[FARC] [Fwd: Urgent message regarding CC&R legislation in Annapolis]

[Bob Moroney]

Forwarding fyi - not much notice for Monday AM, but if you can help ...

73, Bob K9CMR

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Urgent message regarding CC&R legislation in Annapolis
Date: 	Sat, 11 Feb 2006 20:25:09 -0500
From: 	Tom N3IJ <n3ij at comcast.net>
To: 	Aero ARC <ac3f at juno.com>, Anne Arundel Radio Club 
<dmckelvie at verizon.net>, Antietam Radio Association <hajn1 at aol.com>, 
Baltimore Amateur Radio Club <w3ft at arrl.net>, Boumi Temple ARC 
<aa3ow at hotmail.com>, BRATS <BRATS at bratsatv.org>, Calvert ARA 
<n3qhc at verizon.net>, Carroll County ARC <k3pzn at arrl.net>, Central 
Maryland Amateur Radio Club <wc3mar at arrl.net>, Charles County ARC 
<w3tom at erols.com>, Columbia ARA <cara at columbiaara.org>, Delmarva Amateur 
Radio Club <darc at qsl.net>, Eastern Panhandle ARC <k8ep at arrl.net>, Easton 
ARS <tinsley at towerleasing.biz>, Frederick ARC <k3erm at qsl.net>, Free 
State ARC <w3ip at arrl.net>, Goddard Amateur Radio Club 
<wa3nan-exec at listserv.gsfc.nasa.gov>, Green Mountain Repeater 
Association <mgreen at erols.com>, Hanover Area Hamming Association 
<mgarber at sha.state.md.us>, Harford Emergency Communications 
<scollap at battelle.org>, Historical Electronics Museum, Inc. 
<K3NY at cablespeed.com>, Kent Amateur Radio Society <k3ars at qsl.net>, 
Leisure World ARC <n0aa at aol.com>, Maryland FM Association 
<wa3mnn at arrl.net>, Maryland Mobileers ARC <w3cu at arrl.net>, Maryland 
RACES <w3yrs at arrl.net>, Mid-Atlantic DX & Repeater Association 
<directors at madxra.org>, National Capitol DX Association 
<rwmaylott at aol.com>, Potomac Area VHF Society <w3nzl at verizon.net>, 
Potomac Valley Radio Club <n3oc at wirelessinc.com>, Quarter Century 
Wireless Association <John at johnston.net>, Southern Maryland APRS Group 
<smdaprs at qsl.net>, Southern Maryland ARC <wa3yuv at erols.com>, St. Mary's 
County ARA <petebutt at ameritel.net>, University of Maryland ARA 
<mgillman at wam.umd.edu>, Zekiah Swamp VHF Society <w7uh at comcast.net>, 
Laurel Amateur Radio Club <k3qx at arrl.net>
CC: 	Cross, Jim, WI3N <jecross3 at verizon.net>, Abernethy, Thomas J., 
W3TOM <w3tom at arrl.org>, Krysztoforski, Joe, AJ3X 
<aj3x at clintonstreet.net>, jkryszt at pdsresearch.com, 
jkryszt at clintonstreet.net



Hi --
We need to have a dozen e-mails on the desk of each member of the Maryland  
House Environmental Matters Committee Monday morning in order to ensure  
that our bill is among the 4% that get passed in this sesion. The message 
below the ===== contains instructions for your members to determine if  
they are represented by a member of the committee and how to quickly send 
them an e-mail with a little copying and pasting.

In addition to filling in the holes in my testimony, this tactic will also  
knock out the more plausible arguments from the representative of the  
Community Associations Institute, the HOA trade association. And as the  
message below says, all our points need reinforcement anyway.

Monday morning is important because the bill is likely to be voted on in  
the next day or two. This is the first of four critical votes.

It took me less time to actually send the e-mail to my delegate than to  
read about it.

Can you copy the message below the ==== and send it to your members  
tonight or early Sunday morning? Message (long!) follows.

Thanks very much for all your assistance,
Tom, N3IJ
Baltimore AmateurRadio Club Legislative Affairs Team
410-933-9344
410-419-8147 (cell)
=====
Hi--

Do any of the delegates listed below represent your district? If you
aren't sure, go to http://mdelect.net and enter your street address.

As you know by now, we had a pretty good hearing on Thursday on House Bill  
296. The committee will vote early in the coming week. It would be very  
helpful if every committee member found at least a dozen e-mails  
requesting support for Bill 296 when they get to work on Monday morning.  
The messages >must< be from constituents, although the senders don’t have  
to be licensed. A dozen apiece is doable, if everyone helps.

If none of the delegates on the list represents you (or a friend or family  
member who will send an e-mail) these instructions aren’t for you. Your  
time will come when the bill is to be voted on by the entire General  
Assembly.

If one of these is your delegate, please send them an e-mail >this  
weekend<.  Get the contact information from the table below. Ask family  
and friends >in your district< to e-mail, also. Further on in this  
message, I've provided a template for your e-mail and four messages to  
paste into the template. All you have to do is to select the message,  
paste it in, type your name and address, copy the whole thing into an  
empty e-mail window and send it off. If family or friends use the template  
to send a message, they'll need to edit the final paragraph in the  
template a bit.

