Michael Coslo wrote:
Here are some ideas:

The old vertical as a flagpole.

[ Etc. ]

Mind if I play devils advocate here for a minute?

Where is it written that as Licensed Amateur Radio Operators
we have a fair pass to ignore the rules?

What part of "no antennas" in the CC&R you signed do you not
understand?

"But but but, I'm a Ham radio operator!"

I'm sorry, I just keep seeing this same thing over and over
and over and I don't buy it.

(Along with, since I have a license, I don't need a permit to
put up a tower.)

Jeff-1.0
wa6vfi

On Jul 16, 3:30 pm, Michael Coslo wrote:
wrote:
(insert standard "I Am Not A Lawyer" disclaimer HERE)

I'm still not a lawyer...

On Jul 14, 4:18 pm, KC4UAI wrote:
On Jul 11, 8:45 pm, "KØHB" wrote:

There was big money at stake because the satellite TV folks saw a huge

and expanding

part of the TV market being off-limits to them because of
no-satellite-dish CC&Rs.

Sure, and considering that the antenna restrictions serve
d to
monopolize access to the cable industry. It is hard to argue that
allowing satellite dishes wasn't a fair and equitable thing to do.

There was also the issue that watching TV in one's home, be it a tiny
studio apartment or a giant estate or anything in between, was a
right of any resident, rental, owner, condo, etc. Nobody wanted to
deny *that* right!

Amateur radio doesn't have the same protections.

The problem is, who determines what's reasonable? In some places a
clothesline in the back yard is considered an eyesore!

A mile or so from us, there is one of those places. No clotheslines, no
kids stuff in yards, all landscaping must be approved. Almost everything
about your home life is tightly regulated. People who live in a place
that restrictive deserve it.

Agreed.

As I peruse through the real estate guides, I'm struck by the number of
homes that are available that do not have restrictive covenants. Even
the village that I live in does not have ban antennas. So I have a nice
woodsey atmosphere, and can do most of the things I want. I wasn't
allowed to set up my still to make corn squeezins! hehe

But my point is that if people are looking for a house, there are
options. It's also very important to read all that boring stuff. I
wonder how many Hams who live in a place that prohibits antennas read
the fineprint.

There are plenty of unrestricted places on the market *now*, because
of
the RE market slump and the mortgage crisis.

But not so long ago, it was a different game. At least around here,
houses
would often be sold the afternoon they went on the market. It was not
unusual for
a house to have multiple offers above the asking price with a
preapproved
mortgage and no conditions on the offer.

In such a market, simply finding out if a place was antenna-restricted
is a real problem.
There are deed restrictions on my 1950-built house (none address
antennas) but to
find them out my RE lawyer had to go to the county courthouse and ask
the right
person for them.

You can only buy a house that is for sale at the time you are looking
to buy. If you
happen to need to move at a time when the market is hot, you're at a
distinct
disadvantage.

Another tactic is to ask if you can put up an antenna, and if the answer
is no, then politely say, "Too bad-see you later!". If the real estate
agent loses a few sales for something silly like that, then they will
start looking into it.

Yes and no.

For one thing, *NEVER* take a verbal response as binding in such a
situation.
Just because the seller or the agent says "yes" or "we can get that
changed"
does NOT mean there are no restrictions! You and your RE attorney need
to
see the actual documents themselves and go over every word to make
sure
there are no restrictions.

For example, the word "antenna" may not appear anywhere. But there may
be
a restriction that says "No structure may exceed a height of 35
feet" (or whatever). A tower
may be considered a structure in that situation, so if you want a 50
foot tower, you're out
of luck.

Deed covenants and restrictions are usually designed so that they
cannot easily be removed
even if all parties want to remove them. The usual way it works is
that each buyer agrees, when
buying the property, to pass them on to the next buyer. So the seller,
and the seller's agent,
may not have the right to remove them even if s/he wants to!

Once the sale is done and you've moved in, it's too late.

