[HamWAN PSDR] WADNR and Amateur relationship

Fri Mar 24 13:20:16 PDT 2023

And a small, partial, counter.  I personally know and have worked with one amateur who has had a DNR lease for decades. His lease DID specify all of the requirements (quantity and location of antennas, number of transmitters, allowed floor space etc.), and he DID receive notification of fees owed to DNR. His equipment did undergo periodic site inspections by DNR over the years – it was no surprise that they inspect to validate lease compliance. And he had leases at more than one DNR location – they all had the same requirements.  I cannot speak for anyone other than this one specific case I have knowledge of, but Stephen’s case is not universally valid either.  Further, my personal experience (granted it was many years ago) with commercial tower sites (other than DNR) is that all of those (and more) are standard requirements and specifications, and are written parts of any lease.  None of those should come as a surprise to occupants of radio sites.

I think more importantly, right now there are a number of people (in the proper positions in various emergency management agencies) who are working this issue. This isn’t going to be resolved overnight, and it is entirely possible it won’t be resolved in favor of the amateur community. But it is being worked, through proper channels, by the proper people to do that. 

And finally, WE elect the people who make the laws, and the budgets, and create the fiscal obligations and requirements.  That is OUR channel to work. But again, we need to do that properly and when we meet with a representative, we need to make sure we give them as accurate a picture as possible. It will serve us no purpose if they end up in an embarrassing position.

Please don’t misunderstand, I believe in amateur radio having favorable financial access to desirable locations, and I personally came up operationally short following HamWANs loss of Gold Mountain (among other DNR sites). I’d love to see them go back everyplace they were, and that is part of what is being worked on.

Respectfully,
Carl, N7KUW

From: PSDR <psdr-bounces at hamwan.org> On Behalf Of Stephen Kangas
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2023 12:07 PM
To: 'Puget Sound Data Ring' <psdr at hamwan.org>; 'Rob Salsgiver' <rob at nr3o.com>
Cc: netops at hamwan.org
Subject: Re: [HamWAN PSDR] WADNR and Amateur relationship

Jamie, 

It appears that you are not fully informed as to what took place leading up to WA DNR forcing amateur radio equipment off their land.  The picture you are painting here is very one-sided, and smacks of parroting what DNR is saying, not taking into account the experiences of hams who were unduly kicked off.  Publicly elected DNR Director Hillary Franz and DNR absolutely have blood on their hands, so to speak, and your attempts to quell that information and discussion here or anywhere else is at least unfair and at most censorship.  Of course, I am among many who welcome you to express your OPINION, one that is hopefully factually based, but it will help your reputation along with your effectiveness of swaying others by addressing the complete story.  Consider the following…

There are indeed some hams that have gone beyond their annual payment deadlines, and some site owners not keeping DNR up to date on installed equipment nor passing along new DNR requirements to hams operating at their sites.  But there were just as many or more hams complying with the “published” DNR requirements at the time they were granted agreement to install their equipment, which of course is not free to hams given the large amount of installation costs involved, who were expelled.  Hillary was looking for any small loophole excuse that DNR could find to convert the low revenue stream from hams into a commercial rate pipe-dream to help make up for her shortfall of funding from the WA legislature’s approved budget.   

Nearly all of us consumers pay annual, semi-annual, or monthly fees to service providers, whether that be a bank loan, magazine, whatever.  Do we get email or USPS letter reminders when approaching such payment deadlines?  Nearly always!  Did the WA DNR send out such reminders to hams?  NO.  I spoke with one *commercial* tower operator who said they did not receive such reminders either, so why are they still on DNR land unexpelled?  The point here is that it is unreasonable (1) to expect a ham subscriber to remember once per year that payment is due, especially when they are a volunteer who has no pecuniary/financial benefit from being on DNR land, some hams did remember, some hams did not, leading to (2) the loophole for DNR to throw the baby out with the bath water eliminating everyone else do to missed/late payments.

