Is That Antenna Allowed? The Real Deal On The FCCs OTARD Rule

August 30, 2024 by Dan Maloney 111 Comments

The Hackaday comments section is generally a lively place. At its best, it’s an endless wellspring of the combined engineering wisdom of millions of readers which serves to advance the state of the art in hardware hacking for all. At its worst — well, let’s just say that at least it’s not the YouTube comments section.

Unfortunately, there’s also a space between the best and the worst where things can be a bit confusing. A case in point is [Bryan Cockfield]’s recent article on a stealth antenna designed to skirt restrictions placed upon an amateur radio operator by the homeowners’ association (HOA) governing his neighborhood.

Putting aside the general griping about the legal and moral hazards of living under an HOA, as well as the weirdly irrelevant side-quest into the relative combustibility of EVs and ICE cars, there appeared to be a persistent misapprehension about the reality of the US Federal Communications Commission’s “Over-the-Air Reception Devices” rules. Reader [Gamma Raymond] beseeched us to clarify the rules, lest misinformation lead any of our readers into the unforgiving clutches of the “golf cart people” who seem to run many HOAs.

According to the FCC’s own OTARD explainer, the rules of 47 CFR § 1.400 are intended only to prevent “governmental and nongovernmental restrictions on viewers’ ability to receive video programming signals” (emphasis added) from three distinct classes of service: direct satellite broadcasters, broadband radio service providers, and television broadcast services.

Specifically, OTARD prevents restrictions on the installation, maintenance, or use of antennas for these services within limits, such as dish antennas having to be less than a meter in diameter (except in Alaska, where dishes can be any size, because it’s Alaska) and restrictions on where antennas can be placed, for example common areas (such as condominium roofs) versus patios and balconies which are designated as for the exclusive use of a tenant or owner. But importantly, that’s it. There are no carve-outs, either explicit or implied, for any other kind of antennas — amateur radio, scanners, CB, WiFi, Meshtastic, whatever. If it’s not about getting TV into your house in some way, shape, or form, it’s not covered by OTARD.

It goes without saying that we are not lawyers, and this is not to be construed as legal advice. If you want to put a 40′ tower with a giant beam antenna on your condo balcony and take on your HOA by stretching the rules and claiming that slow-scan TV is a “video service,” you’re on your own. But a plain reading of OTARD makes it clear to us what is and is not allowed, and we’re sorry to say there’s no quarter for radio hobbyists in the rules. This just means you’re going to need to be clever about your antennas. Or, you know — move.

Hidden Gutter Antenna Keeps HOA Happy

August 27, 2024 by Bryan Cockfield 141 Comments

The United States and a few other countries have an astounding array of homeowners’ associations (HOAs), local organizations that exert an inordinate influence on what homeowners can and can’t do with their properties, with enforcement mechanisms up to foreclosure. In the worst cases they can get fussy about things like the shade of brown a homeowner can paint their mailbox post, so you can imagine the problems they’d have with things like ham radio antennas. [Bob] aka [KD4BMG] has been working on tuning up his rain gutters to use as “stealth” antennas to avoid any conflicts with his HOA.

With the right antenna tuner, essentially any piece of metal can be connected to a radio and used as an antenna. There are a few things that improve that antenna’s performance, though. [Bob] already has an inconspicuous coax connector mounted on the outside of his house with an antenna tuner that normally runs his end-fed sloper antenna, which also looks like it includes a fairly robust ground wire running around his home. All of this is coincidentally located right beside a metal downspout, so all this took to start making contacts was to run a short wire from the tuner to the gutter system.

With the tuner doing a bit of work, [Bob] was able to make plenty of contacts from 10 to 80 meters, with most of the contacts in the 20 – 30 meter bands. Although the FCC in the US technically forbids HOAs from restricting reasonable antennas, if you’d rather not get on the bad side of your least favorite neighbors there are a few other projects from [Bob] to hide your gear.