IMHO, one of the biggest mistakes many people make is assuming that
because they've read
the Constitution, they don't need a lawyer for things like buying a
house. In many situations
that's a sure-fire path to problems.

Some other problems:

1) A considerable number of hams today were not hams when they moved
into their current
homes. Antennas weren't an issue when the moved - now they are.

2) Considerations such as cost and location are not the same
everywhere. "Move to the
country" isn't always an option if doing so means one or both spouses'
jobs are going to
be at the end of a long and expensive commute. School district and
access to various
services (like health care) are considerations too.

3) In my limited experience, antenna-restricted properties tend to be
less expensive than
unrestricted ones. This flies in the face of the old "property values"
argument, but it
makes sense when you consider that many restricted places have HOA
fees and such,
and that the restrictions often make doing even simple things
expensive (you have to use
a certain paint, buy exact replacements for fixtures like doors and
windows, and get
approval for *everything*. So if you are on a limited budget (who
isn't?), the restricted
properties may appear to be a better deal for your money.

There are bigger, newer and more modern houses near me that are priced
the same as
the little boxes made of ticky-tacky I and my neighbors live in. But
those houses are
restricted in ways that ours aren't.

Besides pushing Congress, one of the things I think we hams could do
to help the process is to never refer to amateur radio as "a hobby" or
even worse, "just a hobby". While most hams do radio simply as an
avocation, IMHO the word "hobby" carries with it a sort of meaning
that it's not a serious thing worthy of protection.

You'll never hear folks who do sports or art nonprofessionally refer
to those activities as "just a hobby". Nor will the term be used by
volunteers who donate their time and efforts to a variety of causes.

IOW, "hobbies" don't get the kind of respect we want amateur radio to
have. If we hams describe amateur radio as "just a hobby", the folks
who want to restrict us may think "well, if they say it's just a
hobby, what's the problem with a few restrictions?" and "there are all
sorts of hobbies that these homes don't accomodate, like raising
horses, target shooting, or pleasure boating with a boat that won't
fit in the garage. What's different about your radio hobby?"

You can be sure the satellite TV people pushing for the OTARD ruling
never, ever referred to watching TV as "a hobby", even though their
viewers don't get paid to watch TV.

I agree!

Here are some ideas:

The old vertical as a flagpole. Its a sorry bunch who wouldn't approve a
flagpole.

A few years back, a WW2 veteran in his '80s put up a flagpole in his
yard.
Every morning he'd raise Old Glory, every night he'd take it down. He
had
two grandkids on active duty in Iraq. The HOA went after him because
freestanding flagpoles were specifically prohibited in the rules.
Being in
the paper and on TV did not faze them; the rules said no flagpoles and
they
were going to enforce those rules.

I think the WW2 vet moved.

Most multiband verticals can be tilted over with kits sold for that
purpose. Maybe that can be hid though the day.

This is a very good idea. While it may not be fun to go outside and
install the antenna before
each operating session, it's a solution.

One homebrew way would be to bury a pipe vertically in the ground and
cut it off at the surface.
A cap would keep debris out when not in use.

The antenna assembly consists of the vertical and a piece of pipe that
will just fit in the
buried pipe. Quick connections to the coax and radial system (both
buried) complete it.

To go on the air, the cap is removed, the antenna assembly raised and
the bottom end put in the hole,
and the connections made.

If the house has plastic gutters, run a wire around them. I'm sure that
is part of a defrosting system - Really, it could be!

The trick is to make the setup so that it is easy to set up in the dark.

And take down.

However even such solutions may not work in some areas. The Gladys
Kravitz
factor looms large in them.

73 de Jim, N2EY

On Jul 15, 8:16 pm, Dick Grady AC7EL wrote:
On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:32:00 EDT, wrote:
one of the things I think we hams could do
to help the process is to never refer to amateur radio as "a hobby" or
even worse, "just a hobby". While most hams do radio simply as an
avocation, IMHO the word "hobby" carries with it a sort of meaning
that it's not a serious thing worthy of protection.

