Ritner Nesbitt who has been a ham radio operator for close to 50 years was cited by code enforcement for the 140 foot radio tower he installed at his home.
File photo
File photo
“Given that this is a very, very specialized area of the law, we just decided to get a recognized expert to kind of chime in,” Hosack said. “We’ve had three different hits now kind of get together and say ‘here’s our position,’ so if this ends up where I think it’s going to end up, I think we’re going to be in a good position.”
Amateur radio operator Ritner Nesbitt, a grandfather of 10 who lives down the road from Dominion Christian Schools, was cited after neighbors complained about his tower. He applied for a special land use permit, which the county’s Planning Commission unanimously recommended denying on Oct. 2.
Hosack said Nesbitt would be in the clear if his tower stopped at the county’s 70-foot height limit — “We would just wish him good luck and send him on his way” — but to have one higher than that requires a special land use permit.
Nesbitt, who has spent between $30,000 and $40,000 on the tower, said he’ll take the county to court before taking the tower down.
The county paid attorney Anthony LePore of CityScape Consultants, Inc. $500 to render an opinion on the matter. LePore concluded that federal regulations “would not preclude Cobb County from processing this application in accordance with its existing wireless communications regulations.”
County spokesman Robert Quigley said the county began using CityScape after it updated its telecom ordinance in Nov. 2010.
Commissioners were scheduled to vote on Nesbit’s request at their Oct. 16 meeting, but the matter was postponed until Nov. 20 to give the county’s staff time to review an Oct. 15 letter from Nesbitt’s attorney, Christopher Balch. In that letter, Balch takes issue with LePore’s opinion, writing that the tower is allowed under federal law.
Cobb Board of Commissioners Chairman Tim Lee, just back from a trip to South Korea, said he needed to research the issue more before deciding which way to vote.
“Amateur radio operators are licensed at different levels to operate at different frequencies depending on their license ability,” Lee said. “They play a role in communications on a national level in the event of a catastrophic communications failure across the country, so I have to see if that plays into our decision-making as well.”
Nesbit said he moved to a five-acre wooded slope across the street from the Burnt Hickory Farms subdivision 20 years ago because it was the ideal spot to pursue his hobby. He built three radio towers on the slope behind his home in the 1990s: two that crank up to 35 feet and one that is 70 feet in height.
Then in 2008, his attorney writes, with band conditions continuing to deteriorate because of solar radiation, he decided to build a taller antenna tower. The fourth tower covers areas such as South Africa and toward Australia and New Zealand.
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Children play with plug and play CB. CB'ers commonly break the laws and are of low IQ.
Amateur Radio Operators are licensed, Educated, and community minded.
Safety is not an issue as long as it was built using good engineering practice. Each part of the country has a different deffinition for good practice. For Iowa, the tower needs to be able to withstand a 100MPH wind while coated with two inches of ice. My county does allow towers of this height but requires an annual inspection by a certified engineer and a tower fall zone. Most midwest goverments followed FAA regulations which allow up to 200 feet unless near an airport. Larger cities will restrict this to around 100 feet but allow exceptions, mainly to cell phone companies.
Be very careful what you do here. It can have a impact on the area if a cell phone company wants to place a tower in the same area.
I am assuming here that because you do not know the tower/height/strobe lights laws that you are a student pilot at best. You may correct me if you like, but I will simply be forced into believing that any real pilot would not know these very rudimentary flying rules and laws, nor would a professional pilot ever elude to the fact that he/she flies as low as 140' over a non landing zone or takeoff zone of an airport. Or do you regularly fly under the 140' height over houses and buildings? If I get your registration numbers on your rental airplane I will report you for flying so low as any pilot would know that flying at 140' is an absolute no no in the eyes of the FAA.
It never fails to amazes me when someone quotes laws when they are not in any way correct.
It is difficult to act like an eagle when you have to fly with buzzards!
BULL! Why don't you stop the righteous HAM politcal correctness positive image crap. You probably don't sign off with your call number half the time. The MDJ has done a good job bringing real issues to fore, but you would rather condone a neighbor complaining about a neighbor about his towers. Wake up, okay!
