Real Estate and Amateur Radio
Whether you’re an old timer, a brand-new ham, or just thinking it might be fun to try someday, there are some real estate considerations to ponder. For many - but not all - hams there is no longer even the possibility of putting up any antenna without hassles with the neighbors, or even the law! Now remember, an antenna for UHF may only be less than six inches in any one dimension! It might not even be visible from beyond many property boundaries.
How did we arrive at this state of affairs? (I have to be very careful how I explain this, or you may be able to guess my politics…) A great percentage of the problem arose when municipalities sought to ameliorate the cost of public parks by requiring sub-dividers to set aside land for parks and then requiring them to put in place a mechanism to fund the upkeep of said spaces. Being profit-minded, the developers sought a way to do that with as little cost to them as possible. At the same time, there arose throughout the land a class of home buyer who desired to protect their property value by limiting the enjoyment of others of their property. They didn’t want you to paint your house purple, because they didn’t like purple houses, as an example. As the number of these types of buyers increased, they tended to band together in neighborhood associations and similarly named groups.
The developers saw an opportunity! They began to incorporate the concept of neighborhood associations into their new developments. They sold them as protection from unsightly neighborhoods, etc, but one of the “duties” of the association was to pay the taxes and upkeep on the “open space” and parks. Soon these Homeowners Associations (HOAs) were the norm in subdivisions. The builders and developers even had pre-written Covenants and Conditions written into the deeds of their homes to make it easier for the HOAs to function after the developer was out of the picture.
Now, to be fair, most of these homeowner’s association documents were written in Washington, D.C. by lawyers for the National Association of Homebuilders and other similar groups. All the local builder did was boilerplate them to his situation and the legal addresses of his subdivisions. Apparently one or more of those lawyers thought antennas were ugly and wanted to protect homeowners from them. Primarily, I suppose that the old fashioned TV antennas were the main target of the wording. But, to many, an antenna is an antenna.
Amateur radio operators always need antennas to propagate their signals. One of the laws of physics that hams have to deal with is that the shortest marginally efficient radiator is ¼ of a wavelength long. (And it takes two elements to work.) That gives us an antenna that is approximately 132 feet long for an eighty meter station. (80m/4 = 20m x 1.33 feet per meter x 2 elements…) Now, the antennas don’t have to be straight to work, so many hams have wire antennas in the trees around their homes that you really cannot see unless you know where to look. (The neighborhood watchers seem to know.)
Take heart! There are plenty of areas in most locations where there are no HOAs and no antenna covenants. There usually still are local laws, but through the efforts of local amateurs and the support of the ARRL, the national organization for amateur radio, there have been successful efforts in many, many areas to make sure that the laws on antenna height do not unfairly target hams. It is often necessary to do research yourself to point out to the local building code enforcement people where their statutes and ordinances permit antennas and usually there is a fee to pay for inspection of tower installations and so forth, but if you pick the right subdivision in the first place it can be done! It helps to belong to the local club to gain from the experience of others.
Additionally there is a national effort to make it easier for municipalities, and states for that matter, to lessen the impact on hams. There is Federal Communications Commission rulemaking going back to 1985, commonly called PRB1 which seeks to lessen the impact on amateurs. You can Google PRB1 to read more. Some interesting rulemaking petitions from the ARRL are also available here: http://www.arrl.org/announce/regulatory/prb-1/prb1-recon.pdf
Suffice it to say that an important part of finding a home where antennas are easiest to install is the use of an informed REALTOR®. In the northern Colorado Front Range, I’m your man. I have lived in the area for my entire life. I am involved in most of the local clubs, and have sold real estate and industrial supplies in the area since 1975. It has been my interest to seek out the ham friendly areas for the last ten or fifteen years.
Jim Walker – NØXDA
Email: n0xda@msn.com cell: 303 775 0296
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