You'll never hear folks who do sports or art nonprofessionally refer
to those activities as "just a hobby". Nor will the term be used by
volunteers who donate their time and efforts to a variety of causes.

IOW, "hobbies" don't get the kind of respect we want amateur radio to
have. If we hams describe amateur radio as "just a hobby", the folks
who want to restrict us may think "well, if they say it's just a
hobby, what's the problem with a few restrictions?" and "there are all
sorts of hobbies that these homes don't accomodate, like raising
horses, target shooting, or pleasure boating with a boat that won't
fit in the garage. What's different about your radio hobby?"

Then what do we call it? Avocation? Pasttime? no, none of these ter
ms seem
appropriate, either.

We don't need to call it anything other than "Amateur Radio". The
person who
gardens/landscapes doesn't use the word "hobby", s/he says "I'm a
gardener"
and that's it.

The amateur artist who paints, sculpts, does pottery, photography,
woodwork or any
of a range of other activities does not use the word "hobby" either.

I know! It's emergency preparation and training. Now that's sounds
impressive..

We don't need to sound impressive. All we need to do is not sound
apologetic.
"Just a hobby" sounds self-denigrating to me.

Part 97 does not use the word "hobby". Neither should we.

Consider the following conversations:

Conversation 1

"What's that wire up there?"

"It's my ham radio antenna"

"What's ham radio?"

"It's just a hobby where I talk to other ham radio operators."

"Why would you want to do that? Don't you have a telephone and
the internet?"

Conversation 2

"What's that wire up there?"

"It's the antenna for my Amateur Radio station"

"What's Amateur Radio?"

"It's a form of noncommercial radio by which licensed
radio operators all over the world communicate with each other
using a wide variety of methods and technologies."

Which do you think sounds better to a non-ham?

73 de Jim, N2EY

Jeffrey D Angus wrote in
:

Michael Coslo wrote:
Here are some ideas:

The old vertical as a flagpole.

[ Etc. ]

Mind if I play devils advocate here for a minute?

Where is it written that as Licensed Amateur Radio Operators
we have a fair pass to ignore the rules?

Well, we don't really. I only offer advice to those who might have made
a mistake.

What part of "no antennas" in the CC&R you signed do you not
understand?

"But but but, I'm a Ham radio operator!"

I'm sorry, I just keep seeing this same thing over and over
and over and I don't buy it.

I think that in most cases, the Ham didn't read the fine print, or they
might not have been a Ham when they bought the house.

I've been a long term advocate of knowing what you are getting into. I'm
one of thos insufferable geeks that irritate the lawyers and other
people present by reading over the fine print. I'm a quick reader though
- it is 5 to 10 minutes well spent. I even read equipment manuals,
heheh.

I wouldn't buy a house in a neighborhood that wouldn't allow mw to put
up an antenna.

But I know that not everyone is so careful - and I don't think that they
should be punished forever. I think that the fight to give them access
to the airwaves is a good fight.


All that being said, who would want to live in those neighborhoods
anyway? All we have to do is keep the grass cut, the house in good
repair, and no junk cars sitting around. And our neighborhood is a
showpiece. My antennas notwithstanding.


(Along with, since I have a license, I don't need a permit to
put up a tower.)

Well now there is a different kettle of fish. A tower can be a
major liability. We can have them here, but they must be approved by an
engineer. And I agree with that, even if they take the arbitrary "100
percent height fall radius circle". I don't know if any tower has fallen
that way.

At least I wouldn't have to fight the township just to put one up.

- 73 de Mike N3LI -

wrote in news:ada680e6-7277-4ad6-80c7-7ff2cd39d8d7
@m44g2000hsc.googlegroups.com:

On Jul 16, 3:30 pm, Michael Coslo wrote:

snippage

As I peruse through the real estate guides, I'm struck by the number of
homes that are available that do not have restrictive covenants. Even
the village that I live in does not have ban antennas. So I have a nice
woodsey atmosphere, and can do most of the things I want. I wasn't
allowed to set up my still to make corn squeezins! hehe

But my point is that if people are looking for a house, there are
options. It's also very important to read all that boring stuff. I
wonder how many Hams who live in a place that prohibits antennas read
the fineprint.