Lightning is caused by dissimilar charge buildup on clouds relative to other clouds or earth. When potential difference is enough to break down the insulation of air, we have lightning.
A tower (or other tall structure) doesn't create lightning or draw lightning into an area. A tall structure merely provides a more attractive target for lightning that would otherwise hit elsewhere.
Watch reports on house fires. The majority of strikes directly on houses occur where in CC&R restricted areas with underground utilities, and a lack of tall trees. In such areas, houses become a more attractive target. This is because tall utility poles with wires are missing.
As for microwaves and RF energy, the only health hazard from RF energy is heating. This comes down to a certain allowable field intensity in a given volume of space for certain frequency ranges. The EM field has to be intense enough and absorption high enough to elevate temperature to the point of damage. This is not damage that accumulates slowly over hours, months, or years like ionizing radiation. The worry is, as you pointed out, "cooking".
A typical microwave uses hundreds of watts confined to a small volume of space, power density is extremely high. The frequency is around 2 GHz. This just comfortably below the frequency where maximum absorption occurs, so the field penetrates deep inside food or water. Frequency is still high enough that nearly all microwave energy is absorbed and causes heating.
Normal communications frequencies are much lower and have much less power density. Heating is a non-issue.
The real problem with his tower is he broke the law, and it looks bad. Both are reason enough he should just shut up and take it down. The FCC offers no preemption against a reasonable zoning law, and he is giving Hams a bad name.
Please do not call Amateur Radio or connect it in any way to CB. They are worlds apart and if you would like to learn the difference feel freer to attend any Amateur Radio club in your area and talk to the members, they will give you a vocal thrashing when you compare them the CB'ers. Or you can attend with an open mind and listen to the technology involved. You will find that in the upper levels of the graduated licensing structure that the licensees are very educated themselves. Commonly M.D. PHd, RN, Electrical engineering, degrees follow many of the members along with teachers, truck drivers and automobile technicians as well. I am sure you will find many as educated as yourself and higher!
When the cell phones are inoperative during some major storm or similar communications interruption the very people that are opposing the towers will be knocking at Ritner Nesbitt's door when they want to get info on family or send a family member a message that they are alive and well.
I had a large generator in my side yard and the neighbors hated it, they tried to force the issue by having a city council member introduce code to stop such items in a visible yard. Yet whom do you think came over with extension cord in hand during an extended power outage? Thats correct, these same neighbors that had asked the city council to ban such items came begging for just a little electricity to power the refrigerator/freezer so they would not loose all the expensive food frozen/refrigerated and otherwise that they had purchased on sale to save money. Perhaps they should have invested in a generator of their own. I capitulated and allowed a few neighbors to hook up, but some were either to far away or would be to high a drain on my available power output. Now, I bought the generator to supply my home with all the extras like heating and cooling but I allowed others to use my power that I could not heat/cool, ETC. all I could do was supply my ref/freezer. It was interesting that not only did the neighbors ever offer up a few dollars to cover the cost of fuel but one that had been connected continued his effort to remove my generator for my yard. BTW, Lowe's, Home Depot, ETC were sold out of generators long before these very sale/bargain minded neighbors decided to buy a generator and because they procrastinated so long placed their frozen food bargains in jeopardy.
Towers do not attract lightning. Towers actually reduce chances of lightning damage to neighbors.
If you look carefully at house fires in Atlanta after storms, nearly all house fires are in neighborhoods without tall power poles or towers, or other tall protective objects. Houses become lightning targets protecting shorter structures.
The only legitimate complaints, if a tower cannot fall on someone else's property, is how the tower looks and what zoning allows.
The person with this tall tower is dead wrong. He should have applied for a variance and permit before building the tower, or moved to a county that had codes allowing tall tower.
I lived in an area with zoning identical to Cobb's. I decided I wanted a tall, so I moved to a county without restrictions. I now have several towers well over 100 feet.
