Amateur Radio Parity Act New Video

Burt Fisher

I am aware of your desire for correctness. No one lives IN Cape Cod, they live ON Cape Cod.

It is amazing you know more about an area than I do. I first lived here in 1964. I was taken to an HOA and made a CHOICE to not live there. There are areas that are old but not many. Very few residents are born Cape Codders. A common question is, "Where are you from?"

That said only those with no honor would sign an AGREEMENT (get it AGREEMENT) and then try to abrogate it. I would like to live on the French Riviera but they probably won't allow towers, so guess what I live where they do.

You would be complaining from the highest tower of someone made an agreement with Howard and then tried to welch on it.

Burt Fisher

Yes Howard I take controversial positions when I have no dog in the fight. I protect students that are bullied, I fought when a black friend was denied access to a beach, I fight injustice where I see it whether it affects me or not. You are supporting this parity act even though you also have no dog in the fight. But if I do it, I am just  doing it to raise the ire of people in this community? Right I forgot how that works, you get the high horse I get the dung because you are you and I am me.

KY6LA_Howard

We all do actually have a dog in the hunt in that if the currently unfair (it only applies to ham antennas Now) anachronistic (because the rest of the antenna restrictions have already been voided by Congress) deed restrictions will ultimately **** ham radio...

So you are wrong because you are trying to continue the rules harming other hams

KY6LA_Howard

FYI -

1. Lots of Antennas on the French Riviera... I use them all the time when I am there..
2..You have obviously never been in Business... People, Companies and especially Governments abrogate agreements all the time...even with me.. ...
3.  there is a significant difference between an voluntary agreement and an agreement in which you have no choice but to accept if you want to live there such as a HOA Deed Restriction
4.   You clearly have failed to watch the video or read the legislation.  it only requires that HOA provide "Reasonable Accommodation" for the possibility of a negotiated settlement not blanket antenna approval.
5.  HOA can and do change their agreements all the time.  This legislation just opens up the previously closed Antenna Restriction clause for negotiation NOT removal.
6.  So if and when the HOA negotiates a new agreement with the Ham  NO ONE is going back on their word.

Walt - KZ1F

And it also proves for someone who was not a ham when they bought in to become one without having to move out. Burt, do you live on Massachusetts too?

Walt - KZ1F

Ken, I think we discovered your post pastoral calling, community organizer. Hihi. At some point I should make a trip out to attend a Sunday sermon. You, sir, are not at a loss for passion!

DrTeeth

Howard, could you please explain to me why the banks are involved in banning antennas? I just do not get it. Do the restrictions apply to regular TV antennas? Even if TV were broadcast on VHF, the antennas are not that bad at all. As everybody who had a TV would need one I cannot understand how anybody could be against them. We do not have any such stuff here in the UK. Technically, one does need planning permission in if any antenna is higher than the roof. But as we can mount our TV antennas (UHF) on the roof without the need for planning permission (and the helpful baksheesh), we could probably get away with mounting other larger ones (VHF/UHF). Naturally, all the neighbours get asked if they mind. Currently, my antenna is almost invisible - even I can hardly see it and nobody saw me put it up. Easier to stay with wire antennas as no aggravation. Naturally, one of my neighbours is a certifiable meshuggener and is well known to the local council and the police. It would be a nice dream to live on a plot so large that I could not see my neighbours so could do what I liked antenna-wise. My garden in 100ft long and currently have a 100ft end-fed that is on the low side. When health permits, I'll improve it and also experiment with wire antennas.

Ned K1NJ

     Well done. Thank you, Howard. 

Ned,  K1NJ

Walt - KZ1F

Guy, I suspect the cable oulets, Time Warner, Comcast, Cox, Charter, etc owned a piece of that. Yes, they too were orinally banned. Oh, and direct TV as there was an exclusion for pizza box satellite receivers. I never heard of banks involvement but that makes sense. At one point we lived in Reston VA and Sterling VA and when a bank puts up millions of dollars in construction loans for a developer they have an interest in a quick return on their investment. I suspect, too, radios are cleaner now than in the 80's I remember then the big source of concern was not interfering with your neighbor's TV. I don't hear so much on that concern now.