There are plenty of unrestricted places on the market *now*, because
of the RE market slump and the mortgage crisis.

But not so long ago, it was a different game. At least around here,
houses would often be sold the afternoon they went on the market. It was
not unusual for a house to have multiple offers above the asking price
with a preapproved mortgage and no conditions on the offer.

I can't make too many excuses for those who are in large part
responsible for the terrible mess we are in today.

When we bought our house, we told the RE agent what we were going to
pay, what we were going to accept, and what we weren't. Given that we
planned on buying a house for about 60 percent of the Max amount that the
bank would loan us, the Real Estate people were always trying to push us up
into a higher price range. We fired 2 agents before we landed a good one.

The rest we invested very conservatively. And the real estate agents
and many friends condsidered me an idiot - until recently

In such a market, simply finding out if a place was antenna-restricted
is a real problem. There are deed restrictions on my 1950-built house
(none address antennas) but to find them out my RE lawyer had to go to the
county courthouse and ask the right person for them.

Yup, that's what you have to do

You can only buy a house that is for sale at the time you are looking
to buy. If you happen to need to move at a time when the market is hot,
you're at a distinct disadvantage.

A sound piece of financial advice is never ever buy a house under duress!
Liv in an apartment or rental house for a while if need be, but never buy
because you think you have to. There will be a lot of time to repent at
leisure.

Another tactic is to ask if you can put up an antenna, and if the answer
is no, then politely say, "Too bad-see you later!". If the real estate
agent loses a few sales for something silly like that, then they will
start looking into it.

Yes and no.

For one thing, *NEVER* take a verbal response as binding in such a
situation. Just because the seller or the agent says "yes" or "we can get
that changed" does NOT mean there are no restrictions! You and your RE
attorney need to see the actual documents themselves and go over every
word to make sure there are no restrictions.

Agreed! Our attorney is great, and he worked for the money we paid him.
Checked out all the restrictions and everything else. (as s side note, he
refused to participate in any of the wacky mortgages that have been going
around.

For example, the word "antenna" may not appear anywhere. But there may
be
a restriction that says "No structure may exceed a height of 35
feet" (or whatever). A tower
may be considered a structure in that situation, so if you want a 50
foot tower, you're out
of luck.

Deed covenants and restrictions are usually designed so that they
cannot easily be removed even if all parties want to remove them. The
usual way it works is that each buyer agrees, when
buying the property, to pass them on to the next buyer. So the seller,
and the seller's agent,may not have the right to remove them even if s/he
wants to!

For me it is pretty simple. I don't buy unless the glove fits my hand. If I
want to put up an antenna, I'm going to make sure that I can.

I'd have to respectfully say that too many people seem to think that they
have to buy the house, whatever is offered. I walked away from several
houses when I was looking. It isn't my responsibility to buy the house.


Once the sale is done and you've moved in, it's too late.

IMHO, one of the biggest mistakes many people make is assuming that
because they've read the Constitution, they don't need a lawyer for
things like buying a house. In many situations that's a sure-fire path to
problems.

Never looked at it that way Jim, but that's the truth! We had our lawyer in
the picture from the start - and he was worth every cent we paid him.


Some other problems:

1) A considerable number of hams today were not hams when they moved
into their current homes. Antennas weren't an issue when the moved - now
they are.

2) Considerations such as cost and location are not the same
everywhere. "Move to the country" isn't always an option if doing so
means one or both spouses'jobs are going to be at the end of a long and
expensive commute. School district and access to various services (like
health care) are considerations too.

