[PaQSO] Reminiscing

[Ron Notarius W3WN]

Remember him?  Oh, brother.

He talked the guys at K3CR out of the tower they'd just gotten from Sears
(used to host their TV antenna for the electronics department) off the roof
of the Nittany Mall, in exchange for a smaller tower & some VHF gear that
they never did get working.

He then got a building permit to put the tower up at his house.  The day
that they start assembling the tower, his township's zoning officer shows up
& informs him that his building permit had been revoked because (get this!)
they were about to revise the zoning ordinance (hadn't yet though) and his
tower would not be in compliance with the new regulations... that hadn't
been adopted, let alone written, yet.

One of the local FM stations ran an editorial on his behalf.  I know -- I
ran that station's State College studio.  The then-new PRB-1 was invoked.

There was a hearing.  The night of the hearing, local hams packed the room
in his support.  The zoning board pulled a slick one... they appointed two
members to research the matter & come up with a reasonable compromise.  Of
course, the meeting where the 'compromise' was announced got no significant
advance publicity, and (surprise, surprise!) they decided that it was just
peachy-keen to leave Dave's permit revoked and deny him a tower.  

No, they wouldn't quite get away with that today.  I hope.

Turned out that the real reason was that Dave's neighbor hated the fact that
the previous owner had built the house Dave had bought -- spoiled his view
-- therefore hated Dave for buying the house.  Nice.  And the guy had some
political pull.  What also really hurt, we found out later, was that one of
the zoning board people was an ex-ham, who believed that all you needed to
work the world was 100 watts and a 16 foot vertical... no linears, no beams.


On the other hand... when I was struggling to get on the air as a newly
minted Tech, Dave got wind that I was having trouble with my HW-100; it had
failed at K3CR Field Day, turned out it was just a moisture problem (the rig
didn't like being outdoors on a muggy June night).  He traded me a working
HT-37 & SX-101.  Now some people told me I was nutz... but Dave got a
smaller rig that needed a touch of TLC, and I got working equipment, so I
always thought of it as a fair trade and then some.

And despite the tower fiasco, for as long as I lived there, Dave acted as an
unofficial mentor to the Penn State club; all sorts of little things, if
they needed it, he lent a hand or magically provided.  (I wasn't allowed to
tell anyone in the club about some of it, but I think the statute of
limitations has run out!)

Dave's one of the good guys.  And one of our more colorful characters, but
in a very good way.  He retired to a farm in VA, if I recall correctly, and
they are very lucky to have him.

Oh -- I not only remember the KC3CL rule, I was one of the ops at K3CR that
year who worked him in his rather unique 2 county style that year!!

73, ron w3wn

-----Original Message-----
From: paqso-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:paqso-bounces at mailman.qth.net]
On Behalf Of John Myers, KD8MQ
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 9:42 PM
To: paqso
Subject: [PaQSO] Reminiscing

Sitting around at Sheetz tonight after the fox hunt, the subject of county
lines came up.

So, I recounted the story of the KC3CL rule for some now Hams.
More, and more, I'm beginning to officially feel like an old-timer.

How many here remember KC3CL, &  the KC3CL rule? Incidentally, I ran into
Dave (now K3SK) at Dayton. He's the same as always.

73,

John, KD8MQ
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