HOAs, Amateur Radio, & EMCOMM
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Amateur Radio Operators and HOAs go together like oil and vinegar in most cases. Rules regarding antennas or "other structures" on a property bound by HOA rules often makes installation of HF antennas impossible, and even makes VHF/UHF installations challenging and less-than-optimal.
The FCC has addressed local ordinances with PRB-1, which legally inhibits local governments from imposing unreasonable limitations on radio operators. Our ability to provide emergency communications support is at the core of the argument made for PRB-1 freedoms. Sadly, PRB-1 does not impact HOAs because the HOA rules are imposed by private contract, not legal ordinances.
These restrictions automatically remove a percentage of our operators from being able to be effective providers of emergency communications. At best an operator might be able to prepare to have antennas ready to go up, but those of us who have been around for Field Day setups over the years know that things don't always go as planned. They virtually never do during an emergency.
Lobbying efforts, attempting to limit the ability of HOAs to enforce antenna restrictions have had minimal interest from Congress through the years, but the momentum has been building, and legislation has moved further than ever before, with House Resolution 1094 and Senate Bill 459 being far enough along to possibly pass in the current session. The legislation would extend PRB-1 type preemption on private agreements, opening the door to Amateur Radio Operators to installing visible outside antennas.
Senator Ted Cruz (TX) gave a Memorial Day pitch for Amateur Radio and it's history of service during emergencies, including efforts during hurricane Harvey and the more recent Camp Mystic floods; arguing for the need to ensure Amateur Radio Operators have the tools they need to provide service. You can see the speech here.
Letting your elected federal officials know your thoughts on the issue is crucial right now. Even if you have done it before, you can (and should) do it again. Even if you are affected by crazy HOA rules, you'll be helping your fellow operators and improve our ability to provide Emergency Communications services across the country.
ARRL is pushing for Amateur Radio Operators to participate in a "letter" writing campaign. You can visit this site to generate an electronic communication to your elected representatives.
Operation Talladega Signal
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As many of you may know, we have an upcoming exercise, where we'll put various amateur radio skills together to test our ability to assist in emergency response. Operation Talladega Signal will take place on March 28, 2026 at the Big Oak Hunt Camp, Talladega National Forest, 11:00AM Eastern, 10:00AM Central. This will be a great opportunity for all of us to practice our existing skills and learn new ones, so I hope you'll attend.
At the heart of the exercise will be to cooperatively use Radio Direction Finding (RDF) skills to locate a lost hiker who will be calling for help on an FRS radio. FRS frequencies are close enough to our 70cm band that our equipment should work fine, as almost all 70cm radios will tune out-of-band for receive.
The WGARS trailer will be used as the Incident Command Post to coordinate the search effort. Unlike Fox Hunts, which are competitive exercises, the object here is for the teams to work together at the direction of Incident Command to triangulate on the lost hiker. While breaking from the group in an effort to "be the first" to find the hiker might make you happy, it will likely result in you being on the receiving end of mean looks and possibly an unkind gesture or two :). PLEASE stick with the spirit of cooperation for this exercise. We need to demonstrate we can work in a professional and cooperative way.
In addition to using our RDF skills, we hope to have an APRS digipeater connected to a computer running triangulation software that has been enhanced to plot APRS stations as well. So, if you have an APRS capable radio, bring it along. This will provide an opportunity to test our ability to use APRS to monitor deployed teams, not just for being embedded in Search and Rescue (SAR) teams, but other tasks like damage assessment, providing APRS "text" communications, and tracking for NGOs and other types of teams during an emergency.
You can view the WGARS announcement HERE. The plan overview can be viewed HERE.
NVIS Antenna Configurations
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NVIS (Near Incidence Vertical Skywave) is best accomplished transmitting in the most common NVIS bands (80, 60, ad 20m) with a very high angle of incidence, the radio waves going almost straight up. This is the exact opposite of what we are doing when we're "DXing" (distant communications); as a result, almost all the logic we apply to setting up antennas is turned on its head. We must utilized antennas in ways we typically would avoid, and we'll cover the different ways here. The key is to remember we are attempting to direct radio waves upwards, rather than towards the horizon.
Dipole Antennas
These are the most common antennas in amateur radio. They are easy to make and work well. For DX, all you need to do is get them as high off the ground as you can get so the bulk of the radio signals are radiated towards the horizon.
