As if BPL and CC&R's aren't bad enough, it appears we may have a new potential
tower construction threat issue to deal with in the future.
I'm passing along some info that I just read in a newsletter from my Attorney
in Washington. It appears to pertain to commercial tower installations, but
you know the drill...give the environmentalists an inch and they'll take a
mile. Most Enviro-Nazis do NOT distinguish between amateur & commercial
towers...they hate 'em all. Hopefully the ARRL is on top of this, because even
a remote possibility that future tower constructions might all require costly
Environmental Assessments if the FCC adopts policy changes requested by the US
Fish & Wildlife Service could be bad news for us. In abundance of caution, we
might want to all file Comments on behalf of Amateur Radio in the Proposed
Rulemaking in Docket 03-187 before the January 22 deadline.
The USFWS is estimating between 4 and 50 million bird collisions with
communications towers each year. This was a MAJOR issue for Mike, K9AJ and
myself in negotiating our IOTA NA-178 trip with USFWS last Spring. We had to
take down our small Sigma 5 vertical dipole on the Island at sunset due to
concerns over bird collisions with the teenie weenie horizontal T-bars. Only
the slender "Farallon Special" (Super-charged mobile screwdriver antenna with
extension shafts & whips) was allowed up during the night and installation was
restricted to the adjacent shaddow area of the tiny Carpenter Shop we operated
from on the Island. We could have no "horizontal" antenna components of any
size in the air at night & no guy wires. And you think you have CC&R
problems???
In January I will have been a licensed ham for 50 years. I have never had any
bird collision situtations myself, nor heard of any occuring with any other ham
operator I've spoken with on this subject.
Many City and County Building/Planning Departments have already been known to
cause grief to ham operators seeking permits. The last thing any of us need is
to see a costly environmental assessment requirement added to the
mix...anywhere in the U.S.
IMHO, we need to formally distance ourselves from commercial tower
installations in this Proposed Rulemaking. It might be prudent to contact your
Senator/Congressperson folks as well.
FYI & 73.
Rick, K6VVA
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