Before I chose a county to live in, and long before I installed my tower, I read local zoning codes. The county I live in only restricts towers above 200 feet if they can fall on neighboring property, or if they are commercial use. Anyone can have a tower any height they want in this county, provided it is not for commercial use and it cannot fall onto other property.
The fellow with the tower in Cobb is just as wrong as the people claiming the tower is a hazard. He should have followed the law, or moved to a place where tall towers are allowed. He gives Ham radio a bad name by doing something wrong and then declaring he is above a reasonable law.
K4332 wants to play with his cb radios like he had a real license, cb isn't a real radio service, cb is plug and play for the kids as few adults use it, those that do are often challenged in some way or another. Computers are used in conjunction with Amateur Radio, often they are connected as an adjunct to the radio, there are even Amateur Radios that are on a card placed into a computer. This guy is some kind of computer guru then he shouldn't need to carve up another form of communications, as I feel that anything that allows people to talk is a good thing. I bet he had never talked to King Hussein of Jordan on his cell phone, many hams have chatted with the good king before his passing.
I believe that one person here has several nicknames and is nothing more than a troll. Am I correct K4332 and Physics Doc?
K4332, I contend to you that technology is not outdated and Amateur Radio specifically is an excellent teaching tool, emergency communications device and it is even used to update the National Weather Service through Amateur Radio's Skywarn organization where thousands of Amateur Radio Ops update the NWS as trained weather spotters.
K4332, again I suggest you should educate yourself by attending a local Amateur Radio club near you. You can Google "Amateur Radio club" and your locality for information on attending. You will probably find a club very near you if you are in any kind of population center.
Sorry you did not understand my post. The fact we have government officials telling us what we can or can not do on our own property and we let them is one of the reasons we're in a mess. You may think that's okay. Well, so be it.
As for law enforcement, the only reason the county even knows about this is because a neighbor lady woke up one day in a bad mood and decided to complain about the towers - not because she had health or safety concerns but because she thought they were ugly.
I see nothing here on any side to be proud of.
This will save a lot of time during the regularly scheduled public commission meeting and assure this Cobb longtime taxpayer his right to being a productive fellow citizen who only exercises his right to enjoy his hobby.
Nevertheless, in regard to the issue at hand, the one sole tower that extends above 70 feet. I do respect the county's position that he should have obtained approval before erecting that tower. However, what is the basis for forcing him to remove the structure? Unless Mr. Nesbit is unable to show it was installed correctly, or if the county is unable to shot there is a danger, they should let this guy have his tower, and continue to use HIS property as he sees fit.
Let the Ham radio guy have the special permit, he has proven his devotion to his city by not making a public assault on these rather short sighted commissioners. This is typical govt. logic of how can we stir the pot and cause trouble. Silly Bureaucrats!
What is your amateur radio call sign?
Oh and he should leave the county because someone thinks he likes things that may have some extra bells and whistles. Really? Do you really think that?
@The Facts and @Excessive CB- what in the world does CB radio have to do with this story. I somehow missed that "fact".
It's easy to see why our country is in such a mess now. It's so sad
You think the country is in a mess, because county officials are enforcing the law? Me thinks the opposite is true. We are in a mess, because laws are not enforced. You would be the first to yelp if country officials were not enforcing the law. You cannot have it both ways. Yes, a person can do what they want on their own property, if it is legal. The tower is illegal, and we commend our county officials for not looking the other way and doing what we pay them to do, which is enforce the laws.
Long Island Ham Radio Operator
It is indeed interesting to see such insulting remarks over a man using his privately owned property in a fashion he deems as a benefit to the public in almost any emergency situation.
Ritner Nesbitt is obviously a publicly minded Amateur as the nay sayers would quickly see when they needed during an emergency to communicate with their son or daughter in Afghanistan or elsewhere around the world.
I am an Amateur Extra which is the top level and congratulate Ritner Nesbitt on his persistence in pursuit of his just rights.
It is truly difficult to fly like an eagle when the flock in only buzzards.
What is your amateur radio call sign?
His lawyer need to read the regulations more closely and learn the difference between law and regulation.