patrick.net

jvolstad says

But because it will extend above the roof line, the HOA needs to ask the neighbors if they will allow me to do this.

Ah so you're the Gun closet in your Armageddon bunker type, you and HOA's will get along like Wiener and a reporter for USA today.

ptiemann says

in California, people would collect signatures because of radiation to be expected from you.

Hey, good one. Although the highest frequency I operate in is 146 MHz. Well below cell frequencies. I do run higher power however. 50 watts FM.

Just buy the damn thing, install it, and fuck the HOA!!

Who gives a shit about them. They don't have money or motivation to sue you.

Clara says

Just buy the damn thing, install it, and fuck the HOA!!

Who gives a shit about them. They don't have money or motivation to sue you.

In Texas the courts have given HOA's a large amount of power. They can even foreclose for not paying dues or fines.

You think I don't know that. This is the Internet, logic is s overrated.

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Tony Manero says

Eat BBQ for a week and take a shit on the HOA's face!

Even better: find someone on the HOA board who is a banker, and focus most of the attention on his face.

My old CC&R's, likely copied from boilerplate written well before the cell-phone era, explicitly banned all transmitting devices, excluding only garage door openers. So I figured if my neighbors were inclined to police my 100 watts of delightful morse code, I would direct them to restrain from any cell phone usage within the tract, under pain of the same sorts of fines they might threaten.

If thwarted, you can also get a 400W mobile amp, a nice 20-meter mobile antenna, and a rig for the car. Just practice your hobby in the street - they'll be helpless to stop you.

houses made from ticky tackey,. Bla bla bla and they all look the same.

Katy Perry says

houses made from ticky tackey,. Bla bla bla and they all look the same.

Ah, so right. I live in a Landowners community; they've calmed the hell down since homes started getting repo'd and they stopped getting as much in dues.

Maybe I can hide the antenna in the trees.

You could do this:

RUN! jvolstad RUN!

Here's the code that HOAs run to determine whether or not to give you permission. It's a complex algorithm, but I think you can follow it.

boolean grantPermission (Request request)
{
    if (requestBenefitsHoa(request))
        return true;
    else
    {
         System.out.println("Fuck off");
         return false;
    }
}

jvolstad says

Maybe I can hide the antenna in the trees.

Sure can - BOOYAH!

With those property dimensions, I would put up two rhombics: need not be higher than 15 feet on 20 meters. You can cover two points of the compass with those lot dimensions. Go nuts!

HydroCabron says

My old CC&R's, likely copied from boilerplate written well before the cell-phone era, explicitly banned all transmitting devices, excluding only garage door openers. So I figured if my neighbors were inclined to police my 100 watts of delightful morse code, I would direct them to restrain from any cell phone usage within the tract, under pain of the same sorts of fines they might threaten.

Very good call. You would have a lot of good legal arguments because cell phones (and cordless phones and baby monitors and wireless routers) are currently present.

Why mandatory HOAs even exist in communities of detached homes -- particularly in communities where houses are as widely spaced as the ones in the map in JVolstad's follow-up post; wide enough that there might not even be 20 people within walking distance -- is a mystery to me.

I used to love the concept of HOA. Now I despise them. They are nothing more than paid harrassment. Whatever happen to neighbors just taking care of neighbors? It works well in many non HOA communities. HOA's are nothing more than money sucking harrassment committees.

I see HOA as a natural consequence of these big developments and what I call "burbclaves". OK instead of just adding a street now some big money buys a HUGE lot and subdivides it. Pretty quick the developer is going to impose his will on all this land, on how every house is going to look and be laid out. You know, they're all going to be brick and wood Colonials with a 3-car snout, some variations but basically the same sort of style.

And the homeowners take that feudal monarchy view and continue with it once they own all their little pieces. Like my sisters' place in Alpharetta, how the houses were originally built is "how they ought to stay" so for example even WITHOUT being prompted when we went to buy a replacement light fixture for the one over her front door, in her mind it had to look pretty much like the one it replaced so it would "match the neighborhood".

It's different than in some old neighborhoods here in Davis where things grew more organically add a few houses here and there. About every other house in those old neighborhoods already has a pretty sizable TV antenna tower from the days when you NEEDED it to pick up the 3 channels from Sacramento so no problem if you were here.

Even folks I know who don't live in HOA communities, well since they live in The Fortress, have to spend a lot to keep up appearances, etc. Particularly on the cars and the landscaping.

On the wrong side of the tracks where I live though, no issue having beater cars parked in front of my home; have two of them now. I even parted out a car in my driveway once, got a neighbor doing it now himself. God bless him.

HOAs are for people who can't mind their own business.

Older suburbs with quarter-acre lots are for hams who want to put up antennas. Just make sure the CCRs have expired. In most states you can go to the county recorder's office and trace back to when the property was subdivided. At that time any CCRs would have been filed.

HOAs are a nuisance for hams, although I've read some success stories on eham.net and QRZ.com. There are also plenty of stories wherein hams who bought large lots in rural areas have had problems from neighbors.

I live in a subdivision of about 400 houses that has an HOA. It's relatively low-key and dues are about $300 per year. The HOA runs its own pressurized irrigation system with deliveries to each household plus the commons areas. You would pay more for watering your yard with city water than $300.

Clara says

Just buy the damn thing, install it, and fuck the HOA!!

Who gives a shit about them. They don't have money or motivation to sue you.

Thats not true. They get very crazy and pushy at times.

jvolstad says

In Texas the courts have given HOA's a large amount of power. They can even foreclose for not paying dues or fines.

same out here too.

Clara says

Who gives a shit about them. They don't have money or motivation to sue you.

Depends on the HOA. Some have more busybodies than others and are more litigation-happy than others. I've run across cases before where the homeowner could have fought the HOA and won in court, but sometimes the homeowner caves because they don't want to deal with the confrontation. As elliemae said, some HOAs are weaker than they used to be as well.

Save your money and time and get a landlord who will allow it, and save your money for that place on the hill.

Although HOA's are relaxing a bit on things, all I can say is go over the agreement with a fine tooth comb as they can pretty much change their mind on things as well.

Feel free to ignore this question if it's too off-topic:

What's the preferred polarization for ham radio antennas? Does it matter (i.e. is the polarization scrambled via propagation)? Just curious... I'm just old enough to remember TV antennas that seemed better for reception of horizontal polarization. Or maybe not :) I'm not an EE.

The preferred polarization depends on what you are trying to do. Vertical polarization works is a lot more convenient for mobile communications and the radiation pattern for vertical and horizontal antennas is very different.

The assumption is polarization doesn't matter for ionospheric propagation. I don't think that is entirely true. I think the polarization of skywaves isn't there or is constantly changing.