Sep 25 2013

A HAM Radio Operator! Get The Pitchforks!

So, you got your ham ticket almost 50 years ago. Congrats! You did this in a time when antennas were normal on any roof. If your antenna broke down, your neighbors would help you setting up a new one.

Times changed.

A ham radio operator in Kraggenburg, The Netherlands, found out the hard way. His neighbors hate the small, almost invisible antenna. If you can’t get the ham to remove it, what do you do? You complain to authorities about various health problems such as headaches, high-pitched sounds in your ears, pain in your muscles, changing colors on your TV, and a lot of other vague problems.

The best one so far: his signals kill energy efficient light bulbs prematurely!

Photo: find the horrible, satanic, life threatening antenna.

Antennas-Kraggenburg

Of course these people don’t use WiFi nor cell phones. They don’t use PLC technology. Sure. Idiots.

18 comments on “A HAM Radio Operator! Get The Pitchforks!”

  1. Here in North America, we call this type of activity as ‘Slave on Slave’ or ‘Sheep on Sheep’. Welcome to age of mindless idiots enlisting the aid of autocratic authority.

  2. Moe here again: I have never been in The Netherlands, so took a closer look at the housing in the photo. Row housing, each house identical to the next. No wonder the residents hate the antenna: it breaks the symmetry!

    Also, I wouldn’t find the antenna nearly “invisible” but it is barely obtrusive for those unaffended by a slight deviance from an absolute ‘norm’.

  4. Je zal maar zulke buren hebben. Bah! Ben blij dat ik ergens in de middle of nowhere woon. Aan het eind van de spoorlijn en op het randje van Nederland. Geen last met buren, alhoewel ik die wel heb. Denk dat voor deze zendamateur verhuizen dan ook de enige optie is als hij zijn hobby wil voortzetten zonder stress. 73, Bas

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  6. Looks like the housing I’ve seen in the U.K., though everyone there had a small UHF beam antenna pointed to the nearest local broadcast towers which I thought was interesting. Most probably didn’t use them as everyone seemed to have cable or a dish.

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  9. I don’t live in a restricted neighborhood, but based on an incident a few years back where a ruckus formed over someone placing a modular home on a lot, I fear that if I put up a tower, those same people would get their pitchforks and complain to the county commissioners, resulting in a dawn-out legal war.

    • Nick, those aren’t unrealistic fears. One ham here in a western suburb of Minneapolis has had a long struggle to put up a modest 30-foot tower. The determining factor is your neighbours; if they don’t like, it won’t happen. The City Engineer has demanded four separate studies from structural engineers, and two inspections from licensed electricians, and he’s no nearer to approval than he was when he started. Except that he’s spent about $3k and still has no tower after 36 months. Once the “stall and pay” tactics fail, the City is more likely than not to point to the ‘controversy’ as a justification for passage of an ordinance banning residential towers anyway.

      This is the new reality for ham radio, stupid or not. I haven’t seen hams being very helpful to their cause, either. In 2011, I went to a Council meeting in another suburb to present my findings on the local bat population, and there was a tower ordinance being considered. Three hams were there: crusty old guys, snarling and yelling. Two of them made rambling rants about socialism and Obama. The third pretty much just personally insulted the Council members and the people that had complained. The ordinance passed unanimously.

      I have never seen a hobby so poorly promoted by its participants than ham radio. Within ten years, the licensee demographics will be decimated, yet hams are still scheming for ways to keep people out and keep it as their their own exclusive retirement home. Instead of promoting and explaining the hobby, they get confrontational and elitist. There are smart ways and dumb ways to get people on your side, even if you’re right.

      • I’m just glad that the attempt to form an HOA in 2001 fell apart. I’m currently reading the proposed CC&R, and in the prohibited structure list, I see antennas listed with the exception of an antenna that is no higher than 10 feet above the highest point of the building and transmits no more than 10 watts. I’m pretty sure that the 10 watt restriction would be hard for them to enforce and would have most likely be struck down in court.

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  12. Sounds like another case of sudo-science dressed up as fact.
    When you consider what are foisted on the general public as “low-energy light bulbs”, are mercury-discharge lamps, containing according to the EU idiots “that most toxic material” – about one gram of Mercury per lamp. -No Thanks!
    I pity the poor ham, but well that story is about typical for cloggy-land and its sudo-sciennce spouting, flat-earther stricknings.
    I spent the 1980s and 1990s there helping their “government”, build computer systems; simply because no one among the supposedly well qualified people I worked among would make decisions. They were great at holding meetings, generally as far away from the place where the action was ongoing (?), [So I got to see lots of the contry-side] about the coffee grounds from the meeting before last but decisions about getting on with the job. They have such a warped sense of the world, we ended up driving 100 miles to buy oil drums (to use as extra ballast for a small ship) that came from the next quay to were it was moored all in the name of the “environment”. No wonder Greenpeace has its HQ there ! Nice Country- shame about a lot of the people! Thankfully I am unlikely to return any time soon.

  13. Now days any retard can memorize 40 questions and pass the technician exam. Then they buy a $40.00 handy talky and are all suddenly audio and RF experts.

    Listening to the local repeaters is like going to kinder garden everyday. What a boring bunch of no nothings it has become. It’s so dummed down that my dog has a technician license. It’s a wasteland of people with zero expertise and no personality. Frankly I am glad I left it behind.

    And I hold an Extra Class (20 wpm) ticket and First class commercial license.

  14. Ham radio IS dangerous. Just check how many hams have been affected by brain cancer or leukemia, and drive your conclusions. It is also probably related to OCD syndrome, in the sense that people with obsessive-compulsive disorder often get interested into ham radio.

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