Scott McClements wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 2:12 PM, Kelly Johnson <n6kj.kelly@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Some cities will try to
>> regulate amateur radio towers under the same ordinance that covers
>> cell towers. That's not a good thing for hams. Most cell tower
>> ordinances require special use permits, public hearings, excessive
>> screening requirements, and often limit you to a "monopole" design.
>
> In my case my city has verbage that ham towers are exempt from the
> height limits and setbacks laws. It differentiates between a cell
> tower and ham tower. That's good. What is not good is that building a
> ham tower in my town goes against the same specs as the cell phone
> towers. In my case TIA222 Rev F. At that speed my HDX572 tower is
> only allowed to carry 10sq/ft of windload. With TIA222 Rev G, my
> HDX572 won't even carry its own weight. I am all for thought/planning
> and safety, but I think we are getting to the point where most hams
> will no longer be able to afford a tower that meets the building
> requirements.
And, thankfully, ham radio will adapt and find a solution. Towers,
beams, and rotators came about as popular in the ham world because they
were an way to do something in a small area that previously required
huge land areas (rhombics, etc.), which became infeasible for a variety
of reasons. The use of SSB came about for similar reasons (i.e. it
provided a technological solution to a problem).
It's entirely plausible that the 50s-70s style ham station is fading
out, just as relatively few hams still use rotary spark gaps as a
modulator and coherers as detectors connected to a curtain array today.
That's what's cool about ham radio. The Part 97 rules don't say "you
have to do X".. they say "you can't do Y", and there's a huge space
that's "not Y" to fool around in.
Not a problem for a cell phone company who is putting
> up a tower to pull in revenue. Furthermore, if we had the weather
> conditions specified in TIA222 Rev G, does it matter that I would come
> home after a weather event and find my tower standing and all trees
> and my house leveled?
Well.. at least you could hook a tarp up to the tower for temporary
shelter <grin>.. and, you could operate the next contest with your
family looking on from the heaps of rubble in adoring wonder.
Jim
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|