local government repeater

[WSEG508]

Anyone ever dealt with townhall about getting permission to have a repeater on a radio tower, owned by the town. i live near firehouse and they have a huge tower, so i was thinking if i could get a repeater there it would benefit the town. Thanks ahead of time.

[OffRoaderX]

Yes.. TWO different cities, miles from each other.. Both were terrible and frustrating experiences and in the end, nothing was accomplished - imagine trying to deal with the biggest and worst HOA ever assembled...

Hopefully YOUR town is better.

[tcp2525]

2 minutes ago, OffRoaderX said:

Yes.. TWO different cities, miles from each other.. Both were terrible and frustrating experiences and in the end, nothing was accomplished - imagine trying to deal with the biggest and worst HOA ever assembled...

Hopefully YOUR town is better.

Not worth the aggravation. Most likely you won't be able to climb the tower, or use your contractor to install your antenna. You will have to contact the government and coordinate with them and use their contractor.  Too much misery for little gains. Stick with private sites.

[Raybestos]

4 hours ago, OffRoaderX said:

"... - imagine trying to deal with the biggest and worst HOA ever assembled..."

That is the stuff nightmares are made of.  I fully expect to wake up screaming, then whimpering, tonight; after reading that.

Gee, thanks.     

[WRXB215]

22 minutes ago, Raybestos said:

That is the stuff nightmares are made of.  I fully expect to wake up screaming, then whimpering, tonight; after reading that.

Gee, thanks.

Yep, just when I was starting to regain a little hope in humanity, @OffRoaderX comes along and CRUSHES IT!!! 

[Davichko5650]

25 minutes ago, Raybestos said:

That is the stuff nightmares are made of.  I fully expect to wake up screaming, then whimpering, tonight; after reading that.

Gee, thanks.     

Never dealt with an HOA, never will!!!   Good old inner city lots!

[OffRoaderX]

4 minutes ago, WRXB215 said:

Yep, just when I was starting to regain a little hope in humanity, @OffRoaderX comes along and CRUSHES IT!!! 

I am known in my circle of friends as "The dream crusher"

[SteveShannon]

17 minutes ago, OffRoaderX said:

I am known in my circle of friends as "The dream crusher"

At least you have a circle.  I have a tiny pie slice...

[WRKC935]

And while OffroaderX gave you the high level explanation.  I will go deep into the why.

First issue is GMRS isn't HAM radio.  Meaning the repeater is going to be owned and operated by a single individual and not a club.  They will not see or understand the concept of it helping the community once they read up on what the GMRS service is.  So that's your first hurdle to overcome.  And while it's easy to show reason for ham radio repeaters to exist since the government has emergency services all over the rules for ham radio.  The ARRL has emergency services all over the place on their web site as well. GMRS is NOT by design an emergency service.  It can be used for that, but it's not documented as being part of that.  Again more of the same issue to overcome.

Second is ham radio operators and what the city might have experienced in the past with them.  Hams, under the guise of the whole EMCOMM / emergency services umbrella seem to have a mentality that they are OWED access to any and every government owned tower, tall building and shit house with an antenna mount on it.  After all, in their mind, they are going to show up when all else fails, sporting a big red S on their chest and their orange vest will magically turn into a cape as they save the day.    But the truth is they will get access to a location, do a horrible install of some crap radio equipment that they have to go work on every other week.  Of course someone will need to meet them at the site every time.  So they quickly become a nuisance. Your problem again, the city people will not understand the difference between GMRS and Ham radio,, and there really isn't a technical difference.  A repeater is a repeater.  Ham repeater / GMRS repeater,  only difference is what programming is in the thing.  Now they may not have had a bad experience with ham operators.  But you can't really know that going in.  At least if  you are not a ham operator and know the history of their group and the city.

Next issue is a case of if they let you do it, they have to let others do it as well.  And that can turn into a mess for a number of reasons.  Again, this isn't for any sort of documented emergency services so bear that in mind.  They may say no just for that reason alone. 

 

Now we get into what they may or may not expect you to do if you are granted access. 

First is professional bonded tower climbers to do the antenna work.  And possibly a professional radio shop to install your repeater.  All of which is going to cost you money. 

Next is rent for the space.  Tower access is a valuable thing.  And most local government's know this because of the glut of cell towers that the carriers want to put everywhere and local governments seeing as an eye sore OR they see as competition for their water tower / radio tower for them to lease space on.  And if you are on there taking up space and creating loading of the tower, then other paying customers can't be in that space.  You would be surprised how they are getting wise to this.  Even to the point that many are having extensive antenna mounting structures installed on new and refit water towers they own in hopes that it turns into an income stream for them.  Not sure what you budget is, or what reoccurring costs you are up for, but understand that might be part of it.

Have fun, and good luck.

 

[WSEG508]

7 hours ago, OffRoaderX said:

Yes.. TWO different cities, miles from each other.. Both were terrible and frustrating experiences and in the end, nothing was accomplished - imagine trying to deal with the biggest and worst HOA ever assembled...

Hopefully YOUR town is better.

lol ok thanks man

 

[nokones]

In California, the State-owned radio remote sites did not give away free space and service to the HAM Radio clubs/users. If they wanted to use/occupy a State-Owned site for space and service, they paid the same as any other entity.