I was reading the Feb 2010 copy of QST at dinner this evening.
And right there in the "Up Front" section was a wonderful
article about "How I defied the CCR I signed when I bought my
condo and put up an antenna in contradiction to the rules I
agreed to."

Do we all have to act like having an FCC grant (license)
somehow makes us above the law?

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.

Jeff-1.0
wa6fwi


--
“Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.”
Frank Leahy, Head coach, Notre Dame 1941-1954

http://www.stay-connect.com

On Jan 22, 12:50 am, Jeffrey D Angus wrote:

Do we all have to act like having an FCC grant (license)
somehow makes us above the law?

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.

I believe that the stealth concept has some problems. The main one is
that it sort of creates civil criminals, at least in our case.
But for my money, if the homeowners association says no antennas, then
it's no antennas.

I live in a thoroughly modern neighborhood, and we don't have antenna
restrictions, except for a radius-drop tower restriction - not that a
tower is likely to fall that way. NIce well kept houses, and the Ham
radio folks all get along with their more normal neighbors. My
neighbors actually like to watch my antics.

But here is the clue to the whole thing. Either don't live in a
neighborhood with antenna restrictions, or if you have deep pockets
and want to be a nuisance, get a lawyer and sue. I know that some are
going to say "You can't find a development like that. Park Forest,
just north oh State College PA begs to differ. No HOA either. Most
respectfully, anyone who lives in a development with an HOA just has
to know that restrictions are part of the package, even if some seem
arbitrary and even capricious. The restrictions allow the tenants to
feel superior. We have one in our area that does not allow any outside
decorations or drying clothes outdoors. I think you have to agree to
keep your garage door shut at all time (except for ingress and
egress) Point is, don't live there.

Side note. I was doing a public service bike-hike ride support. part
of it went on a township road through one of those neighborhoods.
Suddenly a van pulls up and a guy hops out. "What are you doing here?"
he says. The YL who was manning the station was a little concerned -
it looked almost like an abduction. Anyhow, we explained the bike ride
we were helping with. He wanted to know why, as the President of the
local Homeowners association, he wasn't informed or asked permission
to do this. Then he said he was doing to call the police. At that
point, I took out my cell phone, and said Fine, I'll even help, Ken
(yes I knew him). I'm going to call the Police, the Charity we're
doing this for, the newspaper and the local radio stations. Still want
to do this thing? He thought better of it, got back in the van, and
left.

Point is, if you live in such a neighborhood, that is what you get.
Don't live in such places if you want to enjoy Ham radio, there are
people who want to control your personal life

Michael J. Coslo wrote:

Point is, if you live in such a neighborhood, that is what you get.
Don't live in such places if you want to enjoy Ham radio, there are
people who want to control your personal life

I agree with your bottom line, Mike. But we've beat this topic to death
in this newsgroup, and I can pretty much predict where the discussion
will go.

My comment on this general issue is that the non-ham population develops
their impression of hams based on what they see and hear. When they see
hams helping out in the community by assisting with a public event or
teaching radio to the local Boy Scouts, the impression is a positive
one. When they see the guy with a bunch of unsightly antennas whose
house is a blight on the neighborhood, or the one who flaunts the CCR
that they signed, the impression is negative.

Our hobby seems to be cursed with a higher percentage of people who are
oblivious to the concerns of their neighbors or the rest of the general
population. These are the folks who tend to be visible and influence
the impression of ham radio for the general public. Or maybe I'm just
suffering from the same effect; it's not the ham who is cooperating with
the Boy Scouts that I see, but the one with six towers erected on his
city lot.

We need to be more proactive at getting the positive side of ham radio
out into the public eye.

73, Steve KB9X

I see this whole thing rather differently.

I agree that any ham who wants to have a station at home should buy a
house without antenna restrictions. Same as someone who wants to have,
say, a vegetable garden should buy a house without vegetable-garden
restrictions. Etc.

But I think there's a growing mindset that, for a neighborhood to be
"nice", almost everything that someone might find unattractive must be
prohibited. And since there's almost nothing that *somebody* won't find
unattractive, almost *everything* is prohibited, or strictlyregulated.

I can see the point that a ninety-foot tower on a quarter-acre lot is
out of scale. Or when a homeowner lets a place fall to ruin, something
needs to be done.

But when a ham can't have a wire dipole in the back yard of a half-
acre wooded lot, something's wrong. When the satellite TV folks have to
go all the way to the Supreme Court to get preemption to have dishes
the size of a large pizza, something's wrong. When American citizens,
some of them decorated military veterans, are sued and threatened with
eviction for flying the American flag in their own front yards,
something's wrong.

Real estate isn't like other things in that it's not portable and the
supply is limited. For most people, their home is their biggest
investment, and moving is a major event. Many hams simply cannot afford
to move just so they can have an antenna. I suspect that antenna
restrictions are a major cause of low growth in Amateur Radio in the
USA, because why get a license if you can't have a decentstation?

It seems to me that if the rules allow a flagpole, birdhouse, plant
trellis, etc., but not antennas, then what's wrong if one of those
things has a dual function?

73 de Jim, N2EY

Michael J. Coslo wrote:

Side note. I was doing a public service bike-hike ride support. part
of it went on a township road through one of those neighborhoods.
Suddenly a van pulls up and a guy hops out. "What are you doing here?"
he says. The YL who was manning the station was a little concerned -
it looked almost like an abduction. Anyhow, we explained the bike ride
we were helping with. He wanted to know why, as the President of the
local Homeowners association, he wasn't informed or asked permission
to do this. Then he said he was doing to call the police. At that
point, I took out my cell phone, and said Fine, I'll even help, Ken
(yes I knew him). I'm going to call the Police, the Charity we're
doing this for, the newspaper and the local radio stations. Still want
to do this thing? He thought better of it, got back in the van, and
left.


