--- On Mon, 1/4/10, frank bechdoldt <k3uhf@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> One of the key problems many hams have is the HOA's.
I agree completely. I believe that HOA and CC & Rs are the antichrist, and
would never submit to one, but unfortately most people feel otherwise. Need
evidence-look how they vote with their feet and pocketbooks. Many people
choose to live in such areas and want them. My parents moved into such an area
in 2001. The CC and R interfered with my Mother putting up a fence for her
garden. My Dad didn't like that but still thought the CC and R were a good
idea overall and liked the rest of it. Some people seem to lack common sense, I
guess.
Anyways, living in an HOA with CC & Rs is a voluntary choice. People will say
that it isn't but it is, and the Government will also say that. We have PRB-1
to protect cities from putting in too restrictive of regulations, but it
doesn't cover HOAs and it probably won't in the near future. You can give away
ham bands in exchange for trying to get a piece of legislation removing antenna
restrictions from CC and R, but I don't think that is going to fly. As I said
before, the government will most likely say, "you chose to live there, and you
knew the restrictions, this isn't our matter." While I hate HOAs, I am not
sure that I want the federal government interfering with them because plenty of
people seem to like them.
>
> A newbie ham is not going to take note of HOAs when
> balancing his options. Chances are he came from a club
> full of emergency service types and 2 meter rag
> chewers.
Don't even get me started on this. Unfortunately this is how most local clubs
are today, as you state. No wonder so many people become inactive quickly.
This is the exposure they have to ham radio and what they believe ham radio is
about. If that is all I did I would have quickly found another hobby as well.
>
>
> There is a lot of things to do on 440 and below daily as a
> vhfer. Sats, ssb, meteor scatter. All of this I have
> done with Omni antennas and basic radios.
> This brings me to the other issue, that being the ARRL
> should find a way to make these options more exciting and
> rewarding in the same manner of the HF bands.
Couldn't agree more. This has been one of my criticisms of the ARRL in the
past few years. They treat the VHF bands as some sort of purgetory that you
are sent to until you upgrade to general and get on HF (although now you can do
plenty of HF with the Tech license). They never really promoted the VHF/UHF
bands to the newbie as the great bands that they are. Very little mention of
weak signal work at all, or satellite use.
Their focus is always "VHF is for FM and APRS and if you want to do more than
that, you need to upgrade."
73s JOhn AA5JG
_______________________________________________
VHFcontesting mailing list
VHFcontesting@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
|