[nrv-hams] Montgomery County tower ordinance update

[Kay Craigie]

Carter and I were out of the USA for a week, during which time the
Montgomery County Board of Supervisors held a public hearing on the proposed
amateur radio tower ordinance that had been approved by the Planning
Commission.

The 25-cent version is that there were no opposing statements at the
hearing. The formal vote on the ordinance will take place at a Board of
Supervisors meeting later this month. 

That's the last hurdle to jump, and because there was no opposition
expressed by the public, I expect the vote will go the right way.

Montgomery County will have a very fair and sensible ordinance that conforms
to the so-called Virginia PRB-1 law. Of course we all probably liked it
better when there was no regulation at all in the county. However, that's a
situation that could have blown up in our face as it has done in some other
parts of the USA. Where municipalities do not have sensible ordinances
specifically accommodating ham radio towers, other ordinances intended to
regulate commercial towers (such as cell phone towers) are often mis-applied
to people's ham radio towers. That gets to be very bad news very fast. Just
talk to hams who have endured the trench warfare that can happen when a
municipality ignorantly applies a commercial tower ordinance to ham radio
towers, or intentionally adopts a ham radio tower ordinance that's a
poorly-veiled attempt to rule out ham towers altogether. 

The Montgomery County Planning Commission, several of whose members are
friendly towards ham radio, did not want that to happen here. The whistling
noise we hear is a very large bullet being dodged.

73 - Kay N3KN