[CQ-Contest] Looking for a station in Washington DC

[Eric Rosenberg]

Ken hasn't lived in the city as long as some of us have :-)

He's right about "grannies with clipboards" -- I've run into them in the 
various DC neighborhoods I've lived in over the past 20+ years. If you 
look closely, you'll note that they all seem to wear very expensive 
running shoes and carry GPS's!

Sadly, cookies don't cut it, especially when it comes to RFI or serious 
ugliness.

History in this city -- which  constantly repeats itself -- is that the 
stealth antenna supports (i.e., roof towers) or towers and masts that 
just peek over the roof line work (I've had big satellite arrays and HF 
yagis on a roof tower for 15+ years). The neighborhood, too, makes a 
difference. I'm surrounded by lots of returned/retired foreign service 
officers, almost all of whom know about ham radio. My neighbors are 
retired "Africa hands" who credit ham radio for being a lifesaver during 
their tours in  lord-knows-where!

There are a lot of grandfathered and/or abandoned towers around town, be 
they at (former) embassies, universities and colleges and other 
unidentified sites. It's really expensive to take them down off of 
buildings, and unless the landlord makes you, you simply walk away when 
you vacate (been there, done that, too).

Eric W3DQ
Washington, DC

> Date: Sat, 09 Jul 2011 07:15:41 -0400
> From: kenlow7 at aol.com
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Looking for a station in Washington DC
> To: scottw3tx at verizon.net
> Cc: cq-contest at contesting.com
> Message-ID:<8CE0C40AC477535-4B4-102CA at webmail-d006.sysops.aol.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>
> Hi Scott -
>
> Great idea, but in DC good luck with the Zoning Boards.   Anything more than 12-feet over a rooftop needs a permit, and below 12 feet over is still in the gray area depending on how the rules are interpreted and how visible the antenna is from street level.
>
> You might want to include a big batch of cookies for all the neighbors along with the rest of the hardware.   If you see any grannies with clipboards sniffing around, you'll also need a legal reserve fund.   Maryland is easier.
>
> Ken KE3X
> Washington, DC
>
> p.s. Hans - I would hold off on the moving trucks
>