[W1SMH] Antenna Tower Issue

Wed Oct 7 14:40:43 EDT 2009

Hello all
I have just spoken to the Attleboro City Planner
and while an approved draft is not available to the public yet,
he assures me that the bill is aimed to regulate Cellular/Wireless
Telecommunications towers. I reminded him that someone painting with a
broad
brush could make a Ham Radio Tower fit that definition. He agreed.
He is very familiar with Mass Gen Law Ch 40A. While he is not
enthusiastic about writing 
specific exemtions into the proposed ordinance he assures me that it
WILL be in compliance 
with Ch 40A. He was not aware of PRB-1 but also assured me it would be
incompliance with that 
also.
I will get a draft of the regulations as soon as they become available
and try to forward them
to this list. I am also going to send an email to the Fire Chiefs and
EMA directors of Attleboro
and the surrounding Communities to solicit a letter from them to the
Planning Board requesting
the exemtion. Those Communities have signed an MOU with the SMH ARC ARES
team so it should be no problem.
In the meantime the hearing is scheduled for 7:00PM on Thursday Oct 20
in the City Council hambers.
I would urge Attleboro HAMs to attend as comments may be limited to
Attleboro residents only.
In the meantime if there is information that needs to be sent or
delivered to the City Planner
send it to me and I will make sure it gets delivered.
So as it stands now, there is no deliberate attempt to regulate HAM
Radio Towers. However,
we just need to make sure we don't get swept under the bus with the Cell
Towers.

Thank you for your concerns

73
Ray Cord K2TGX
Secretary Sturdy Mem Hospital ARC W1SMH
Trustee K1SMH 147.195
Deputy Director Norton EMA

-----Original Message-----
From: w1smh-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:w1smh-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of D. Austin Horowitz
Sent: Wednesday, October 07, 2009 12:22 PM
To: Kenneth Stringham
Cc: w1smh at mailman.qth.net; Arthur Greenberg; Tom Frenaye; David G Sumner
Subject: Re: [W1SMH] Antenna Tower Issue

While it would be very useful to obtain the assistance of a
Massachusetts attorney, (the ARRL list of volunteer counsel in MA is at
http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/regulations/local/vci.html?ctype=2&stat
e=MA&lname=&myaction=Search+By+Appointee+State),
at
the very least the Attleboro city council needs to be reminded of the
state law protecting amateur operations (I am not an Attleboro resident,
so it wouldn't be proper for me to do this).

Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 40A, Section 3 (available at
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/40a-3.htm) includes the provision
that "No zoning ordinance or by-law shall prohibit the construction or
use of an antenna structure by a federally licensed amateur radio
operator. Zoning ordinances and by-laws may reasonably regulate the
location and height of such antenna structures for the purposes of
health, safety, or aesthetics; provided, however, that such ordinances
and by-laws reasonably allow for sufficient height of such antenna
structures so as to effectively accommodate amateur radio communications
by federally licensed amateur radio operators and constitute the minimum
practicable regulation necessary to accomplish the legitimate purposes
of the city or town enacting such ordinance or by-law."

This basically codifies on a state level the PRB-1 federal preemption
granted by FCC regulation.

I definitely wish all Attleboro residents success in fending off this
threat.

-Austin, KB2WIL

On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 12:04 PM, Kenneth Stringham <ae1x at yahoo.com>
wrote:

> Gentlemen,
>
> We have an serious antenna issue in Attleboro, MA. For those of you 
> with the ARRL, I know that I am no longer a member, not by choice but 
> by economic necessity. We have public hearing scheduled for 
> 20-Oct-2009 at 7:00pm in our city council chambers. This public 
> hearing involves a change to our City Ordinances to restrict all 
> Wireless Communications towers to locates at least 500' from any 
> structure used for a residence. This would eliminate all residential 
> amateur radio towers unless we can get them include exclusions for
personal communications systems.
>
> This mess was precipitated by an attempt by T-Mobile to place a new 
> Cell Tower on property of the Knights of Columbus on Highland Avenue 
> in South Attleboro, MA. The neighbors protested at a public hearing to

> approve the installation of the tower citing lost property values and 
> potential for biological harm from the emissions.
>
> I'm hoping that I can get others to take a serious interest in this 
> potential disaster in the making. Our community needs to make 
> substantial showing at this hearing with all the proper materials and 
> words to make an effective case for an exemption.
>
> Respectfully Yours,
>
> Kenneth E. Stringham, Jr.
> AE1X
> 223 Mendon Rd.
> South Attleboro, MA 02703-7571
> Tel: 508-639-9808
>
>
>
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