KY6LA_Howard

@Guy
Developers who build houses normally need to get loans from their banks in order to fund the construction and then new loans from the banks to fund the purchasers.   The banks collect these loans and package them for sale to investors (e.g Pension funds) as Banks in the USA rarely use their own money.    In order to make the packaging of loans easier there had to be some consistency within the structure of the loans so that investors would not pick and chose between specific loans but rather just buy the package.  The easiest solution to enforce consistency was for the banks to insist on specific deed restrictions on the properties and instituted HOA to ensure that these deed restrictions survive after the developer finishes with the development. 

In the late 1960's Cable Companies started to pervert the bank mandated deed restrictions by PAYING Developers to include Antenna Restrictions on the deed restrictions so that the ultimate purchasers of the properties could not put up any TV antennas and were FORCED to buy cable TV in they wished to watch TV.  The situation was further exasperated because Municipalities collected a Franchise Fee from the Cable companies so they cities had a financial reason to continue the ban.

Basically these restriction were "Follow the Money"

But as I said in 1995 the Satellite TV Companies rebelled and forced Congress to pass the Other The Air Receiving (OTARD)  Devices Act which totally voided ALL TV and Radio Receiving Antenna Restrictions included in HOA Agreements.  This means that anyone in a HOA can have a TV antenna or a Satellite Antenna...

Unfortunately they did not void the part that could be interpreted to apply to Ham Antennas...Hence the need for the Parity Act to correct the disproportionate harm done to ham radio by giving hams the right to NEGOTIATE with the HOA to modify the terms of their agreements under the Reasonable Accommodation process. ...

KY6LA_Howard

@Ken
If such a Ham Radio paradise exists.. i really hope you find it.....

Ken - NM9P

If I remember correctly, at first the exemption had a rule that said that HOA's and CCR's cannot prohibit a home TV receiving antenna that is no more than 18 inches in diameter - a clear nod to DirecTV and Primestar, the forerunner to Dish Network.  Then the TV Broadcasters said "Hey, we want a piece of that pie, too."   So the preemption was extended to include OTA TV antennas.  I remember reading an article from a ham who purchased the largest, ugliest, fringe area TV antenna he could find and put it up.  The HOA was forced to allow it, since it was an OTA TV Antenna.  Then a few months later he told them that we was going to replace it.  He replaced it with a 13 element 2 meter yagi and they were happy, because it was so much smaller and more attractive....

Interesting to note that the FCC's PRB-1 declares a federal preemption for municipal regulation of AMATEUR radio antennas, but NOT CB antennas, which are far more prevalent in some parts of the country.  But since CB's are no longer licensed, (and are not a recognized vital emergency communications service) they get no protection from PRB-1.

Ken - NM9P

Ken - NM9P

I dream about a plateau in Arizona, or somewhere near the Prescott Valley, or at about 5000 ft. altitude in New Mexico.   But I probably wouldn't be able to afford housing.  My budget will probably allow between $165K - $250K for a house, unless the market takes off dramatically in the next couple of years and my pension account grows.  I will need to pull it back to a safer, more diversified, more stable investment portfolio in a few years to hedge against another 2008 style crash. So if it is going to grow a lot, it better do it quickly! 

Regardless of what my own preference is, I might never get my XYL out of Indiana because she will be so very tied to family that is here.  I keep joking that they can come to see us anytime they want.  But the older she gets, the more tied she is to "home" even though we have lived in church-provided parsonages in various parts of the state for the past 32 years.  
We may end up in Tennessee, near the foothills of the Smokies, or Western KY.  Or perhaps stay in Southern Indiana and get a cheap place for wintering in South TX.  I don't really want to go to Florida.

