While driving through Pinellas County in FL one day, I saw what I thought
was total unbelieveable! A 90 ft. tower with a huge tribander and 40 M
elements all hanging over the neighbors property in the middle of a large
neighborhood with many small lots. When I asked how this Ham could get
away with that, he advised me that in this county, the government does not
own the air. The only restriction is that the tower base has to be 15 ft.
back from the back property line and 8 ft. in from the side! The guys lot
was probably 60 X 80 ft. He had a large crankup along with 50 ft. of Rohn
25 on the side of the house (bracketed).
He also went on to say that in this county the hams are highly respected
due to their past performance during emergencies like hurricanes. Talk
about a friendly county for hams! All you have to do is just stop by the
building inspectors place and tell them what you are putting up.
When asked about the unthinkable - like the tower falling over and wiping
out 2 houses, his response was "that's why you have liability insurance"!!
Bill, K4XS - to your comment, agree. it really comes down to negotiating
with your neighbors and maintaining some peace between houses. The last
several places I've lived, I only made my neighbors aware of the situation
and told them to call if there was any trouble. They all have pretty cool
about it!
If you apply good engineering practices, there really should not be any
major issue. Except of course if you are clearly violating some T & C's
of your local housing environment.
Regards,
Mark, K1RX
Cqtestk4xs@aol.com@contesting.com on 09/09/2002 11:02:05 AM
Sent by: towertalk-admin@contesting.com
To: k1mk@alum.mit.edu
cc: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [Towertalk] yagis in trees
Sometimes doing it first and asking questions later is the ONLY way.
I doubt if my county, which is pretty much a collection of subdivisions on
my
side of the county, would have ever approved THREE 200 foot towers. I put
'em up and then answered questions later. My main point to the county
building department was there had never been any necessity for permits for
any ham radio towers previous to mine. They agreed, asked for some
diagrams
from the Rohn catalogue and that was it.
I would be sitting here today with perhaps one tower at 100 ft if I had
approached it ASKING for permission. Paper work, meetings and BS would
shrink them down. It happens time and time again in Florida and other
states.
I'm not saying it is always the way to go either, but sometimes you gotta
take a chance ifthe it looks like the only way. I did the asking for
permission about 25 years ago and got the runaround for several months with
people who didn't have a clue. Finally, I just put a 65 footer up and that
was that.
I guess each person has to figure out what kind of bureaucracy he is
dealing
with. In large urban areas I would assume it is formidable, in more rural
settings it's probably who you know and what kind of reaction you expect
from
the neighbors. If your neighborhood has lots of 4x4 vehicles up on blocks
and guys named Goober and Bubba with CB antennas....you got it made. Put
up
that 200 footer. Better yet, make it two.
Bill K4XS
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