[KYHAM] A very good story about antenna restrictions...

[Pat Spencer, KD4PWL]

Since the Miami Herald has a "subscription" over their Internet site (a 
practice I hate on newspaper sites), I didn't just want to post a link at 
the bottom of the KYHAM news page.  I thought I would post it here as it 
showed good mastery of the issue by a "non-ham" reporter.

Take care, 73
Pat

Source: Miami Herald
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/states/florida/counties/broward_county/10169229.htm?1c

  Posted on Sun, Nov. 14, 2004
  COOPER CITY
RULES PUT HAMS IN A PICKLE
SOUTH FLORIDA HAM RADIO OPERATORS STRUGGLE TO STAY ON THE AIR
nwaller at herald.com
BY NIKKI WALLER

With pursed lips and a steady hand, WA4YDK spins the dial, searching for a 
voice or a signal somewhere amid the fuzz caused by solar flares and an 
especially low-hanging aurora borealis.

Eventually, a voice crackles from the speaker: ``Copy. Copy, WA4YDK.''

A connection made, WA4YDK -- known outside radio land as Elliot Kleiman of 
Cooper City -- smiles faintly.

Ham radio operators like Kleiman delight in moments like this.

Kleiman, 67, has been a federally licensed amateur radio operator, or ham, 
for more than 50 years. The retired computer science professor has been a 
resident of Cooper City's Embassy Lakes gated community for about three.

But like many hams today, he faces growing pressure to choose between his 
hobby or his home.

As the nation grows more urbanized and more housing developments write 
no-antenna rules into their deeds, many South Florida hams find themselves 
squeezed out of their communities or pushed off the air.

''Hams are finding that communities are less friendly,'' said Stephanie 
Phillips, a Brevard County ham operator and a Florida spokeswoman for the 
Amateur Radio Relay League, or ARRL.

Despite obstacles, ham radio appears to be growing. According to ARRL, 
about 680,000 Americans are licensed amateur radio operators, up about 
25,000 from 1995.

A breed known for ingenuity, hams find crafty ways to stay on the air and 
in touch with the world.

Some send signals from radio setups hidden in their cars, some jury-rig 
stealth antennas behind bushes or shrubs, or in rain gutters. And more than 
one South Florida resident, including Kleiman, has been known to transmit 
messages while riding a bike.

Hams insist they serve their communities by maintaining an emergency 
network that still buzzes with activity when other forms of communication 
go down. Towns with rules that send hams elsewhere may find themselves out 
of luck when disaster strikes, said Phillips.

Local hams often refer to this year's hurricane season, when hams helped 
emergency personnel in several storm-ravaged Florida cities.

Kleiman resolved to give up his ham habit when he learned Embassy Lakes 
doesn't permit antenna towers. But he couldn't ignore the hobby that first 
fascinated him as a young man.

He considered running an antenna from his yellow Corvette until his wife 
reminded him that the 'Vette is a lease. So he set up a spindly antenna on 
a stepladder beside his backyard pool, where a glade of palms conceals him 
from the neighbors' view.

The weak signal barely allows Kleiman to be heard above the static, but he 
can still tune in and talk to someone across the county or halfway around 
the world.

A spin of the dial on a recent weekday afternoon yielded lots of static and 
some normal ham chatter: reports of weather conditions in different places, 
discussions of antenna setups, and complaints about zealous local zoning rules.

''Michael, you would not believe the bureaucracy,'' said one ham to another 
before Kleiman tuned to the next station.

Hams frequently use the word 'magic' to describe moments of two-way 
contact, known in ham lingo as QSOs. Some operators go for distance -- DX 
to hams -- seeking QSOs from faraway countries.

Ham signals can travel thousands of miles with the help of repeaters and 
other devices that relay signals from one spot to the next.

Alan Wolfe, a Miami-Dade County elementary school music teacher who gives 
after-school ham classes to students, hopes to pass his hobby along to a 
the generations raised on Internet and video games.

Ham radio first enthralled Wolfe at age 9. It hasn't let go, he said.

''I watched my uncle sit there with his microphone at night, I watched the 
[radio] tubes glow, listening to see who in the world would get back to 
us,'' he said.

Today, he and his wife, a cellist who lives in New Jersey, talk over ham 
frequencies every night. Married last year in Wellesley, Mass., the couple 
performed some of their vows over the airwaves. Their call letters were 
spelled out on the cake.

Wolfe (also known as WB4L) transmits from his home in unincorporated 
Miami-Dade, where city rules don't obstruct his antenna. He also has 
mounted radio equipment on his car and his bicycle. His wife, WX2L, 
communicates with a rotating antenna attached to her Honda Civic.

When they're together, the two sit in a hammock and send signals out side 
by side, said Wolfe.

``We'll look up at the stars through our antennas, and to us, it's like 
some beautiful work of art. It's magic.''