I dream of having my own place with no need to get approval from a board of Trustees in order to put up an antenna or punch a hole in the wall for antenna feedlines.  Most have been cooperative, but I was at one place for 4 years and was never able to present a plan that didn't get nixed by one of the patriarchs who was afraid that it would devalue the property if I drilled a little hole in the brick wall or a soffit to feed my RG-8.  They didn't have a problem when I needed to do the same thing for the DirecTV dish.  Same sized hole! Go figure.  I practically did without Ham radio for four years, except from my mobile.  It was an RF noisy neighborhood and indoor antennas were useless.

Ken - NM9P

Ken - NM9P

Ha!  I like some places in California, but could never afford a house there, not to mention the cost of living and taxes!  But I would love to move somewhere out west.  I love ND & SD in the summer, but I need somewhere I can live for more than two months!  We are very find of NW Montana and the Glacier NP region.  But the same thing applies.  We love the mountains and would like to be near them, to see them, but not right IN them.  WY, UT, ID might be interesting places.  I like CO, but don't think I would survive politically.  OR and WA have too many environmentalist obstacles, but they are beautiful.  

I still have plenty of time to dream!  Part of our vacation travels lately include observation of potential retirement friendly towns.  

James Del Principe

Ken, the Smokies are a great place to be. I can't wait to get back for another visit. Think long and hard about taking a woman away from her family. I did that twice with disastrous consequences.....For now, my HOA of which I sit on the board, has no problem with wires in trees.....a tower? I don't wish to push my luck.   73, Jim

Burt Fisher

Howard said, "So you are wrong because you are trying to continue the rules harming other hams" So I am supposed to help the almighty ham regardless of what is best for people who intend to keep agreements? On the list of groups and people that are important hams rank well below almost all others. Hams as you and most others in this thread have demonstrated are all about me, me, my, my, I, I. Self, self, self. " I need my tower" " I am king" "My wants (not needs) trump your peace and tranquility."

KY6LA_Howard

I could have compromised with the city and saved a lot of money as well as years of agony in the courts but instead I fought the very expensive antenna wars so that hams who did not have the means to fight city hall would not have to fight city hall ever again. I was lucky on in the fact that the judge awarded me significant monetary damages or I would have been out of pocket a lot of money. I personally funded much of the cost of fighting the 2008 proposed legislative restrictions on ham antennas even though my tower was grandfathered in 2005. Do I don't think anyone could say it was about me. @Burt. You continue to fail to read the proposed Parity Act or watch the video or you,would realize that the act is not going to breach any existing agreements but rather it only requires the HOA to come to the table to NEGOTIATE REASONABLE ACCOMODATION. This is no different than when you ask your HOA to allow you to remove your required very expensive water **** grass and replace it with drought resistant plants.(As of Jan 1, 2016 California HOA had to reasonably accommodate drought resistant plants.). Such changes to HOA a agreements are nothing new. They happen all the time. No one is abrogating agreements. Rather the various parties are coming together to reasonably accommodating each other Please watch the video and read the Act before you continue to make your totally unsupportable claims about anyone not keeping agreements. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Burt Fisher

Howard there you go again. I ran my own TV repair and computer business, I was also President of a large union where the thought of abrogating an agreement was abhorrent to both parties because we were people of honor. I watched the propaganda Communists of old would be proud of. It is amazing you know what I watch. If this bill is just about getting parties talking, they can do that without a bill. The bill is about hams trying to foist their will on others with no redeeming reason. 

Walt I think I mentioned I was on Cape Cod.

Burt Fisher

Tell me how you know I neither watched the video or read the act? I have done both.  I applaud your fight with authorities by the way.

Walt - KZ1F

Burt, why do you insist people are abrogating their agreements?

Ernest - W4EG

Corey...

I am sorry to tell you....YOU DON'T WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT...

Tim - W4TME

I think the intent of this post as a PSA has reached its intended audience and the secondary personal discussions have no real benefit to the community as a whole, so I am closing this topic.