As a counterpoint, in the central PA area, if your not an academic or well
heeled staff, you can't afford to live near the city. Probably 60 percent
of the people who work here don't live here. It's a well known problem that
we don't have what is called "affordable housing".

snippage


A few years back, a WW2 veteran in his '80s put up a flagpole in his
yard. Every morning he'd raise Old Glory, every night he'd take it down.
He had two grandkids on active duty in Iraq. The HOA went after him
because freestanding flagpoles were specifically prohibited in the rules.
Being in the paper and on TV did not faze them; the rules said no
flagpoles and they were going to enforce those rules.

I think the WW2 vet moved.

Arrgh, I can feel my blood pressure going up.........

MOving was his best solution. No one should live near jerks like that.

Most multiband verticals can be tilted over with kits sold for that
purpose. Maybe that can be hid though the day.

This is a very good idea. While it may not be fun to go outside and
install the antenna before each operating session, it's a solution.

One homebrew way would be to bury a pipe vertically in the ground and
cut it off at the surface. A cap would keep debris out when not in use.

That is how I mount my Vertical. I don't have to take it down, but it is
convenient for tuning the antenna, which has to be don every so often.


The antenna assembly consists of the vertical and a piece of pipe that
will just fit in the
buried pipe. Quick connections to the coax and radial system (both
buried) complete it.

To go on the air, the cap is removed, the antenna assembly raised and
the bottom end put in the hole,
and the connections made.

If the house has plastic gutters, run a wire around them. I'm sure that
is part of a defrosting system - Really, it could be!

The trick is to make the setup so that it is easy to set up in the dark.

And take down.

However even such solutions may not work in some areas. The Gladys
Kravitz factor looms large in them.

Did you see the videos about the housing development where some neighbors
were complaining about the fellow who had a Steppir beam on a nice tower?
Turned out in that development they couldn't do a thing about it.

Personally the antenna and tower was a thing of beauty AFAIAC, certainly
more attractive than those who were complaining about it. Nice house, nice
yard, nice antenna. If you didn't see it, I'll try to find the link.

- 73 de Mike N3LI -

On Jul 16, 7:45 pm, wrote:
On Jul 16, 3:30 pm, Michael Coslo wrote:

There are plenty of unrestricted places on the market *now*, because
of
the RE market slump and the mortgage crisis.

Maybe in your area, but where I live CC&R's are the rule and they will
all pretty much restrict antennas for ham radio use. It all depends
on when the average house was built in your area. The standard way
this works here in the Dallas area is developer buys large tract of
land, applies CC&R's to the tract, subdivides and develops the land to
sell the houses he builds. He throws in a pool and play ground across
from the model homes which is owned by the HOA that gets created by
the CC&R's. 99-100% of the new homes available in the area I live will
come with CC&R's based on these boilerplates. (Personally I know of
NO new homes in my current price range for sale with 10 miles of my
house that won't have CC&R's.)

I've seen only ONE subdivision in my area that would have allowed
antennas in their CC&R's but it was a very special case. The CC&R's
didn't originate with a builder, but where adopted by the land owners
AFTER the subdivision was plated. Those CC&R's where a model of
simplicity and basically dealt with keeping unsightly things to a
minimum. (Keep your house painted a normal color and in good repair,
no junk cars, lawns mowed, fences in good repair etc.)

The problem is that the big builders have boiler plate CC&R's that
change very little between subdivisions. All of these boiler plates
contain restrictions on antennas and are constructed to never expire.
More and more land is becoming off limits to ham radio antennas and
this is a bigger problem in areas that have been under active
development for the last 20-30 years such as Dallas.

Therefore I have to object to the "just move" response to the plight
of hams in CC&R communities. It may be an option for some, but for
others it may not. At some point I may choose to move, and CC&R
restrictions on antennas will likely be something I look at. I can
tell you that I won't be able to buy a comparable house for the same
money without CC&R's in Murphy or the surrounding area. There are
areas that allow them, but they do not compare with where I live in
price or age. Yes, I could drive 40 more miles a day and perhaps find
something that would work, but with the cost of driving these days I’d
be moving into less of a house for sure to make ends meet.

