On 10/15/2011 1:11 AM, Phil Kane wrote:
On Fri, 14 Oct 2011 12:21:06 EDT, Bill
wrote:

1. CC&R's or other homeowner agreements may or may not obligate
homeowner to avoid erecting separate antenna structures, but you don't
know that they specifically prohibit the use of concealed antennas for
amateur radio.

FCC rulings in several cases have held that HOA regulations or CC&Rs
can prohibit erection of antennas on property that they have
jurisdiction over, but only the FCC can determine who and where radio
transmitters can be operated.
-- 73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane
ARRL Volunteer Counsel

email: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net



But unless the HOA or CC*R are made clear at time of purchase.. I mean
when I bought my house they gave me a pile of papers.. I'm not a
lwayer,, How do I ,now of there were any "restrictions" beyond city
ordinances and state law? (Actually... I did read them rather closely,
no restrictions)

But I also do my own taxes, Understand IBM owner's manuals and other
things that are not supposed to be possible for people at my level of
education.

--
Nothing adds Excitement like something that is none of your business.

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On 10/18/11 9:22 PM, Bill Horne wrote:

I'm not saying that ham radio is dead: that's not the question here. The
question is if "we" deserve special consideration from the government
because we're hams.

I agree with your contention. No, ham radio is not dead . . . but we
cannot expect any special treatment based on knowledge or abilities that
we can provide. Part of this is progress in technology and part of it
is our own fault.

Developments in technology have reduced the need for what we can offer.
Mother Nature still reminds us that our fine technology is at her
pleasure, but not often. Hurricane Katrina illustrated the frailty of
modern communications, but it also illustrated how things have changed
in the role of ham radio in disasters. We no longer are a significant
carrier of health and welfare traffic.

There are groups that do a good job of public service and obtaining
recognition, but they're rare and getting rarer. The general public,
and by extension the legislators who make our laws, perceive ham radio
in the same way that they knew Citizens Band in its day, and that
perception is painfully accurate. If we don't provide a benefit to the
public, why should the public make any effort to reward us?

73, Steve KB9X

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:27:41 EDT, Steve Bonine wrote:

Hurricane Katrina illustrated the frailty of
modern communications, but it also illustrated how things have changed
in the role of ham radio in disasters. We no longer are a significant
carrier of health and welfare traffic.

Or a backup for public safety or other "commercial" communications.
--

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

e-mail: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 00:33:16 EDT, John Davis
wrote:

But unless the HOA or CC*R are made clear at time of purchase.. I mean
when I bought my house they gave me a pile of papers.. I'm not a
lwayer,, How do I ,now of there were any "restrictions" beyond city
ordinances and state law? (Actually... I did read them rather closely,
no restrictions)

It's called "due diligence" - determine what you are looking for and
see if it is (or is not) there or anywhere else.

With all due respect, if someone cannot do it for themself, they need
to have a professional such as your real estate agent or attorney do
it for them just as they have a professional do a title search.
-- 73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane
ARRL Volunteer Counsel

email: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 00:32:39 EDT, John Davis
wrote:

If I buy a plot of land.. Short of laws, it's MY
property.

Subject to any provisions or terms of the sale agreement. That's what
deed restrictions (CC&Rs) are all about.

I don't like deed restrictions that limit ham antennas, and I devote
my professional skills to assisting buyers to understand that they are
there and how they apply or don't apply to a ham antenna installation
before they finalize the purchase, but short of state or Federal
intervention, they are there.

In California we tried to have the courts invalidate them just as
racial restrictions are invalid, but the Court of Appeal said "no
way". Ditto for stretching PRB-1 to cover them. We tried...we
tried..... (the case was Hotz v Rich, 1992)
-- 73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane
ARRL Volunteer Counsel

email: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net

In article ,
Phil Kane wrote:

Hurricane Katrina illustrated the frailty of
modern communications, but it also illustrated how things have changed
in the role of ham radio in disasters. We no longer are a significant
carrier of health and welfare traffic.

Or a backup for public safety or other "commercial" communications.

I think that depends, to a very significant degree, on how well
organized and trained we are, and how well integrated with the local
emergency-response community.

A randomly-selected gang of hams, with their radios but with no
specific tranining or organization or ability to work as a group, is
not likely (in my opinion) to be very useful in times of emergency.
They won't know how to figure out what the local governments need in
terms of emergency communications, they won't know where to go or who
to talk with, they won't be set up with any sort of predictable
communications plan in advance, etc.

If they show up at the location of a disaster or emergency, they'll
probably be treated as "loose cannons" by the police, fire department,
other government representatives, etc. and asked to go away and let
the professionals do their job. At best they'll be treated like any
other "convergent volunteers" of unknown capability and reliability.

On the other hand... I believe that local ham groups, if well
organized and trained, working in close cooperation with local
governments and emergency-response teams, can be a very valuable
asset, and see as such by government organizations.

I have the good fortune to live in a city (and county) which has some
very effective arrangements of that sort. We *have* been called out
by the county on at least one occasion in the past few years, to serve
as backup communicators for the police/fire infrastructure (somebody
sabotaged several fiber-optic cables and knocked out all of the
telephones and cellphones in south Santa Clara County back in 2009).
I still have a very nice thank-you letter from the city manager of
Morgan Hill.

One area in which our service has been particularly useful to the
cities is our ability to act as "eyes and ears" during the first few
hours after a disaster. We can provide the city emergency manager
with a quick overview of damage (e.g. after an earthquake, or during a
winter storm with flooding) throughout the city, within 15 minutes or
so, via neighborhood walkthroughs and "windshield survey" drive-by
summaries. This helps the city figure out where their (strictly
limited) police and fire resources are best utilized. It would take
the city hours, if not days, to do this just with their own
personnel... and the city governments view this as a very valuable
service for us to provide.

