Greetings All,
We'll have a finalized lists of positions to be filled for next week's Fiesta Parade in a day or so and get that info to you. http://www.oldspanishdays-fiesta.org/home.html
We'd also like to remind of the next event, thse Santa Barbara Triathlon,
http://www.santabarbaratriathlon.com/page.cfm?Inc=0
Be seing you,
Hubert
___________________________________________________________________
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Greetings, Key-Klix Contributor,
Monday, August 1st, is the deadline to submit articles and photos for the
August Key-Klix and I am the editor. Send your stuff to me at any of the
following addresses, please.
Ina Brittain
PO BOX 3124
Santa Barbara, CA 93130
805-967-7851
FAX 805-964-7960
e-mail: kf6wio(a)sbceo.org
We now have an image archive for Diablo peak online. Ok, I admit that
sounds much more grandiose than the reality, but at least you can now
see current images quickly and browse back a couple of hours or days. As
you'll see, the interface leaves a lot of room for improvement, shall we
say... but it's a start.
With this archive being available, I plan to phase-out the current
direct access to the camera. If you really need direct access, I can
arrange for that. If the current frequency of a snapshot every 5 minutes
is not frequent enough, please let me know as well.
<http://www.diablo.sbarc.org/imageview.cgi>
Thorsten
The 220 SMA is looking into revising the band plan for the 220 MHz.
Amateur Radio band. If you are interested please contact George
Kreider, KN6LA at kn6la(a)verizon.net.
Hello to everyone that has signed up so far.
It looks like we have 17 signed up not counting the committee.
If any of you know any repeater owners, PPS Ops, weak-signal
people, IRLP Ops or anyone that you think might be interested,
PLEASE contact them.
Give them my email address (kn6la(a)verizon.net).
All of you might want to add my address to your files in case
you want to contact me off of the reflector.
Lets start a list of things that need fixing.
Here is a start:
Weak-signal
Packet
Simplex
IRLP
Linking
??????
??????
--
---
73 de 'Jug' - - - WA6MBZ
Michael P. Jogoleff /// 805-560-0605 or 805 966 4808 voice tel.
1324 Panchita Place /// 805-966-4804 or 805 966 1598 fax tel.
Santa Barbara, CA /// 805-729-3388 cell phone (Verizon).
93103-2223.
Email Addresses:
mike-j(a)ix.netcom.com /// mike.j(a)att.net
wa6mbz(a)ix.netcom.com /// wa6mbz(a)att.net
mike_j(a)ix.netcom.com /// m.jogoleff(a)att.net
bungalow(a)ix.netcom.com ///
wa6mbz(a)sbarc.org /// Many many thanks
wa6mbz(a)qsl.net /// .end (2004-12-29).
To: Listserver
From: Bill Talanian
Subject: County Telecommunications Ordinance
As might be expected Santa Barbara County's Telecommunications Ordinance is
gaining national attention. The following article was forwarded to me from
K4AQ of Atlanta. Independently written it is a commentary about the sad
situation existing in Santa Barbara.
Folks, in my opinion the wireless industry is as frustrated with Staff, the
Planning Commission, and the Supervisors as you and I are. This is not the
first time that industry has stayed away from a Hearing pertaining to the
Telecommunications Ordinance. Over the years I have seen the industry
backing away little by little in its dealings with the County of Santa
Barbara. They are simply not going to spend any more political or financial
capital and wasting their time with an uncooperative local government. All
sounds just like our situation doesn't it ! There is no level playing
field here, the county wishes to control the entire agenda without
listening to any other side and crafting an ordinance that works. If this
County does not want good telecommunications services then fine, there are
plenty more towns in America where the industry can grow and make a profit
without spending their resources on consultants, lobbyists, and lawyers. In
the end the consumer suffers. And in our case we as Amateurs are simply
lumped in with the rest of the mess.
Instead of working with the industry and the Amateur Radio community and
coming up with a model of cooperation and understanding the County has
separated itself from the public and elected to roll their own, the result
is the creation of a paperwork monster that no one can deal with.
If an ordinance cannot stand on its own merit and equitably serve the
community then it deserves to fail. The Telecommunications Ordinance is
bankrupt and broke. Until the Supervisors recognize this fact then nothing
is going to change.
Bill Talanian
-----Original Message-----
From: Outlook 4Mobility [mailto:no_reply@outlook4mobility.com]
Sent: Monday, 18 July, 2005 19:14
To: List Member
Subject: Commentary 4Mobility, July 18, 2005, "Where Was The Wireless
Industry?"