Actually what you ran into was some officious idiot with no authority
attempting to assert authority over you. Let me note that theoretically
streets belong to the governmental entity in which said street is located or
some entity which the governmental entity is part of (i.e you can have a
state or county road in a small township, it might not belong to the
township, but it sure does belong to some governmental entity) and as such,
private individuals have no right or privilege of passing on who or what
moves on a public street.

The statement advising hams not to move into a development with either home
associations or CCRs strikes me as poor advice. There are few locales
without one or the other left in the US, and most used boiler plate to bar
antennas.

I personally would love to see CCRs and home owner associations expire after
some extended period of time like ten years, we thus would not end up with
the banning of clothes drying or antennas.

Art Clemons wrote:

The statement advising hams not to move into a development with either home
associations or CCRs strikes me as poor advice. There are few locales
without one or the other left in the US, and most used boiler plate to bar
antennas.

I'm inclined to disagree with you, but I don't have any more factual or
statistical information than you do to make or refute such a statement.
I wonder if such information exists; is there some compilation of data
that says that xx% of home sales included some kind of restriction?

It also depends on where you are geographically. Here in rural
Minnesota such restrictions do not exist. But not everyone yearns to
live in rural Minnesota . . . especially at this time of the year grin

73, Steve KB9X

In article ,
Steve Bonine wrote:
Art Clemons wrote:

The statement advising hams not to move into a development with either home
associations or CCRs strikes me as poor advice. There are few locales
without one or the other left in the US, and most used boiler plate to bar
antennas.

I'm inclined to disagree with you, but I don't have any more factual or
statistical information than you do to make or refute such a statement.
I wonder if such information exists; is there some compilation of data
that says that xx% of home sales included some kind of restriction?

I just noodled around the ARRL website and couldn't find any statistics.
Here in the Bay Area, anecdotal evidence is very strong that nothing
besides federally protected pizza dishes are allowed.

It also depends on where you are geographically. Here in rural
Minnesota such restrictions do not exist. But not everyone yearns to
live in rural Minnesota . . . especially at this time of the year grin

:-) Which explains why the residents of Lake Wobegon just spent two
weeks here, instead of their customary one-week visit to other cities...


Patty

wrote:
It seems to me that if the rules allow a flagpole, birdhouse,
plant trellis, etc., but not antennas, then what's wrong if
one of those things has a dual function?

And that's my point.

A friend of mine, while living in an apartment, unrolled aluminum
foil in a double folded dipole and thumbtacked it to his ceiling.

And while living in Culver City, after they introduced a limit to
the number of external antennas (rather broadly worded) We just
moved some of the fixed point to point antennas inside the attic.

Interestingly enough, in the original article in QST, when asked
"What are the wires going to the birdhouse for?" He answered. "It's
for a weather station."

Hrmmm, obviously knew the "I have an antenna in violatioin of the
rules" was the wrong answer.

Jeff



--
“Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.”
Frank Leahy, Head coach, Notre Dame 1941-1954

http://www.stay-connect.com

Steve Bonine wrote:
Here in rural Minnesota such restrictions do not exist.

Ranger TX. 2500 people. And NO building codes. No permits
obviously.

But not everyone yearns to live in rural Minnesota

Nor do they in Ranger, for that I'm thankful. I don't think
I'd like here as much if there were suddenly 25,000 people here.

Jeff-1.0
wa6fwi


--
“Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.”
Frank Leahy, Head coach, Notre Dame 1941-1954

http://www.stay-connect.com

On Jan 23, 1:35�am, Art Clemons wrote:
�Let me note that theoretically
streets belong to the governmental entity in which said street is locat
ed or
some entity which the governmental entity is part of (i.e you
can have a
state or county road in a small township, it might not belong to the
township, but it sure does belong to some governmental entity) and as s
uch,
private individuals have no right or privilege of passing on who or wha
t
moves on a public street.

The key word there is *public*. In some developments the streets are
part of the development, a osrt of common driveway. Some local
governments like this because it relieves them of the responsibility of
snow removal, repair, etc.

The statement advising hams not to move into a development
with either home
associations or CCRs strikes me as poor advice. �There are
few locales
without one or the other left in the US, and most used boiler
plate to bar
antennas. �

I disagree 100%!

In many parts of the USA, there are plenty of homes that allow
antennas. From my limited experience, they are usually older
(pre-1970s) homes in established neighborhoods.

I think what happens in many cases is that people limit themselves to
new construction, townhomes, or similar planned communities where rules
and limitations are all part of the boilerplate. In some parts of the
country, where growth has happened mostly in the past 20-30 years, much
of the housing stock is like that. Particularly the less- expensive
homes, oddly enough.

When I moved to my current house 10 years ago, one of the first things
I did was to explain to the Realtor what was Not Acceptable. One of
those things was a place with no-antennas restrictions. Another
requirement was that I and my RE lawyer be able to see any deed
restrictions, covenants, etc. before making an offer.

I personally would love to see CCRs and home owner
associations expire after
some extended period of time like ten years, we thus would not end up w
ith
the banning of clothes drying or antennas. �

The problem is that most of them are specifically set up to be self-
perpetuating, and to make changing the rules all but impossible.

And even if every amateur now licensed decided to never buy another
restricted home, we'd still have the problem of hams who currently live
in them, and of people who live in them and who want to be hams.

I think the bigger issue is this: Why is there such interest in
restricting what other people can do?

73 de Jim, N2EY