If hams want to be treated as being worthy of some special treatment,
then I believe that this must be earned, through practical
demonstration and through active cooperation and training. It *can*
be done, but it doesn't come for free.

It's not the "ham radio" per se that's important (although the
privileges are very useful)... it's the fact that we're trained,
dependable communicators willing to serve.

--
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!

On 10/24/11 3:39 PM, Dave Platt wrote:
In ,
Phil wrote:

Hurricane Katrina illustrated the frailty of
modern communications, but it also illustrated how things have changed
in the role of ham radio in disasters. We no longer are a significant
carrier of health and welfare traffic.

Or a backup for public safety or other "commercial" communications.

I think that depends, to a very significant degree, on how well
organized and trained we are, and how well integrated with the local
emergency-response community.

Agree completely. The "well integrated" part is especially important.
The relationships must be forged before the event.

I have the good fortune to live in a city (and county) which has some
very effective arrangements of that sort.

And I have the bad fortune to live in an area where the situation is
exactly the opposite. Perhaps I should be able to remedy this
situation, and I tried for a while but failed. I do not know whether
that failure is a result of my shortcomings, the local ham population,
or both.

We *have* been called out
by the county on at least one occasion in the past few years,

Our local emergency management people made a valiant effort to work with
the local radio club for several years, even to the point of holding
fundraisers to finance the local repeaters. Their thanks for that was a
failure to install the purchased gear and a lack of response when the
local club was called upon to assist with communications related to a
search operation. They learned; we taught them.

If hams want to be treated as being worthy of some special treatment,
then I believe that this must be earned, through practical
demonstration and through active cooperation and training. It *can*
be done, but it doesn't come for free.

Exactly. It takes good organizers and people who care. We are missing
one or both of those in this geographic area.

It's not the "ham radio" per se that's important (although the
privileges are very useful)... it's the fact that we're trained,
dependable communicators willing to serve.

One of the problems with the locals is that they expected exactly the
special treatment that they had not earned, acting like prima donnas.
They made it excruciatingly clear that the only task they would consider
was pure communications, and that it would be done on their terms.

73, Steve KB9X

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:39:32 EDT, (Dave Platt)
wrote:

We no longer are a significant carrier of health and welfare traffic.

Or a backup for public safety or other "commercial" communications.

I think that depends, to a very significant degree, on how well
organized and trained we are, and how well integrated with the local
emergency-response community.

I walk on both sides of the street on that one.

As an active member of the local ARES/RACES group, we are well
integrated with the state, county, city, and special district
governmental agencies and we train seriously for that purpose. I
personally am the co-station manager for the Disaster Communications
Team of the local med center, part of a group of NGO hospitals serving
this area.

Conversely, I am the VP-General Counsel and Engineering Manager of a
major consulting engineering firm specializing in public safety
communications. Our clients include major governmental agencies which
are heavily invested in redundancy and survivability of their own
systems to the point where they will not have to rely on outside
resources. We don't sell, install, or recommend equipment - we just
design and evaluate their systems and handle all the regulatory
process involved.

I'm just telling it as it is.
--

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

e-mail: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net

In article , Steve Bonine wrote:

One of the problems with the locals is that they expected exactly the
special treatment that they had not earned, acting like prima donnas.

That's not good, and I agree that it's a problem. That sort of
attitude can certainly generate some serious negative reactions on the
part of the full-time emergency response officials.

They made it excruciatingly clear that the only task they would consider
was pure communications, and that it would be done on their terms.

Well, in our training, we have been told that communications is all
we're supposed to do, when we're deployed. This is for two reasons:

(1) We may be the only effective communicators at a particular
location... that's what we're deployed to do. If we're asked to
(e.g.) direct traffic, we're not communicating, and not doing our
jobs.

[On the other hand, "communicator" is a very broad term. If we're
not needed 'on the air' we can be asked to carry messages back
and forth in person, or use the phone, or fax, or etc., or to
take a public-service radio rather than a ham radio... this is
all within our job scope.]

(2) We're covered under the California Disaster Service Worker program,
which gives us some liability protection and worker's-comp
coverage if we're injured (as I mentioned). The rules for this
program say that we're covered *only* when we're acting within the
scope of our assignment and within the scope of our training, and
are properly supervised.

If we start doing jobs for which we are not properly trained,
we're not covered, and are potentially liable for any damage or
harm that we do. If we go off on our own and are out of contact
with our supervisors (city or county), then we're not covered
(with the exception that a direct order from a sworn law
enforcement official takes priority).

--
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!

In article , Steve Bonine wrote:

Developments in technology have reduced the need for what we can offer.
Mother Nature still reminds us that our fine technology is at her
pleasure, but not often. Hurricane Katrina illustrated the frailty of
modern communications, but it also illustrated how things have changed
in the role of ham radio in disasters.

At a panel discussion about the future of amateur radio at Pacificon
(the ARRL Pacific Division convention) a couple of weeks ago, I was
struck by the fact that all four speakers--including officials well
informed about both national and international trends--said that
hams will soon play almost no role in disaster communications. I knew
that other services were getting stronger, but I didn't realize that
the prospects were going to change that dramatically for us that soon.
One person (Chris Imlay?) did mention some nice words from the director
of FEMA, which I found he

http://www.arrl.org/news/fema-admini...ine-of-defense

But there was also discussion of satellite phones that can be set up
in minutes basically by pressing a button, and of on-the-fly data
networks.

From what I heard at the convention, the best hope for helping amateur
radio thrive is getting back to its roots of innovation--in particular,
by getting hams involved with the Maker movement (and vice versa). In
fact, I think the League has something up its sleeve about that. If it
works, it could help keep us in the good graces of those who dish out
frequencies and make rules about antennas.


Patty
N6BIS