By Andrew M. Seybold <<mailto:andy@outlook4mobility.com?subject=Comments on
your commentary>andy(a)4mobility.com>
July 18, 2005
----------
Where Was The Wireless Industry?
Okay, I admit it, I am upset and for a good reason. This week I attended a
meeting of the Santa Barbara Planning Commission at which the commissioners
were to consider amendments to the Santa Barbara Telecommunications
Facilities Ordinance.
As many of you know, ahead of this meeting I prepared a white paper about
why we need more cell sites now and in the future (available for free on
our web site www.4Mobility.com). I sent a copy of this paper to each
commissioner and I talked to representatives of two wireless networks that
assured me they would be represented at the meeting by both technical and
legal people.
Guess what? When I showed up at the meeting, only one wireless network
operator had sent representatives, and they were technical people who were
not able to discuss the legal ramifications. The other network operator was
a no-show and no one else from the industry showed up. The result was that
the County of Santa Barbara Planning Commission voted to accept the
recommendations of its staff (no surprise there) and the ordinance now
makes it even tougher for wireless cell sites to be installed in some
zoning designations of the county, and the entire process will take longer
and be scrutinized more closely.
Some of the other changes will also cost wireless network operators more
money and time in designing wireless sites. Most of the push-back by the
commissioners was because their county council pointed out how little
jurisdiction they really have because of federal regulations. They decided
to accept the changes that give them more control over the wireless
operators who are, after all, trying to get away with whatever they can get
away with and ruin the county by putting up thousands of wireless cell sites.
One of the revisions in wording states that wireless operators will have to
prove the need for new sites based on coverage (not coverage and capacity
requirements as I tried to have it amended). This has already proven to be
a problem since one of the commissioners recently drove to a proposed site
location and had plenty of signal from the wireless network in question.
Now he is fighting the need for a new site, even though during busy periods
it is overloaded.
The immediate consequence of this vote is that several sites within the
county that should have been approved at staff level will now require a
hearing before the entire planning commission that does not understand any
of the ramifications of what it passed. Forefront in their decision was
their dismay that under the federal siting law they could not deny a
second, third, fourth, or as one commissioner put it, a dozen or more
wireless networks from locating in the same area.
Yes, I know. In the grand scheme of things, Santa Barbara is a small county
and people at the various wireless service providers' operations
headquarters cannot jump on a plane and fly all over the country, nor can
the CITA, which has promised to become involved at a state and local level.
However, I believe that ordinances such as this one as amended will be used
as guidelines for other counties and cities in California and potentially
in other states as well.
I have to assume that we are not the only area where this is happening.
There is so much misinformation out there regarding cell sites and the need
for more that I am sure this is not an isolated case. The wireless industry
continues to complain (as do I) that it is being unduly restricted when it
comes to building additional cell sites, but when given the opportunity to
educate those in charge at counties and cities, the wireless industry is a
no-show.
In the long term, it is the consumers of wireless services that have been
shortchanged. They will continue to complain about poor coverage, dropped
calls and the like. They will continue to elevate their cries to state
public utility commissions, organizations such as Consumer Reports, which
has a site where complaints are logged and shared, and the FCC where the
number of complaints logged against each provider is shown in the aggregate.
The circle will remain unbroken. Consumers will complain to PUCs, the FCC
and others about poor service, and local governments will continue to be
upset that the FCC trumps them in some areas of the decision-making process
and will pass new ordinances making it tougher than ever to gain new site
approval. How do they think network operators are going to fix the problems?
Most of the changes to our ordinance were adopted so the county could feel
it had taken back some of its authority that had been preempted by the FCC.
It became very clear from listening to the commissioners' comments that
they really resented not having complete control over the entire process.
They cannot use health issues as a reason to preclude sites from being
built and they have to let networks build in areas where another network
operator already has a site.
The argument I raised about needing new cell sites in order to provide
additional capacity fell on deaf ears. So did my comments about wireless
phones now outnumbering wired phones in the United States and the fact that
they will continue to increase in numbers. I tried to explain that new
services employing data capabilities will require more cell sites to meet
ever-increasing capacity demands.
Not only did commercial wireless networks lose at this week's meeting, so
did amateur radio operators. Under the amendments to this ordinance, if I
want to put up a simple wire antenna between my house and a tree I will
need a permit. Depending on where I live, I might even be required to
obtain a conditional use permit.
