[TowerTalk] FAA & Towers, continued

[Jim Lux]

On 12/31/11 9:45 AM, n4zkf wrote:
> Wait till they get caught with "non" certified lighting and no monitoring.
> IT cost us 6 digits in fines some years back.
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> On 12/31/11 11:38 AM, "Mickey Baker"<fishflorida at gmail.com>  wrote:
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>> Required lights must meet FAA specs. Non-required lights don't.
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This is an interesting point, tower wise..

He was talking about *non-required* lighting.


If you put a light on your 50 foot tower, and it doesn't meet FAA specs, 
I'd find it hard to believe they could cite you for it.

If you put deceptive lighting, I can see getting in trouble.
Or lighting that was excessively bright, for instance.

I guess I could see some sort of "lighting optional, but if you do 
light, it has to be like this" kind of requirement.


But, this *should* be trivially resolvable: either the FARs require it 
or they don't.  *should* is the operative word here.  There's lots of 
things that the regs might or might not require, but fall in that 
"authority having jurisdiction" or "consult your local rabbi for Kosher 
installation" bucket.  For instance, there are commercially sold 
software defined radios that, being ham equipment, don't need FCC 
registration, but as a practical matter, they do meet a lot of the rules 
for commercial equipment, as a "lets be nice to the FCC and they'll be 
nice to us" kind of approach.