My antenna tower zone variance request and use permit had
been held up for 6 months by the Kauai County Planning
Commission chairman and one of the island Deputy
District Attorneys. Had lots of help from ARRl volunteer
attorney from Maui, who was writing letters and visiting
Kauai and Board of Health Director of the state of Hawaii
in Honolulu, as one of my neighbors had raised the issue
of electromagnetic radiation hazards probable from my
High Power 1.5 kW station just over the fence from his
kids and pet's play yard! So we were trying to clear
two hurdles: the visual impact issue and the radiation
hazard issue. All was at a standstill until September 17th,
1992, when Huriccane Iniki wiped out almost everything
here on the island, including all public communications and
power; both were out for over a month, over the entire island!
However, my HF gear came thru just fine, as did about 25 feet
or so of my antenna support. My big 4-el quad was almost
totaly demolished, except for the driven element, the matching
xfrmr at the feed point and the coax. One day after Iniki, I got
a neighbor who had a generator going (he was working for
an on-site construction company that used generators at
remot construction projects--generators soon became more
valuable on this island than just about everything else, except
perhaps food)., to allow me to run a long extension to his generator
and get power to my rig. We thru the driven element of the quad after
untangling it from among the mess of the rest of the boom and quad
elements, up over the top of my "tower". There, it formed a very
useful 20 meter band horizontal loop. With that I easily got into
contact with the 14268 UN emergency net links in California and
Washington. Spent the next two or three weeks sending traffic of all
sorts off island, took practically no traffic in, as there was actually
no way to distribute it. But many, many residents, and the Waimea
hospital used my station for hearlth, welfare, and supplies request
to the mainland, Canada, Japan, and Europe, all relayed via the US mainland
of course.
At the very first post-Iniki meeting of the Planning Commision, my zoneing
variance and use permits were granted with no discussion of any
of the negative issues raised by my neighbors; they had been withdrawn!
I was even awarded some bottles of Jack Daniels by my neighbors!
My compromises I had offored months before were accepted, and now
my neighbors and I get along just fine. They seem secure in knowing that
emergency communications will probably be available right next door
next time they will be needed. I now have my own 5kW Honda
generator; which reminds my, I better go start it up and let it run for
awhile, also check the fuel and oil levels, we never know when a
good storm may sweep across Kauai again, tho hurricane "season"
is over for now, still, very strong winter low fronts are crosing the
Pacific just
to our North, wouldn't take too much for one of them to divert South a
bit to hit our 22N latitude. Pays to be ready out here.
73, Jim, AH6NB
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