[VHFcontesting] New hobbies

[John Geiger]

--- On Mon, 1/4/10, frank bechdoldt <k3uhf at 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