Ham Radio
Transcript: DX - Skip SATELLITE Email Hoax -----Original Message----- From: EDWARD PAUL JONES [mailto:k5zpc@att.net] Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2009 8:11 PM To: M.A. ABITZ Subject: Silence ALL Ham Activity Can you believe this is really happening ? ED Pass it on folks it is getting nasty out there who knows what will be next..............CU Charlie California County Taking Actions To Silence ALL Ham Activity This is incredible. I can't believe this is happening in our country. Every ham in the US needs to read this. Does city and county agencies have cleaner and environmental friendly RF coming out of their radios? Date: Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 2:01 PM Subject: California County Taking Actions To Silence ALL Ham Activity From http://www.radiobanter.com/ San Luis Obispo county supervisors took drastic and unprecedented action yesterday by passing an ordinance that would prohibit amateur radio operators, known as "hams", from operating their transmitting stations. The measure was put in place to eliminate what officials said were health risks associated with transmitters located close to children. A legal struggle is expected. By a vote of 4 to 1 with one abstention, the governing board of SLO county took action aimed at addressing a recent Stanford University study that showed a correlation between ham radios and attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity in children, as well as nagging reports of interference caused by radio hams operating their high-powered transmitters in residential neighborhoods. "Our primary responsibility is to provide a safe environment for children to live without the dangerous effects of radio waves constantly bombarding them and causing proven neurological and psychological problems," said E. Duane Nyborg, an attorney who represented the county in several court cases in the past year. "Hams are not the only culprits, but they are usually in very close proximity to children and are no doubt a major contributor to the health problems we've been seeing. The interference is just the last straw that convinced the county that something had to be done about it." Atascadero city manager Laura Lopez said that she has seen a tenfold increase in the number of complaints of interference from ham radio operators in the last six months. New housing developments which have dramatically increased the population there and placed homes unusually close to each other are the predominant contributing factor. Similar conditions exist in most of the county. "We have radio hams getting into toasters, electric pianos, light bulbs, everything, from their powerful transmitters that cause all this static. Many of our citizens can't use basic appliances or watch television because of all the junk that the hams are broadcasting," she told the Press-Telegram by telephone. Hams can't say they didn't see this coming. They were warned by the county last year that if they did not submit to a check of their stations by officials, they would have limits imposed on their operation. Few consented to the searches, which most decried as invasive. But nobody expected a total ban on transmissions. "This is outrageous. You'd better believe we're going to fight back and win. This is a totalitarian seizure of our rights that is totally illegal and can't stand up," said Frank Wilson, a local ham club president. He said there were no formal plans for an appeal yet but preparations were underway. Wilson claims that a federal preemption of local zoning ordinances, called PRB-1, delineates three rules for local municipalities to follow in accomodating antenna structures such as are used by hams. But Nyborg says that PRB-1 applies to antenna structures only, and not the transmitters used to feed the antennas with a radio signal. "We know all about PRB-1. That's why we said nothing about antennas. This law is not about antennas. It goes after the root of the problem, which are the transmitters that put out huge signals that get into the brains of our children and short-circuit them out. Those are the facts, that's what the scientific evidence points to," he said at a news conference called shortly after the county's action. In 2008, a group of researchers in the school of Environmental Health and Safety at Stanford published their findings that exposure to ham radio signals for three hours per day increased the risk of hyperactivity and related disorders by 10% in children aged 12 and under. This effect was seen when a typical ham radio was turned on up to ¼ mile away. The San Luis Obispo city office says that up to 11,000 children in that city live that close to a ham radio station. The Stanford study showed that frequency around 3.5, 7, and 14 Megahertz were the most harmful, but that the danger existed all the way up to 450 Megahertz and above. "We know where the hams are, that information is easy to get on the Internet," said former mayor of Paso Robles and current county supervisor Anthony Wu. "Most of these guys are running one hundred watts