🚀 go-pugleaf

Larry <noone@home.com> wrote:

>Back in the 1980's every little fiefdom from the homeowner's association 
>to the city to the county to the state were writing 
>ordinances/regulations/laws that virtually said ham operators could only 
>have antenna systems THEY approved, no matter if the amateur, who 
>provides emergency communications in time of national disaster, could 
>communicate with other amateurs or not.  They didn't care if your radio 
>worked, they cared that noone could see any antenna, at all if they 
>could get away with it.

Antennas are ugly, especially those 40 meter rotating monstrosities.  Also, I 
think the service hams provide during disasters is very overrated.  When you 
live among other people you have to get along with other people.  This means 
complying with local regulations designed to improve the aesthetics of a 
neighborhood.  

Signs of a low-class neighborhood include cars parked in front yards and huge 
ham antennas.  I'm thinking San Leandro just off Davis Street, and most 
neighborhoods in Concord and Pittsburg.  

If hams truly want to serve the public that they're always talking about 
serving, then they should erect disguised antennas or at least those that are 
somewhat pleasing to look at.  

I'm speaking as a former ham, though I haven't been active since high school.  


>Amateur Radio Relay League, our national ham radio organization that 
>coordinates and lobbies and kisses the bureaucrats' asses to keep us on 
>the air and keep commercial interests, like sellphone companies, from 
>stealing our frequency bands we've had since 1900, with only partial 
>success, [....]

It is *right* that the FCC should take away some ham bands.  Ham radio is 
experimental radio.  There isn't much to experiment with any longer, and the 
remaining bands provide plenty of space for experimentation.  Most hams don't 
experiment at all.  They buy lots of equipment and work QSO's halfway around 
the world to talk about their rigs.  They collect wallpaper.  They don't 
provide much of a community service, except in those very rare instances of 
disasters, and then I don't see that they do that much that can't otherwise be 
done by local disaster folks using conventional VHF and UHF 2-way.