In addition to this, all the CC&R's I've read in my area are usually
drafted to NEVER expire. The only way they will go away is if all the
land owners agree to it (fat chance of that). This land will forever
be of limits for antennas. Year after year as new subdivisions are
built, more and more land will be CC&R's restricted unless they are
limited by law.

As an aside on CC&R's which are all the rage... There are fundamental
problems with CC&R's and pesky HOA's under the current law. Depending
on how they are drafted, they can end up causing some seemingly very
unreasonable consequences for homeowners that may not be obvious by
reading them. Personally, I think they should be put under some
really strict legal limits and the powers of HOA's strictly limited.
But all that is another issue...

All in all I can only hope that this CC&R Craze comes to an end pretty
soon. I don't think they are as much a benifit to landowners as they
are thought to be. But until they fall out of favor to the public or
get pre-empted by law they will only increase in coverage.

Personally, that scares me.

-= Bob =-

"KC4UAI" wrote

Maybe in your area, but where I live CC&R's are the rule and they will
all pretty much restrict antennas for ham radio use. It all depends
on when the average house was built in your area.

All of what you wrote applies to housing here in Tucson. Seems that only if
you're a multi-millionaire can you buy land (if there's any left) and build
your own custom home... completely outside of restrictions (other than
towers, etc.)

I live in one of these CC&R developments, and I'm fortunate to be able to
have something of an antenna in my backyard: an MFJ Hi-Q 10-30m Loop on a 5'
pole. While it's VERY visible from the street (and is quite an effective
antenna), over the 10+ years I've lived here no one's said a word. The
CC&R's state "no antennas without permission." I never asked. That statement
was written, BTW, before the FCC demanded the allowance of tv antennas and
satellite dishes.

When guests ask what my [MFJ antenna] is, I tell them it's my yard
sculpture. I'm fortunate to be under an HOA that's more relaxed than a lot
of the others I've heard about.

N7SO

"Howard Lester" wrote in
acomip:

"KC4UAI" wrote

Maybe in your area, but where I live CC&R's are the rule and they will
all pretty much restrict antennas for ham radio use. It all depends
on when the average house was built in your area.

All of what you wrote applies to housing here in Tucson. Seems that
only if you're a multi-millionaire can you buy land (if there's any
left) and build your own custom home... completely outside of
restrictions (other than towers, etc.)


I can find a lot of houses in this area that don't allow much of anything
too. I'd respectfully suggest that people might look a little harder based
on the fact that a whole lot of people in this area believe that even my
neighborhood will not allow antennas, and don't believe me when I tell them
it does.

If it is true that there is no land available in either Dallas or Tucson
that would allow antennas, then that is indeed sad. I simply would not live
there.

- 73 de Mike N3LI -

Dick Grady AC7EL wrote in
:

On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:32:00 EDT, wrote:

Besides pushing Congress, one of the things I think we hams could do
to help the process is to never refer to amateur radio as "a hobby" or
even worse, "just a hobby". While most hams do radio simply as an
avocation, IMHO the word "hobby" carries with it a sort of meaning
that it's not a serious thing worthy of protection.


Then what do we call it? Avocation? Pasttime? no, none of these
terms seem appropriate, either.

I know! It's emergency preparation and training. Now that's sounds
impressive..
73 de Dick, AC7EL

How about "service". The Amateur Radio Service!

73 de KC1IH

"Mike Coslo" wrote

If it is true that there is no land available in either Dallas or Tucson
that would allow antennas, then that is indeed sad. I simply would not
live
there.

Mike, there is land and housing in Tucson that allows antennas, but in
general, as far as I know either you have to be "out in the county," or in
an older, very established neighborhood. That seems to be "in general," as
I'm sure there are exceptions. But if you want a new, modest home in a
typical family-oriented subdivision, it is not at all likely you'll find one
that allows antennas. If you've "got money," then your options are greater.

Howard N7SO