As much as I wished people recognized the accomplishments of amateur
radio contesters, I am afraid we are somewhere below tiddly winks in the
public hierarchy of sports heroes. The neighbors see only the towers
and could care less what we do with them.
A good analogy would be for a famous amateur stock car racer to move in
next door to your house. He parks 3 stock cars in the front yard and often
tunes them up late into the night. The fact that he is working on being
competitive will probably not overcome your lack of sleep due to the
noise of racing engines at full revs. For many people, their "view"
is why they moved to a particular place. They aren't going to give it up
because you are building a contest station.
People only tolerate things they feel are beneficial to them. A clear
demonstration of the public service value (personal service would be
even better) of a giant antenna installation is the only redeeming
factor we have. Unfortunately, in this day of cellular phones and
satellite TV coverage, it's not worth as much as it used to be.
Randy Thompson, K5ZD
|