HOW TO FLEECE EMERGENCY SERVICE VOLUNTEERS

The San Diego City Planning Commission wants to charge federally licensed Amateur Radio Service volunteers for placing antenna structures on their own property.

When you have the chance, watch this video of an ordinance hearing held on February 26, 2010. I am addressing this commentary to what occurred at the hearing. The testimony by the commission staff is telling. Their obvious goal is to fleece the Amateur radio infrastructure for every dime they can get.

URL: http://granicus.sandiego.gov/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=8&clip_id=3801

Also, there is a HAM who addressed the board who has tried to obtain a permit to erect his tower, but the permit office will not tell him the total cost of the permit process. His QTH is a block or two away from the KSON broadcast tower (near I-15 in east San Diego) and his brand new tower is laying on the ground waiting to be erected.

The city is doing everything it can to discourage ham radio operation using any sort of tower or structure.

Members of the planning commission openly stated that they recognize the contributions the amateur radio service has made to emergency services at the local, state, national, and international levels. In the next breath, they turn around and say that they will demand exhorbinant and unspecified sums of money from the HAM community for performing that service. They openly snicker at the fact that the personal goals of many HAMs is to save lives and property. Just what the heck is so funny about that??? Why would anyone who has a lick of sense demand that emergency service volunteers pay money to the community they seek to assist???

If a cop or fireman come to your home to answer your call, are you going to demand that he or she pay a fee to go through your door? Would a neighbor who came to assist you in response to your call for assistance be required to pay a fee to do so?

Two neighbors of Howard White, KY6LA, in La Jolla addressed the board complaining about his tower and large "Steppir" antenna array. They have never experienced any harm from Howard's equipment that I am aware. Forgive me, but I do not know what their beef is. Could it be they have the notion that his antenna is "egregious (to use the descriptive of a board member to describe certain antennas)?" Please tell me if I am overlooking something, but it did not appear to me that these two were suffering any ill effects from the antenna project!!!

I commend the HAMs who patiently looked the members of the Commission in the face and explained practical physics to them. Steve Early, AD6VI, went so far as to provide them with reference material (MIL HDBK 413*) in the hope they would read it and obtain a clearer understanding of the topic at hand. I hope his optimism will bear fruit.

*URL: <http://tinyurl.com/yakvax5>