Members of the House Environmental Affairs Committee

Delegate	    District	E-mail

Maggie McIntosh		43	maggie_mcintosh at house.state.md.us
James E. Malone, Jr	12A	James_Malone at house.state.md.us
John S. Arnick		6	john_arnick at house.state.md.us
Elizabeth Bobo		12B	Elizabeth_Bobo at house.state.md.us
William A. Bronrott	16	William_Bronrott at house.state.md.us
Rudolph C. Cane		37A	rudolph_cane at house.state.md.us
Virginia P. Clagett	30	virginia_clagett at house.state.md.us
John W. E. Cluster, Jr	8	john_cluster at house.state.md.us
Barbara A. Frush		21	Barbara_Frush at house.state.md.us
Barry Glassman		35A	barry_glassman at house.state.md.us
Patrick N. Hogan		3A	Patrick_N_Hogan at house.state.md.us
Marvin E. Holmes, Jr.	23B	Marvin_Holmes at house.state.md.us
J. B. Jennings		7	JB_Jennings at house.state.md.us
Jane E. Lawton		18	Jane_Lawton at house.state.md.us
Tony McConkey		33A	tony_mcconkey at house.state.md.us
Karen S. Montgomery	14	karen_montgomery at house.state.md.us
Rosetta C. Parker		47	rosetta_parker at house.state.md.us
Catherine E. Pugh		40	Catherine_Pugh at house.state.md.us
Richard A. Sossi		36	richard_sossi at house.state.md.us
Joan F. Stern		39	joan_stern at house.state.md.us
Paul S. Stull		4A	Paul_Stull at house.state.md.us
Michael H. Weir, Jr.	6	Michael_Weir at house.state.md.us


The e-mail will serve two important purposes: It shows how many interested  
amateurs and supporters live in their districts, and it includes two  
paragraphs reinforcing our position. This is especially important because 
I failed to give sufficient emphasis to a couple of our points and there  
was an opposing witness from the Community Associations Institute. Our  
messages all need reinforcement, anyway.

Why four little messages instead of one big one? Small messages are more  
likely to be read. Why just eight paragraphs? That's the amallest number  
of ideas that makes our case. Any more will be distracting, although there  
is certainly more that can be said. More will only displace the  
essentials. But, if you have additional ideas to send your delegate,  
please put them in a separate message.

To select your message, please use the following rule, if possible:

If callsign ends in	Use message

	A thru F 		 1
	G thru L		 2
	M thru R		 3
	S thru Z		 4

This makes it more likely that every committee member gets at least one  
copy of every message.

You’ll notice that nowhere do we use the word “hobby,” and, also on the  
advice of our political advisors, we deleted any mention of our loss of  
membership – they don’t want to create a precedent.

The Senate hearing is 1 pm on the third floor of the Senate Office  
Building. Don’t write your senator just yet, but show up if you can.

A few minutes of effort selecting and pasting will complete the education 
of the Environmental Matters Committee and help to get our bill onto the  
House floor for a vote by all the members.

Please send a copy of your e-mail to hb296 at bccecom.org.

Thanks & 73!
Tom, N3IJ
BARC Legislative Affairs Team

+++++++++ Beginning of e-mail to delegate

To: Delegate FirstName Last Name

Subject: House Bill 296

Del. LastName,

I reside at [address], [city, state, zip]
I'm writing to request your support for Bill 296. Some of the reasons for 
my request are spelled out below.

[Paste in one of the messages below and delete this line]

Despite our decades of service to the nation, it is becoming extremely  
difficult to serve our communities in time of need because we have to  
conceal our participation in the U.S. Amateur Radio Service, a federally  
licensed, internationally recognized service. Bill 296 allows us to openly  
support our communities and participate in state, local and federal  
emergency management programs while adhering to local zoning regulations.

I would appreciate a favorable vote for Bill 296.

[your name]

+++++++++ End of e-mail to delegate

Message 1

Most Amateur Radio antennas are wire: They are hard to see from the street  
and certainly don't deface neighborhoods. The favored material is about  
the size of coat hanger material. A few years ago a publisher issued a  
book containing plans for more than 60 wire antennas. The book sold so  
well that the publisher came out with a sequel containing an even larger  
number of designs. The point is most of the illustrations in both books  
are drawings, because wire antennas are so difficult to see in  
photographs, even when they are the object of interest.
Federal authority over local regulation of Amateur Radio antennas is not  
absolute. It only requires reasonable accommodation. Bill 296 cites the  
law and incorporates the federal regulation (47CFR97.15) stating the  
policy because we have found that occasionally a zoning authority won't  
comply unless they're taken to court, which is not "reasonable  
accommodation." Many Maryland jurisdictions have zoning ordinances  
governing Amateur Radio equipment which meet the test. In light of all  
this, the reference to 47CFR97.15 (also known as PRB-1) is still needed.  
Public Law 103-408 (1994) also says that "regulation at every level of  
government should facilitate and encourage Amateur Radio." The law and the  
regulation are in the prepared testimony.

