This rebuttal was posted today in the Dallas Morning News:
Ham radios are not at fault
Fred E. Zimmerman's July 29 diatribe against ham radio operators and
that mean old federal government contains some seriously inaccurate
information on one hand and some scary viewpoints on another.
His assertion that ham operators are not held responsible for any
interference is simply untrue. We are required by Part 97 of the FCC
regulations to meet specific standards of signal purity, etc., and
when the interference is of our making, every amateur radio operator
whom I'm aware of goes through significant lengths to resolve that
problem. What Mr. Zimmerman and others may not be aware of is that many
consumer electronic devices are produced with inadequate radio frequency
shielding, making them vulnerable to interference from various radio
sources. Simply put, many manufacturers skimp on the shielding because
it is cheaper to resolve the individual complaints from the few who get
interfered with.
Additionally, several surveys of interference have been conducted and
always point to the other sources such as business radios, CB radios,
etc., as the vast majority of interference sources, but the public is
still convinced that if that ham antenna goes up, it must be what's
causing the interference with my soap operas! It is a standing joke in
the ham radio community to put up an antenna but not connect it for
several weeks and listen to the parade of accusations that we're
interfering - with something that isn't even connected!
But what is scary is Mr. Zimmerman's desire to prohibit antennas
because he considers them "ugly." If he has no interest in radio,
perhaps he does feel that way, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder
and I don't feel we have the right to control our neighbors' properties
on the basis of our personal taste.
Perhaps Mr. Zimmerman has a short memory, but in the minutes following
the disastrous tornado that hit DeSoto and Lancaster in 1994, the call
went out to ham radio operators to come provide the
communications for those cities. Fire and police radio systems were
down, cell and wire phones were down, and into that communications void
stepped ham radio operators with equipment they paid for, skills they
had developed and vacation time away from their jobs. I know - I was one
of them.
This is why the FCC does not permit people like Mr. Zimmerman to force
ham radio operators to take down their antennas because they're "ugly."
RICK ELLIS, Glenn Heights
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