Risking life and maybe limb ... I will pick two nits with folks:

HOA's are not automatically demons.  Please stop portraying them as such.  We sold "The Farm," where I had plenty of room for antennas with no one to complain about them, to one of our kids and spouse when age began to make maintenance difficult or near impossible.  We purposely bought our house here in Sparks for its location, topography [flat lots, no icy hills in winter, and closeness to shopping and major streets/roads].  It is an appropriate distance from our local son and his family.  It is an HOA community with deed CC&R's. 

Our HOA and neighbors are benign and benevolent.  No, I can't have my 70' tower in the back yard, I had no expectation or plan for that, and that's not the least bit unusual or strange.  I was adamantly opposed to ARRL's ARPA.  Had it become law, it would have changed our relationship with our HOA dramatically, and for the worse.  In return, my HOA could have met its obligation to allow me "an effective outdoor antenna" by allowing me to have an outdoor, 440 MHz 1/4 wave ground plane.  Our HOA maintains the common areas, internal streets, and the rules assure that we'll have a pleasant community to live out our lives.  Please stop bashing them generically as if they're all bad just because I can't put up 4 over 4 over 4 on 20 on a 120' tower.

I joined the W7RN crew and operate it remotely, it's about 40-45 km LOS from me, full power, very high Coefficient of Aerial Aluminum, and very low man-made noise.  I also have a WOOF at home -- end-fed Wire On Organic Fence.  If I ever have need to call a roofing company, I'll have them install another invisible wire going up the eave to the ridge, across to the other side, and down that eave.  W7RN remote and the WOOF allow me to get as much hamming in as I desire.

My second nit is, "What ever happened to the adaptability of hams?"  So, let the flames begin

73,

Fred ["Skip"] K6DGW
Sparks NV DM09dn
Washoe County

On 8/6/2020 11:45 AM, w2ttt wrote:

W0MU,

We are conflating a lot of important topics and I agree with you on each of them.   The original focus was on remote stations.  They are fine, but varied in character and use.  If the remote is my primary station and it's mine, that is one case.  Another is the rental remote.  Again, fine but a different case. 

I know guys who have cancelled their plans to retire to Maine because of the remotes.  If they were categorized separately, the locals and the remotes would only compete for bandwidth.  A local has to address local conditions that uniquely impact local operators.  Sleep cycles, work and worship hours, and weather can impact a local operator's performance in ways that a remote operator may not have to address.  To be clear, both modes are good, just different.

On the subject of getting youth on the air in an HOA, deed restricted and zoning limited world of cookie-cutter homes is simply frigjtening.  You can't have certain vehicles in some neighborhoods.   I have a RAM Promaster with windows all around, and because of the antennas, I get comments - usually snarky.  Well, we (Nancy, N2FWI and I) raised three sons who are licensed Amateurs, Eagle Scouts and employed.  They too, are busy with getting careers moving, but there may a time when life settles down and there is time to operate. 

I have neighbors who don't like my truck, or my antennas, but their kids are bored and barely going through life.  We have a  cookie-cutter world and that is driving down creativity and enabling this heightened level of narcissism as seen on the Internet as a path to fulfillment.  It started with participation trophies and this is where we are now.

We need to sort out what interests younger folks, even if it will fit better once they hit 40 or 50.  Our sons understand why Dad has 100+ US Patents - they grew up around it and the richness of life that God gave us that enabled that intellectual property.   The challenges are deeper than what the ARRL can do by itself.  It is a societal deficit that we are trying to fix.

Vy 73,

Gordon Beattie, W2TTT

201.314.6964