 130 countries before I
decommissioned the antenna.


Patty

On Jan 24, 8:10�pm, "Michael J. Coslo" wrote:

A person who lives in a place with an
HOA at some level wants to live there and is accepting of that fact.

Maybe.

Or maybe they don't have much choice.

Real estate is different from other things in that it's not portable.
Plus you can only buy what people want to sell.

What I mean is that if your job is at X and your spouse's job is at Y
and the decent schools are at Z, there's a practical limit on where you
can live and not spend your entire life commuting. On top of that, most
people have definite money and time limitations.

The result is that, in at least some cases, there aren't so many
options to buy a non-restricted place. Particularly when there's atime
limit.

One of the other less pretty aspects of human nature is that
there are
people who either want to mess with the HOA, or want it, but want
special privileges. I would personally find it a little odd that a
person who is accepting of such intense outside control
would under
normal circumstances both live in such a place,
and simultaneously
want to put up a AR antenna.

There's also the case of the person who was not informed of the rules
and limitations.

Some years back I considered moving, and looked at a number of homes in
my area. All of them had nice fact sheets and disclosure sheets to look
at and take away. None of them - absolutely none - mentioned an HOA,
CC&Rs, etc. Most of them had some CC&Rs, but the unsuspecting homebuyer
wouldn't know that until closing - if then. When your old house is sold
and your stuff is on the truck and you're at the closing, it's just too
late.

Some might say "do your research first!" and that's good advice. But
back when I was looking, the RE market was so hot around here that a
house would go on sale at noon and have three no-contingency offers,
often at or above the asking price, before the sun went down.

73 de Jim, N2EY

On Jan 25, 12:39�am, Rockinghorse Winner wrote:

I'm not going to argue from a constitutional perspective. A
contract is a contract.

But people renegotiate contracts all the time. Athletes are one
example. Divorce is another - people make a contract "until death do us
part" with no escape clause, but then they split up and negotiate who
gets what.

Somebody mentioned racial CC&Rs - those were contracts when written,
but they are unenforceable now. I suspect that CC&Rs restricting people
of certain ethnicities, religions, occupations or political views would
be unenforceable too.

There's a case I read of where grandparents living in an "over 55"
community are being told they have to either move out or send their
grandchild away, because the grandchild is too young. They are the
legal guardians because their child is unable to care for the
grandchild and the other parent is gone. Isn't that age discrimination?

There's also the "contract of adhesion" idea, a legal term for one side
holding all the cards.

btw, there's an organization specifically about clothesline
prohibitions.

73 de Jim, N2EY

On Jan 25, 8:22 am, wrote:
On Jan 24, 8:10 pm, "Michael J. Coslo" wrote:



A person who lives in a place with an
HOA at some level wants to live there and is accepting of that fact.

Maybe.

Or maybe they don't have much choice.

I just don't know, Jim. Perhaps I have a different idea of choice.

I'd rent before living in a HOA development.


What I mean is that if your job is at X and your spouse's job is at Y
and the decent schools are at Z, there's a practical limit on where you
can live and not spend your entire life commuting. On top of that, most
people have definite money and time limitations.

And I suspect that they have a strong sense of "Right now!"

I waited until a combination of market prices, interest rates and
availability showed me the house I wanted.
There are some canards going around about houses. One is that you have
to have a house immediately and anything other than buying a house now
is throwing money away. That perception on many people's part's has
led them to making bad decisions.

I bought my house in 1994. Until that time, I lived in a mobile home.
We looked at houses the entire time, but saved money and waited until
the right house came along. It was a nice house that came on the
market during a mini-slump. It had sat for some months, so the sellers
were "motivated". We got the house at 75 percent of it's appraised
value, at a good interest rate, and it was in that neighborhood that
doesn't restrict antennas. Then we didn't refi except to reduce the
interest rate. It'll be paid off later this year. I live 2 miles from
work, and the kid walked to school until he went to high school.

I point his out because it's apparently quite different than what most
people think is the way to go about doing the house thing. Some may
say I got lucky. Luck had nothing to do with it. I just waited and
pounced when the time was right. Anyone can do that.

Now some people have issues with living in mobile homes, or fear that
any money spent on anything other than a mortgage is wasted. They have
to have a house, and they have to have it now. Okay, then they have to
put up with the idea of buy in haste, repent at leisure.

Some years back I considered moving, and looked at a number of homes in
my area. All of them had nice fact sheets and disclosure sheets to look
at and take away. None of them - absolutely none - mentioned an HOA,
CC&Rs, etc. Most of them had some CC&Rs, but the unsuspecting homebuyer
wouldn't know that until closing - if then. When your old house is sold
and your stuff is on the truck and you're at the closing, it's just too
late.

That's putting yourself in a bad situation. Remember, the real estate
agent is not your friend. After firing several agents, for reasons
like continually showing me houses outside my price range, (that I
determined, not them) and not disclosing HOA and other important
stuff, I was pretty well convinced of that. They are the sellers
friend, and the more they can get out of you, the better they serve
their customer. If that means allowing the buyer to think that
something is true while it isn't, they are happy to do that.

My point is that there are always options for a Ham, if people think
they just have to take whatever comes along, well, they've taken an
option that isn't Ham oriented.

