Antenna Restrictions

I had a great time at the BARCFEST yesterday in Longmont. BARCFEST is mostly a swapmeet with the addition of a VE session, some door prizes and a tasty food concession.

While I sat at my campaign table people would wander by looking at all of the displayed treasures on the neighboring tables. I'd say "good morning" and sometimes we would start a conversation.

The issue that I came away with as most pressing on hams in this division is the one of antenna restrictions. All new housing seems to have covenant restrictions on antennas. It was expressed to me that it is disappointing that the ARRL hasn't been able to generate more leadership on this problem. I can see why that might be true if we look at it only on the legal side. Potential homeowners voluntarily enter into an agreement when they buy a house that limits their use of their own property. Where does the ARRL fit in a such an arrangement? On the outside!

Who is hurt? Someone who buys a house and agrees to the restrictions could later take up an interest in ham radio. Or, it may be argued that the only houses available require the agreement. But a point was raised that our efforts to get young people interested in ham radio are thwarted by these restrictions. Young-teen potential-ham lives in a house that his parents purchased and is stuck with the rules of the housing covenant!

Ideas

Maybe the first idea is to subvert or avoid the restrictions by building stealth antennas, attic antennas, indoor antennas and other unconventional antenna systems. This takes the issue into the same realm that apartment dwellers deal with every day.

Since the fundamental issue is real estate, moving the station away from home is a reasonable response. Club stations are kind of rare around here. But who says the radio club is only for drinking coffee and talking? Who says club dues should be $20/year? Start a radio club with 20 friends and charge $100/month dues and you have yourself enough money to buy some property and build an antenna system.

That may leave our youthful beginning hams in a money crunch. So we turn to the old idea of the Radio Elmer. Besides borrowing the Elmer's soldering gun, maybe the beginner could borrow the Elmer's operating position.

With the most recent crop of radios we get into the realm of remote control in a serious fashion. Do you know a ham who has an antenna farm but doesn't operate 24x7? There you have the makings for a remote station. Pool the cost of a modern radio and an internet connection and you are flying.

Finally there is the local park. With a QRP radio, a gel cell and some wire the park could be your regular QTH.

I hope I've given you some ideas. If your station is sitting idle, consider opening it up for some young hams to use during the next contest or invite some over to hit that rare DX. For a little more investment that neighbor kid who is always on the internet could be using your radio to learn CW or work a rare station. If you are in a radio club, think about using the club's resources not just to maintain the 2 meter repeater (one of 20 others in the area?) but to lease a quarter acre of ground for a tower, a Home-Depot shed and a generator. It could be "BYOG", bring your own gas.

Antenna restrictions can't keep a good ham down!

So where should the ARRL apply it's big hammer to this issue? First, I think that a study of the source and nature of antenna restrictions should be done. Do these housing associations use boilerplate language? Where do they obtain it? Can we influence that source? Second, some legal challenges may be in order if we can find test cases. Third, the promotion of alternative station sites, Elmering, subscription stations, rental stations, any other schemes that put antenna resources out there for hams to employ. A simple directory of internet accessible remote stations would be a good start, how about an addition to the affiliated club database that indicates if a club has a club station. And an internet station could use ARRL advertising and directories to bring in new subscribers and members.

I'm kind of excited about some of these ideas. Let me know what you think by posting a comment to this blog entry or send me an email.

73 for now
Chris
w0ep