Sometimes doing it first and asking questions later is the ONLY way.
I doubt if my county, which is pretty much a collection of subdivisions on my
side of the county, would have ever approved THREE 200 foot towers. I put
'em up and then answered questions later. My main point to the county
building department was there had never been any necessity for permits for
any ham radio towers previous to mine. They agreed, asked for some diagrams
from the Rohn catalogue and that was it.
I would be sitting here today with perhaps one tower at 100 ft if I had
approached it ASKING for permission. Paper work, meetings and BS would
shrink them down. It happens time and time again in Florida and other states.
I'm not saying it is always the way to go either, but sometimes you gotta
take a chance ifthe it looks like the only way. I did the asking for
permission about 25 years ago and got the runaround for several months with
people who didn't have a clue. Finally, I just put a 65 footer up and that
was that.
I guess each person has to figure out what kind of bureaucracy he is dealing
with. In large urban areas I would assume it is formidable, in more rural
settings it's probably who you know and what kind of reaction you expect from
the neighbors. If your neighborhood has lots of 4x4 vehicles up on blocks
and guys named Goober and Bubba with CB antennas....you got it made. Put up
that 200 footer. Better yet, make it two.
Bill K4XS
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