Satellite Dish, TV Antennae, HAM Antennae

Started by TimJ9 • 10 replies • 1936 views

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TimJ9 (California)
Posts: 1

Posted:

--After years of poor CCR enforcement, a proactive board would now like to turn things around. E.g., satellite dishes, broadcast tv antennaes,HAM radio towers are now unattractively installed everywhere. What is an effective approach to cleaning this up (within FCC rules of course). E.g., roll out new Satellite dish policy with focus on aesthetics and somehow get members to comply (move dishes to less visible location, hide wiring, remove HAM towers, etc.) without undue pushback.

PitA
Posts: 1,416

Posted:

forget about TV except for neatness of installation

Ham can be addressed as per the existing Covenant.

LarryB13 (Arizona)
Posts: 4,099

Posted:

Unless these items are expressly forbidden in your CC&R's you have no hope of remedying any of it now by way of enforcement. The statute of limitations is going to screw you over, as well it should. The clock does not reset to zero when a new board comes in, so if things have been this way for "years" you might not have a leg to stand on.

Even those items that may be expressly forbidden may be covered by the statute of limitations.

Your best bet is to identify those items that offend your eyes and ask the owners to rectify the problem voluntarily. You might offer technical assistance where needed. That may be the best you can hope for.

JamesG (Connecticut)
Posts: 83

Posted:

Statute of limitations? Never heard of such a thing in regards to compliance with an associations declaration, bylaws and rules. Can someone elaborate?

RobertC14 (Colorado)
Posts: 78

Posted:

ask and ye shall receive.

a simple google search turned up this little gem that is right on point for California

http://www.californiacondoguru.com/CCNewsletter/CCNewsletters30.html

RobertC14

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RobertC14 (Colorado)
Posts: 78

Posted:

before wielding a big stick in the form of lawyers and suing, why not approach the offenders (i assume your biggest beef is the amateur radio towers) and see if the HO is willing to make his or her antenna setup more stealthy. come to a compromise with the HO. a little sugar goes a long way over a ton of salt.

RobertC14 (Colorado)
Posts: 78

Posted:

wish the site had an edit function :-(

here is a Antenna Restrictions forum on a very active and high profile Amateur Radio Website. you may want to at least browse it (if not ask questions) to get idea's to aid you in compromising with the long term offenders. they may even be able to help you craft a satellite and TV antenna policy in addition to helping you on the amateur operators.

http://www.eham.net/ehamforum/smf/index.php/board,2.0.html

for the record i am a amateur radio operator and we provide valuable community services in emergencies. you may want to consider that aspect when approaching the HO being in a very natural disaster prone state such as California.

i am also at your disposal to answer questions and help you out with what i can. i frequent the linked amateur forum as well as here.

or you can email me @ forumsnotify {-AT-} gmail (_.dot_) com

LarryB13 (Arizona)
Posts: 4,099

Posted:

The Davis-Stirling.com website has a short discussion about "Failure to Enforce" at
http://www.davis-stirling.com/MainIndex/FailuretoEnforce/tabid/3264/Default.aspx#axzz2svtfytFt

"Boards must timely enforce violations of the association's governing documents, otherwise they can lose the right to bring an action to enforce a particular violation."

DjB2 (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 49

Posted:

Our 35-year-old 32-unit condominium development was originally built with underground wiring to feed cable TV as individually desired and subscribed to, into each individual unit, with individual billing. TV and HAM antennae are strictly prohibited, so that has never been an issue here. However, when smaller oval satellite dishes came to prominence from the two major national US providers about 10 years ago, some of the owners here wanted to install them for their individual units. A protracted battle among owners began as some owners simply didn't want any dishes in our development at all, as they felt it made the place look "trailer trashy" (and no offense against any trailer people, as I personally like trailers and trailer parks) - and other owners wanted to start installing them all over the common areas. Anyway, the battle heated up, with owners taking sides. Meanwhile the HOA did a bunch of research, and we were fortunate to stumble across the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Rule governing the installation of satellite dishes in condominium developments. Referred to simply as "The Rule", it states exactly what dishes can be installed and where. It was officially adopted at that time as an amendment to our 35-year-old Bylaws, and we have never had any satellite dish problems since. Although one time some years ago I came home just in time to see a representative of one of the aforementioned dish companies on the roof of one of our eight-unit-rows, installing a pair of dishes up on the roof in plain sight of the entire development! Thank goodness I arrived when I did. The Rule strictly prohibits such installations, and I called the installer down, enlightened him, and had him immediately remove everything from our roof that he had installed. - I'm a current Pennsylvania HOA President

RobertC14 (Colorado)
Posts: 78

Posted:

i agree there is a big difference between standalone homes with a backyard and attached squashed together units with no backyard or a high rise condo units and not every situation will support installation of TV, Satellite, or Ham antennas.

as for ham antenna's i generally have found that many of these condo units where there is no backyard available have very high ceilings or a larger attic area where antenna's can be placed indoors.

i just think wherever possible HOA's should work together with ham operators/HO to come to some sort of reasonable agreement between the two instead of simply tossing the baby out with the bathwater.

and i would be happy to make myself available by email as a technical advisor to any HOA board member who wants to work with a ham on reasonable accommodation. there is ***ALMOST*** always a way to find a stealthy placement for antenna systems. they need not be a large 60ft or more tower with huge yagi antenna's.

it can be as simple as a small gauge copper wire run along the eve's of roof with an antenna tuning unit or an attic vertical, or a small mast in the backyard which can be covered with greenery to disguise it, even small flag pole masts can house an antenna.

and it is by no means limited to what i just stated, there is almost an endless array of stealthy options now for just about any situation. there are some very limited no win situations, but it is the exception and not the rule. it generally all boils down to the HOA/Owner willingness to work something out than actual no place to put a stealthy antenna scenario.

also interference is really no longer a concern as you can talk very far with very low power on SSB, CW and with the advent of cable and internet and everyone getting their media from those sources there are just no real interference concerns anymore. it's not the old days of high power, poorly filtered AM transmitters with large antennas and poorly designed over the air analog TV's and Radios. technology has pretty much made those concerns obsolete.

the HOA only need to sit down and work out with the owner what is best for both of you.

i am always here to help and act as a independent voice between and HOA and unit Owner.

on limited occasions where things might be a little complex i would be willing to do a phone conference but i prefer email wherever possible.

forumsnotify (AT) gmail [DOT] com

JamesS35 (Georgia)
Posts: 2

Posted:

I am pretty sure with Satellite dish, your out of luck forcing them to do anything about appearance, so you should work with them to get them cleaned up. TV Antennas again my be preempted by FCC regulations regarding reception and private usage rights, but I could be totally off base.

As many have pointed out, retroactively trying to enforce CCR/HOA rules could be a PR nightmare.

As for Amateur Radio Antennas (HAM) here are two good links about rules for these antennas

http://www.arrl.org/ccrs-covenants-conditions-restrictions
http://www.arrl.org/restrictive-antenna-ordinances

If the rules existed before the antennas went up and you are open minded and willing to work with these dedicated people, it maybe possible to clean up some of these antennas. If there were no such rules, they may come under grandfather rules.

Bottom line is to get the HOA to start working on getting some guidelines together, present it to the board and the homeowners for their input and work together on the issue.

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