Topic: State law protects ham radio operator, frustrates neighbors

[galfert]

Just wondering how many of you hams are upsetting your neighbors?   

https://qrznow.com/state-law-protects-ham-radio-operator-frustrates-neighbors-in-windsor-twp/

Anyone have any good stories?

[CW2274]

Not a ham, but in my CB days in the Cleveland metro, the ABC affiliate was VHF Ch5, and it was a second harmonic and would jack up the OTA broadcast if I was close enough. You could hear me quite well when transmitting on ones TV.

[miraculon]

There are a couple of resources on the ARRL site (Ham radio assoc.) covering this.

One is this excerpt from the ARRL magazine published in 2007. http://www.arrl.org/files/file/hender.pdf

The other is PRB memo from the FCC issued in 1985.  http://www.arrl.org/files/file/prb-1.pdf

My local town revised the ordinance a couple of years back to bring it in line with the FCC. It covers things like overall height and distance from the property line.

Even though I comply with the local ordinance, I did inform my next door neighbor closest to the antenna before installation. I probably have more weather gear mounted out there than ham radio stuff, however.

Greg H.

KE8DAF

[vreihen]

Anyone have any good stories?

Yes, plenty.....

[galfert]

Anyone have any good stories?

Yes, plenty.....

Ah...don't tease, let's hear them.

[vreihen]

Ah...don't tease, let's hear them.

Realize that I can't share the family secrets.  Many involve pre-legislation stealth activities, such as my late father successfully camouflaging a 40-foot tower in the front yard in a way that none of the neighbors would ever spot it.

One that I will share was how I played cat-and-mouse with a municipal code enforcement officer at our family's winter place in Florida back in the early 1990's.  There was no OTA TV without a large outdoor antenna in that area, and we never bothered to hook up the cable TV because we were only using the place for vacation trips.  The guy who lived a few doors down worked for the cable company, and drove by in his cable van one morning and saw me sitting on the screen porch watching Superstorm 1993 coverage on TWC on an old console TV.  He tried to force his way onto the property, to find the illegal cable TV hookup.  I told him to buzz off, and not come back without a warrant.

That afternoon, the code enforcement officer showed up with his code enforcement clipboard, and started looking all over the place for my illegal antenna or satellite dish.  This game went on all week.  The funny part was that he actually put his code enforcement clipboard down on top of a big plastic outdoor garbage can on the third day.  If only he knew how close he was!  Code there actually required that each residence have at least two big plastic outdoor garbage cans.  So, I was just doing my civic part by having that garbage can facing southward next to the house if you know what I mean..... 

[galfert]

I hear ya.  Hopefully you never get jerk neighbors like I got one time. They were walking their dog and picked up after them and then used my garbage to leave their dogs stuff in it. I caught them on security camera. I let them know not to do that again next time I saw them.

[K5GHS]

This is why I'm going to move out to the country.  Even though I don't plan on having a tower ever myself, and if I did, it wouldn't probably be higher than 75 feet, and it would probably be used as the apex for wire antennas.  I've seen a lot of good "beam" installations, but I've also seen ones where they move around a lot in a good windstorm-too much for my liking.

Where I currently live, I use wires, and any "verticals" I have are in the back, so you can't see them from the front.

I can get why people wouldn't want a neighbor with a tower way in the air, especially if it were to fall over it would possibly land in your neighbors yards.  That to me is a bit much... 

I prefer wires myself for HF.  I mean don't get me wrong a beam is nice, but to me if I was ever going to do that, I'd invest in having it professionally done.  Sure I could do it safely, but I don't think I'd trust myself to do that.  Especially if it could affect my neighbors if I miscalculate or do something wrong and it decides to come down in weather.

I haven't had any complaints where I am so far but I'm not in a HOA, and where my stuff is mounted, if it were to come off the house, it'll land in my backyard so I won't be affecting anyone outside of my fenceline.  I also don't run a lot of power on HF which is what would affect my neighbors interference wise.  I also tune my antennas, so the chances of that are lower, of course.  Plus with the advent of digital TV, I shouldn't "come over" anyone anyway, honestly. 

There are a lot of uses for towers and such, but as far as I'm concerned there are plenty of people doing that, so they can be out there to run nets, chase DX for awards, etc.  I think a contact is much better earned using 100 watts and a well tuned wire.  It means a lot more to me than pointing an antenna at it and using 1500 watts to get it.  To me that's like shooting fish in a barrel, so I do it differently.  I'm also not in it for the wallpaper.  But that's just me.  Fair compromise is fine with me.  And honestly, if someone thinks they should have the right to put up a tower over 50 feet in a subdivision, they shouldn't be surprised their non-ham neighbors might have a issue with it, especially in the cookie cutter neighborhoods they have nowadays.  People in those obviously want everyone to look the same and dress the same, basically.  I get the angst, in a way.  There are risks associated with that kind of a deal because done wrongly it's going to affect your neighbors more than just being a visual issue. 

Even out in the country I won't be putting stuff on the front of the house, though.  I've always put stuff on the back side where its less visible.  I want to enjoy my hobby, sure, but I don't see the need to advertise it to everyone either.  Besides, I do that well enough with the 5 antennas on my vehicle anyway.  (I'm not joking).