The only winners under the terms of these modifications to the ordinance
are those who want to install a Wi-Fi (or WiMAX) system on a home or
business to provide services to themselves or others. The county seems
perfectly willing to permit single antennas used for these unlicensed
services to be erected without permits if they do not protrude more than 14
feet above an existing building or structure. Perhaps the future of
commercial wireless networks in our county lies in the use of microcells
placed on houses within a neighborhood. It appears from what I have seen
that I could dot an entire community with these small antennas and not have
to worry about permits or other requirements even if I charged money for
the service.
The wireless community lost another round this week. Not in New York or Los
Angeles, but in Santa Barbara County. Most of the industry does not seem to
care about what is happening in this county or others like it around the
United States. I guess since neither the wireless industry nor the
organizations founded to support it will become active in these battles, we
will continue to see more restrictive ordinances.
This will make it more difficult to build new sites to provide better
service, and it will be more expensive for everyone. Education is a
valuable tool we should be using at state and local levels as well as in
communities where wireless customers live and work. This week I also gave a
speech about wireless services to a small group of executives in the city
of Santa Barbara. When I asked if any of them were happy with the wireless
coverage they have now, the answer was no. It didn't matter which network
they were on, they were all unhappy with their coverage, the number of
dropped calls and what they see as a lack of responsiveness by wireless
operators to fix coverage problems. When I explained that all of the
operators want to fix these problems but were being hamstrung by local
governments, they understood the issue and, I believe, left with a new
empathy for wireless network operators. This speech was given the day after
the planning commission voted 5-0 to accept the new revisions to the
ordinance, so it really didn't matter.
The wireless industry has an uphill battle ahead the fact that the FCC
trumps local regulations bugs the locals so they try to gain an advantage.
Unfortunately, the advantage is not so they can see to it that their
citizens have the wireless service they want and need, it is to be able to
thumb their nose at the feds and say, "See, you won't let us regulate our
own county so we found a way to do it." And they will use every tool they
have to keep the feds and the big, rich wireless network operators from
being able to dictate to them.
Politics at its finest with no help from the wireless industry, and no
regard for the citizens that live and work in the county. I guess that is
the American way!
Andrew M. Seybold
----------
The Outlook 4Mobility provides its commentaries free of charge. Outlook
4Mobility products and services include Consulting Services, Mobiltorials,
Newsletters, Customized Proprietary Research, Wireless Tutorials and
Conferences. Please visit our web site at
<http://www.outlook4mobility.com/>www.4mobility.com for additional information.
Copyright 2005 Outlook 4Mobility
SBARC Members,
SBARC is going to construct a short video that is an introduction to ham
radio and the SBARC club. The ARRL has some introductory videos, but they
run over 30 minutes. Our video will be short (10 to 15 minutes) and will be
fast moving. The goal of this video is to introduce ham radio without going
into a lot of details. We will show how a person interested in the hobby
can take the next step. The video can be distributed on inexpensive CD
videos or DVDs.
The goal of this video is recruitment and to get more people interested in
ham radio.
We need club members to plan and take this video. We also need background
music and graphics.
If you are interested in participating in a fun project, we will have a
planning meeting Thursday, August 4, at 7 PM. The location is the Club Red
Cross Station. I may even get my wife to make some of her famous Key Lime
pies (SB News-Press did an article on them). So mark your calendar for the
evening before the Fiesta parade.
Tom Saunders N6YX
SBARC Members,
I want to thank everyone that participated in the SBARC Field Day that was
held June 25 and 26 at Elings Park.
Our goal for this year was just to have fun. We met our goal, had lots of
fun, and even got a decent score.
The score that I filed with ARRL is:
CW Phone
80 Meters 77 93
40 Meters 321 21
20 Meters 501 407
15 Meters 9 254
Total QSOs 908 775
Bonus Points 650
Total Score 5,832 Points
We even set a record this year with Take-Down. Everything was taken down
and put away in less than 2 and one-half hours. We spent Sunday afternoon
with a great potluck BBQ at a nearby park. Thanks to Marvin for a "20 over
S9" BBQ!
If you missed Field Day this year, there are still lots of other club
activities. Other activities this summer/fall are :
Introduction to Ham Radio and SBARC Multi-Media Project
SBARC Rover Vehicle
Rover Expeditions
Contest Operation (California QSO Party October 1 & 2).
Also, Hamfest is Saturday, August 13.
73,
Tom, N6YX