QRP, NVIS, and 60 meters in EMCOMM
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Low Power (QRP), Near Incidence Vertical Skywave (NVIS), and the 60 meter band looks more and more to be intended for use in Emergency Communications (EMCOMM). I've touched on all of this over the last few presentations, so all I'm really doing here is putting it together.
The recent changes to the 60 meter band embrace the use of QRP on that band. What was the third channelized frequency in the 60 meter band has been eliminated, the frequency spectrum in consumed, and the adjacent portions of the band between the 2nd and 4th channels is now VFO tunable - with the caveat that operation must be QRP (9.15W ERP). The remaining channelized frequencies may still operate at the previous 100W (ERP) level.
The New 60 Meter Band
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Recent NVIS tests we conducted showed, at least for early daytime hours, 40 meters worked best for NVIS, although both 10 and 20 meters did perform, just not as well as 40 meters. As one might expect, 80 meters did not work well in daytime for NVIS.
Some of us discussed 60 meters, the channelized band, as a possible NVIS candidate. An indication it might perform well is the fact the Federal Government uses it as part of their emergency communications system and SHARES, a public/private emergency communications network.
During those discussions we considered executing a NVIS exercise that included 60 meters. Coincidentally, the FCC has made changes to the 60 meter band, eliminating one of the channels and replacing it
Antenna Polarization
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Our recent NVIS (Near Incidence Vertical Skywave) experiments brought to light a discussion of antenna polarization. Does it matter? Does it impact NVIS? Absolutely and absolutely.
First, lets talk about polarization on VHF. We all generally run vertical antennas when running VHF-FM. It works well when reaching out to repeaters or attempting point-to-point simplex communications. However, if two operators are attempting to communicate VHF-FM and one is horizontal and one is vertical, they will have issues. The E-fields are oriented perpendicular ("cross-ways", so to speak), and the loss of 10db-20db, signal degradation to 1/10th to 1/100th, is the result. It's just the nature of how radio signals are picked up by the antenna. In this case, compatible orientation is vital.
Know Your Gear
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We discussed standardizing channels in a previous ARES net (and also at a recent WGARS meeting). Why? Consistency makes for an easier time dealing with unusual circumstances; not having to spend time and mental effort finding the right channel.
Even more important is to understand how to operate the radio. Here are a few items to be sure you know how to do:
Power
Obviously the most important thing to know how to do.
The Display
Do you know what all those little symbols on the display mean? At least the important ones? It's a good first step to figuring out why the radio isn't operating as expected. You can see what functions are turned on or off, like memory or VFO, tone, offset, annoying roger-beeps, etc. and from there know what you may need to do to resolve an issue.
Amateur Radio, ARES, and RACES
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In previous ARES presentations I have made reference to other entities that either provide Emergency Communications services, or need the ability to utilize them during an emergency.
While we focus on the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), sponsored by the ARRL, for providing emergency communications, the only entity recognized formally in FCC regulations is the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES). So what is RACES, and why do we hear so little about it?
RACES is recognized in FCC regulations Part 97, Section 407. RACES is a service comprised of Amateur Radio operators who report directly to a Civil Defense Agency like FEMA, GEMA, and local
QRP And Amateur Radio
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While many operators tend to operate using the 100W or 200W their radio provides, and yet others use external amplifiers to run hundreds, even more than 1KW, there are others who operate at the other end of the spectrum, 5-10 Watts.
QRP operation is often practiced by operators participating in Parks On The Air (POTA) or Summits On The Air (SOTA), who are often hiking or backpacking their equipment to the operating location, carrying their power source with them. Naturally, packing a Marine Battery would be a bit of a challenge, so smaller and lighter batteries with lower power capacity are used.
Due to limitations in available power the operators naturally run less power, usually 20W or less. QRP is generally considered 5-10W, but even 20W is possible with more efficient modern equipment and Lithium batteries.
Disaster Preparedness Month 2025
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September is National Preparedness month, and we'll continue our discussion of preparedness. It is fitting we cover the topic as a group, but even more so at home with your family.
Recent discussions have included a variety of people volunteering information about their preparation efforts (or lack of). The most recent West Georgia Amateur Radio Society (WGARS) featured a discussion between Sierra (K4SBE) and John (WD8LQT) regarding her deployments to disaster areas. That discussion focused on catastrophic events where, quite frankly, there is little any of us could do beyond wait for help (i.e. houses destroyed, infrastructure inoperable, etc). Probably the best advice for these types of events, especially if we know they are coming, is to wear a full set of clothes, even when going to sleep - so if something does happen you have some basic personal protection from the elements! We hope to have a video of that discussion available soon.
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