- 73 de Mike N3LI -

On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:08:31 EST, Patty Winter
wrote:

Guess it's time to mention the "awntenna" again. :-)

http://www.wintertime.com/OH/73.jpg

While the idea seems practicable, I notice that article appeared in the
April 1986 issue of 73 Magazine. So I have to ask, was it a joke?

Dick AC7EL

On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:38:29 EST, Rockinghorse Winner
wrote:

Jeffrey D Angus writes:
Sooner or later, the homeowner associations are going to
catch on about bird houses, flag poles and the like and
just simply write into the rules, "No transmitting or
receiving equipment."

And we'll have brought it on ourselves by constantly showing
our inability to follow the rules.

Well, if they did that, everyone would have to throw out their
microwave, router, cell phone, radios, garage door opener, car remote,
tv and computer, which, I doubt they would be willing to do!

The average non-technical person has no idea how microwaves, cell
phones, door openers and car remotes work. I have mentioned to several
people that these things use radio, and they were amazed. At highway
construction projects where they are blasting, the signs say "Turn off
all two-way radios and cell phones." because people don't realize that
cellphones are radios.

Dick, AC7EL

On 1/25/2010 2:44 PM, Michael J. Coslo wrote:

That's putting yourself in a bad situation. Remember, the real estate
agent is not your friend. After firing several agents, for reasons
like continually showing me houses outside my price range, (that I
determined, not them) and not disclosing HOA and other important
stuff, I was pretty well convinced of that. They are the sellers
friend, and the more they can get out of you, the better they serve
their customer. If that means allowing the buyer to think that
something is true while it isn't, they are happy to do that.

My wife and I looked at over 100 houses before we selected the one I
live in now. I have *no* HOA, *no* CC&R's, and *no* problem putting up
antennas: I had to fire three agents who hadn't heard me when I told
them what *my* requirements were.

Michael is right: the agent represents the *SELLER*, not the buyer. He
is legally obligated to disclose _some_ things, but professionally
obligated not to disclose anything else that might lower the house's
value. Agents are not your friends.

I remember one occasion, when I was asked to put a deposit on a home I
was considering: the agent looked at the paper, and said, "The deposit
isn't five hundred, Bill, it's five thousand", and I replied, "You're
right, it's not five hundred: it's Five dollars". He tried to stare me
down, and then said "I don't think you're serious about buying this
house, and I won't convey that offer", to which I replied "You'll
convey the offer or I'll have your license on a plate"!

The agent had a counter-offer for me within two hours. You have to
remember that these guys are salesmen, and they get paid to move the
product: the moment you let them dictate to you, you lose.

HTH. FWIW. YMMV.

Bill, W1AC

In article ,
Dick Grady AC7EL wrote:
On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:08:31 EST, Patty Winter
wrote:

Guess it's time to mention the "awntenna" again. :-)

http://www.wintertime.com/OH/73.jpg

While the idea seems practicable, I notice that article appeared in the
April 1986 issue of 73 Magazine. So I have to ask, was it a joke?


Did you see my comment about working around 130 countries before I
decommissioned it? :-)


Patty

In article , Dick Grady
AC7EL wrote:

Guess it's time to mention the "awntenna" again. :-)

http://www.wintertime.com/OH/73.jpg

While the idea seems practicable, I notice that article appeared in the
April 1986 issue of 73 Magazine. So I have to ask, was it a joke?

I'd say it's in the "tongue in cheek" category. The final sentence
says it: "My gratitude... to all of the above for contributing valuable
jargon with which to obfuscate the subject."

The awning idea itself is quite practical... a lot of people have made
very useful contacts by loading up rain gutters, aluminum window
screens, bridges, and so forth. It's described in a not-quite-serious
fashion (e.g. as a close-spaced array of curved radiators).

The idea of using an actual rabbit, as a "verted" rabbit-ear dipole, is
certainly a joke. Actually attempting to transmit via a rabbit would
result in severe QRM ("quispy roasted mammal").

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

Bill Horne wrote:

Michael is right: the agent represents the *SELLER*, not the buyer. He
is legally obligated to disclose _some_ things, but professionally
obligated not to disclose anything else that might lower the house's
value. Agents are not your friends.

There's an agent for the seller, and there's an agent for the buyer.
They should be in a professional adversarial relationship. The seller's
agent is out to get the highest price, and the buyer's agent is out to
get the lowest. If, as the buyer, you don't think your agent is
performing that task, find another agent.

Real estate agents most certainly should be your friend. As a buyer, I
cannot possibly know the market and keep up with it as well as someone
who does that as their full time job. My real estate agent knows vastly
more about what questions to ask and what to look for than I do. While
a buyer or buyer's agent may not be required to volunteer information,
they are required to truthfully answer questions IF you know what
questions to ask.

To try to interject the slightest bit of ham-radio-related content into
this submission . . . if being able to erect an antenna is an important
consideration for you when buying a house, find an agent who understands
CCRs and related issues. If the agent doesn't understand the issues,
they cannot do what you need them to do. If the agent cannot or does
not perform, failing to ask the right questions or showing you houses
that don't meet your needs, get another agent. You would do the same
thing if you explained that you needed a minimum of three bedrooms and
the agent persisted in showing you houses with two bedrooms.

73, Steve KB9X