[BC] Deterents to Amateur Radio

[Charles Lewis]

"The code isn't the only thing discouraging new hams. In my county*,

AFAIK no subdivision started within the past 40 years allows antennas.
That's a county of about 900,000 people - and the county building
permit people are quite antenna-friendly - it's just the subdivisions'
rules that are the problems."

"My view is that, while the code has been a deterent for some, a 
largepercentage of potential
hams realize that they have no chance of having an effective station 
where they live."

    You would be surprised at how many hams manage to make it through
    the pileups to me here in Africa, even in the SSB mode, using 100
    watts or less to indoors antennas.  Of course, it helps a lot if one
    is fortunate enough to live in a wooden structure, has access to an
    attic, a balcony, or has a nearby tree that can support one end of a
    practically invisible antenna made from magnet wire.  I worked one
    European apartment dweller who made very effective use of the
    apartment's rain gutter and down spout for DX'ing on the sly.

    I have weekly SSB skeds on 14 mHz with a neighbor near my home back
    in the NC mountains.  For the first few months after we started
    these skeds, he was running only 100 watts to a dipole in his
    attic.  We never failed to have a good contact.  He has since added
    a linear amplifier that that gives him about 500 watts and has moved
    the antenna outside, but he is still only using an inconspicuous
    dipole just above his roof line.  He always manages to get through,
    even when then band sounds hopeless.  He is usually S9.

    The point is that for one who has truly been bitten by the radio
    bug,  to use two trite old expressions, where there is a will there
    is a way.

    One useful hint I can pass along for the antenna disadvantaged is
    this.  Don't thumb your nose at vertical antennas.  I have observed
    over the years that I often work a little flurry of mobile stations
    right at the end of a band opening when the signals are beginning to
    fade away.  It has to be the low angle radiation from the vertical
    mobile antennas that causes that. 


    Charles - S9SS

    I