[TowerTalk] cell phone antenna on ham tower?

[W2RU - Bud Hippisley]

Donna —

Please let me expand on Jim’s very important comment.

I spent six+ years looking into antenna zoning restrictions in my search for a new QTH.  In general — and this may not be true in your locality but it was / is true in by far the majority of municipalities I investigated — amateur radio towers may be preferentially treated only as long as there is no commercial use co-located on the tower.

Once there is a commercial application on your tower, it becomes subject to what are usually far more restrictive paragraphs in the local zoning ordinance.  You may, for instance, be required to have public hearings when you weren’t required to for a ham tower.  You may have to fly a brightly marked balloon, where previously you weren’t.  And so on.  And it gets worse … and worse … and worse.

In short, you most likely will lose any protections you might think you have under PRB-1.

Unless you live in a municipality that has no zoning at all — and no restrictions at all on cell towers — I don’t even recommend “proceed[ing] with caution” — I recommend not proceeding at all!

Bud, W2RU


> On Oct 27, 2015, at 4:41 47PM, Jim Brown <jim at audiosystemsgroup.com> wrote:
> 
> On Tue,10/27/2015 1:02 PM, ag6v at whidbey.com wrote:
>> I'm sure some of you have an opinion/experience with cell phone antennas
> 
> No experience, but caution -- beware of zoning issues that apply to commercial installations as opposed to ham towers.
> 
> 73, Jim K9YC