Message 2

We are sometimes asked why our antennas must be a particular size. Our  
antennas are usually a "half-wavelength" long. Extremely short wavelengths  
are used by cell phones, so the antennas are tiny. Long-distance  
communication is often essential in emergencies and is only feasible in  
the short wave bands between 10 and 100 meters, where an amateur half-wave  
antenna may be a wire about 1/8 inch in diameter and with length ranging  
from 16 to 133 feet, depending on the wavelength used, which depends on  
propagation conditions. Miniaturization is sometimes necessary, but it  
reduces efficiency proportionately, and efficiency is important to us.  
We're amateurs, supporting our activities from the household budget or  
after-school earnings. (We’re called amateurs because the Communications  
Act of 1934 and international treaties prohibit us from receiving  
compensation for our operations, not because we’re untrained or unskilled.)

We don’t see how HOAs can be qualified to interpret and apply federal  
telecommunications policy. It's unfair to expect them to. Their boards are  
volunteers, like us. It's been our experience that an HOA that does a  
commendable job with paint colors and fences is likely to overcontrol an  
intrinsically experimental high-technology activity, such as Amateur  
Radio, if they permit it at all. (Experimentation is another of the  
reasons for our existence, according to the Communications Act)

The problem becomes more complex because the number of homeowners  
associations in Maryland is about half the number of licensed amateurs, so  
a particular association is likely to encounter one amateur station but  
much less likely to have to deal with two. Removing the covenant  
prohibition but continuing HOA control over Amateur Radio equipment in  
newly-organized HOAs would be inefficient and would be likely to result in  
a consultant's picnic, with unnecessary red tape and expense for everyone.  
That's not the "reasonable accommodation" required by federal law and  
regulation. Local zoning authorities generally know what to do, and if the  
public is dissatisfied, they can change the zoning ordinance.

Message 3

The pioneers of Amateur Radio were mostly young men who often went on to  
careers in engineering and science, where many achieved distinction.  
Amateur Radio today appeals to both girls and boys. In Thomas Friedman’s  
new book "The World is Flat," the author says that the National Science  
Board reported that the number of young people in the U.S. who receive  
undergraduate engineering and science degrees has fallen to 17th in the  
world, a decline from  three decades ago, when the U.S. was third. The  
Anne Arundel Radio Club has an entire division for young people, with its 
own station, KI3DS, and its own meetings on Saturday mornings. Between  
meetings, these young people like to get on the air. Amateurs whose  
stations have outdoor antennas are much more likely to find someone to  
talk with as they experiment with their equipment and refine operating  
technique. Amateur Radio is regarded as essential to the aerospace  
engineering program at the Naval Academy. Of the 70 Amateur Radio  
satellites, five were launched by the Naval Academy.

International people-to-people communication, one of our reasons for  
existence (according to the Communications Act) benefits from relatively  
rare –- but conspicuous -- antennas that sometimes need zoning approval.  
Bill 296 is not primarily about big antennas and zoning procedures. It's  
about the almost-total shutdown of the U.S. Amateur Radio Service in new  
communities imposed by real estate covenants and the restrictive rules of 
homeowners associations.


Message 4

People sometimes express concern that Amateur Radio activity or equipment 
will depress property values. We have been unable to find evidence to  
support that idea. The only property appraisals we know of relate to cell 
towers, much larger than almost all Amateur Radio structures. The  
appraisers in that case found no effect on property values from the  
construction of two cell towers in an Atlanta suburb. The appraiser's  
report, which was used in the successful appeal of a zoning decision, is  
in the prepared testimony.

Since emergency communication is one of the reasons for our existance,  
according to the Communications Act, we spend a lot of effort on it. We  
deployed to provide emergency services to Maryland during incidents such  
as Hurricane Isabel, 9/11, Y2K, train wrecks in Silver Spring and Chase,  
and the tornados in La Plata, College Park and Laurel. Between incidents, 
we practice working together by deploying to provide communications for  
events such as Cycle Across Maryland, the Marine Corps Marathon and  
various local parades, fundraising walks and footraces. Amateur Radio has 
long-standing relationships and routinely participates in joint exercises 
with the following organizations:

Maryland Emergency Agency Management Agency
Emergency Operations Centers in 17 of 24 Maryland counties and Baltimore  
City
FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security
The United States Coast Guard
Military Affiliate Amateur Radio Services of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air  
Force and Marine Corps
Salvation Army
American Red Cross
National Weather Service,

All over the U.S., radio amateurs conduct frequent message-handling drills  
from home stations. These drills are much more successful when outdoor  
antennas are available. During Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the  
aftermath, U.S. Amateur Radio Service operators relayed information to and  
from the affected area, using their home stations. The prepared testimony  
contains newspaper stories about this activity. Bill 296 will assure that 
amateurs in communities created after September 30, 2006 will be able to  
provide this service.

I want to thank your club officers who responded to my last-minute request  
to distribute this message.
Thanks, 73 & look forward to seeing you in Annapolis on Wednesday!

Tom Coates, N3IJ, Baltimore Amateur Radio Club Legislative Affairs Team


=====