Continue reading “Hidden Gutter Antenna Keeps HOA Happy” →

Antenna Hidden In Holiday Lights Skirts HOA Rules

February 27, 2023 by Bryan Cockfield 87 Comments

For all their supposed benefits, homeowner’s associations (HOAs) have a reputation of quickly turning otherwise quaint neighborhoods into a sort of Stanford prison experiment, as those who get even the slightest amount of power often abuse it. Arbitrary rules and enforcement abound about house color, landscaping, parking, and if you’ve ever operated a radio, antennas. While the FCC (at least as far as the US is concerned) does say that HOAs aren’t permitted to restrict the use of antennas, if you don’t want to get on anyone’s bad side you’ll want to put up an antenna like this one which is disguised as a set of HOA-friendly holiday lights.

For this build, a long wire is hidden along with a strand of otherwise plain-looking lights. While this might seem straightforward at first, there are a few things that need to be changed on the lighting string in order to make both the antenna and the disguise work. First, the leads on each bulb were removed to to prevent any coupling from the antenna into the lighting string. Clipping the leads turns what is essentially a long wire that might resonate with the antenna’s frequency into many short sections of wire which won’t have this problem. This also solves the problem of accidentally illuminating any bulbs when transmitting, as the RF energy from the antenna could otherwise transfer into the lighting string and draw attention from the aforementioned HOA.

Tests of this antenna seemed to show surprising promise while it was on the ground, but when the string and antenna was attached to the roof fascia the performance dropped slightly, presumably because of either the metal drip edge or the gutters. Still, the antenna’s creator [Bob] aka [HOA Ham] had excellent success with this, making clear contacts with other ham radio operators hundreds of miles away. We’ve shared another of [Bob]’s HOA-friendly builds below as well which hides the HF antenna in the roof’s ridge vent, and if you’re looking for other interesting antenna builds take a look at this one which uses a unique transformer to get wide-band performance out of an otherwise short HF antenna.

Continue reading “Antenna Hidden In Holiday Lights Skirts HOA Rules” →

Florida Man Hates Amateur Radio

December 12, 2016 by Brian Benchoff 100 Comments

Any amateur radio operator who is living under a homeowner’s association, covenant, or has any other deed restriction on their property has a problem: antennas are ugly, and most HOAs outright ban everything from 2-meter whips to unobtrusive J-pole antennas.

Earlier this year, the ARRL got behind a piece of legislation called the Amateur Radio Parity Act. This proposed law would amend FCC’s Part 97 rules for amateur stations and direct, ‘Community associations to… permit the installation and maintenance of effective outdoor Amateur Radio antennas.’ This bill passed the US House without objection last September.

Last week, the Amateur Radio Parity Act died in the US Senate. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), the ranking member of the Senate committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, refused to move the bill forward in the Senate. The ARRL has been in near constant contact with Senator Nelson’s office, but time simply ran out before the end of the 114th Congress. The legislation will be reintroduced into the 115th Congress next year.

Amateur Radio Parity Act Passes US House

September 19, 2016 by Brian Benchoff 76 Comments

Most new houses are part of homeowners associations, covenants, or have other restrictions on the deed that dictate what color you can paint your house, the front door, or what type of mailbox is acceptable. For amateur radio operators, that means neighbors have the legal means to remove radio antennas, whether they’re unobtrusive 2 meter whips or gigantic moon bounce arrays. Antennas are ugly, HOAs claim, and drive down property values. Thousands of amateur radio operators have been silenced on the airwaves, simply because neighbors don’t like ugly antennas.

Now, this is about to change. The US House recently passed the Amateur Radio Parity Act (H.R. 1301) to amend the FCC’s Part 97 rules of amateur stations and private land-use restrictions.

The proposed amendment provides, ““Community associations should fairly administer private land-use regulations in the interest of their communities, while nevertheless permitting the installation and maintenance of effective outdoor Amateur Radio antennas.” This does not guarantee all antennas are allowed in communities governed by an HOA; the bill simply provides that antennas, ‘consistent with the aesthetic and physical characteristics of land and structures in community associations’ may be accommodated. While very few communities would allow a gigantic towers, C-band dishes, or 160 meters of coax strung up between trees, this bill will provide for small dipoles and inconspicuous antennae.

The full text of H.R. 1301 can be viewed on the ARRL site. The next step towards making this bill law is passage through the senate, and as always, visiting, calling, mailing, faxing, and emailing your senators (in that order) is the most effective way to make views heard.