In 1998, I moved to 160 acres in rural Wyoming to pursue my goals in ham
radio. Primarily, to earn my 5BDXCC and 5BWAZ while diving into low band
sciences. I needed a ton of room and an RF quiet area. For 5 years, it was a
blast
and I have my awards, but now I'm back in suburban Denver with my Gap Titan.
Complaining neighbors suck if you are serious about the hobby. So I said
F-it and moved where I could enjoy it- 100 miles due north th the SE corner of
Wyoming- I know not everybody can pick up and live in rural America...I have a
internet company so it was no big deal. But I do think as Hams, we have to
consider our neighbors. Cure 98% of their RFI, the remaining 2% becomes 100%
of a problem again-
But balance it out with reasonable installations and power will be better
for all of us in the long run. I say if you want three towers etc.....you need
some more room- I'm not siding with the neighbors, but their is a sense of
reasonable compromise missing here- By the way, my new house is 4,200 sq feet
built in 1996 with no covenants- This is a rather decent neighborhood where
99% of homes are in covenants- But I can put up what ever I want as long as
it's
5 feet back from my property line- My street was developed a few months after
the developers moved out- I was lucky-
I can empathize but when it comes down to it- We all need to realize that
if you really want to achieve goals in this hobby, you need better real estate
than you can find in suburban areas- Instead of spending 25K on legal fees, I
would have used it to buy some land as close as possible as far away as
possible from neighbors- Sounds simple eh? Not really. My endeavors most
likely
cost me over $100k in lost time, opportunity costs for the move, etc....but you
know, some awards/QSO's are priceless-
On my last morning in Wyoming, for the first time, I work mainland Asia on
160 Meters with a HL station and Nepal on 80M with my 4 sqr- I felt the DX Gods
were saying "we appreciate your whacko interest in our hobby, but its time to
get back to reality now"
Now my gear sits in the corner of a very nice custom installation collecting
dust- what happened? I'm fried out on contesting due to software failures
etc......and I worked everything that was on from 1998-2001. Climb the
mountain,
and the view is never the same- But power on to those of you still reaching
for your goals! Carma will come through even in bad conditions-
But my point in all of this is be reasonable- You don't go firing off guns in
a populated area as one ham used to metphorize this- and three 90 foot towers
in a back yard seems bent on delusion.............as was my move to Wyoming!
This topic has to have set some sort of tower talk record-
73 Paul N0AH
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