DNR previously had NO written/published policy and details about how many radios, tower equipment wind loading, and how many individual amateur radio operators or ham organizations could own equipment at a single DNR site up to this debacle.  When Hillary’s appointed project manager was directed to kick the hams out (which happened after her predecessor for comm site operations left DNR and who was very supportive of hams for emergency communications), there was all of a sudden a flurry of NEW requirements developed simultaneously to justify getting rid of more hams, including a limitation of a single radio/antenna at each site, new “safety” specs on tower wind loading, etc, that is now applied to towers/equipment not owned by DNR, instead owned by responsible third parties.  These NEW requirements were thrust upon hams suddenly with insufficient warning, therefore no time to modify/improve towers/etc.  The single radio requirement alone was enough to get rid of many hams sharing a tower site with other hams, in several cases sharing along with commercial gear.  Now, if the site owners/operators had knowledge of any such prior, or new, requirements, they would FIRST need to be notified by DNR AND urged to notify their downstream ham operators at the same site…did that happen?  NO, according to those site operators I’ve spoken to.  Again, the DNR intentions and resulting agenda is pretty clear, as the excuses invented to drive hams out have little to do with the greater plan of getting more DNR revenue from hams or correcting new “misuses” of DNR land.

Those of us who have exposure to the commercial telecommunications and radio industry know that the market for such higher elevation and remote communications sites has been in decline for several years.  5G wireless mobile is moving rapidly to lower elevation localized multiple stations due to its higher frequencies that are not suitable for high elevation or remote DNR land, and the shift away from longer wavelengths outside the military is steady.  Therefore, DNR’s hope to improve their revenues via commercial leases is a pipe dream.  The hope to convert ham subscriptions to commercial rates is also a pipe dream.  Neither is happening to any significant amount to date, and I predict it never will.  DNR is understandably woefully ignorant of the market forces at play here, their mission in life is non-commercial in nature managing natural resources and they don’t understand much of anything outside the lumber, fire-fighting, mineral interests that consume the vast majority of their internal resources and time.  Only the WA legislature can save DNR financially.  

In the meantime, the repercussions of WA DNR’s short-sighted move to pursue the letter of their new policies and agreements (ala your position of contract compliance) while sacrificing support for state, county, city emergency and public service communications preparedness and activations, along with the public benefit of individual amateur operators who also vote, should appropriately come back to bite them.  Our city has lost very valuable emergency communications infrastructure, so has our King County and other counties, Search And Rescue is impeded which in itself has the potential of affecting the safety of the firefighters that DNR will be deploying in coming summers into remote areas where volunteer ham repeaters and their volunteer 4X4 SAR hams are often the sole option for asset tracking, communications, and incident response.

The buck always stops at the top of any organizational structure, as they are responsible for such actions that take place within.  I am doing my part as a concerned voting citizen helping those who are most affected by this debacle to know what happened and why, as I do hope that someday hams will once again be allowed to use those same DNR lands and the comm sites installed there per the original WA RCW mandate at the low lease cost that allows it…I’m not optimistic that even if that were to happen that hams will RE-spend the amount of time, labor, and money to replace their equipment back in place, considering the memory of history and how futile that can wind up being.

Stephen W9SK

Stephen Kangas W9SK

Public Information Officer

North Bend Amateur Radio Emergency Services Team (NBAT) NB7AT

North Bend, WA (CN97)

NBAT is an all-volunteer non-profit serving the City of North Bend during emergencies and public service events.  

When all else fails…Amateur Radio

From: PSDR <psdr-bounces at hamwan.org <mailto:psdr-bounces at hamwan.org> > On Behalf Of Jamie Hughes
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2023 9:15 AM
To: Puget Sound Data Ring <psdr at hamwan.org <mailto:psdr at hamwan.org> >; Rob Salsgiver <rob at nr3o.com <mailto:rob at nr3o.com> >
Cc: netops at hamwan.org <mailto:netops at hamwan.org> 
Subject: [HamWAN PSDR] WADNR and Amateur relationship

Hey everyone,

Surrounding the WADNR and Amateur relationship I need to ask that those of you that believe that you/we have been wronged by the WADNR, please know that you/we have not!

Please stop with any and all insults, digs, or alike towards them.

Your Impact

When you engage on this topic you are likely speaking out of turn and have no idea surrounding why you/we were impacted. Sure, it sucks to be asked to leave, but if I came to your house and moved in without paying rent, you to might get all bent out of shape. You might be cool if I moved in, paid rent for me, but when I invite all my friends to move in as well, then you might get angry. In short this is what happened.

I had members of my own club engage with a local county commissioner that joined us for our breakfast meeting and dove into this asking for help but failed to understand the background. Just imagine how poorly this would have turned out if our Commissioner reached out to the WADNR and found out that people were complaining about access but then learning that we failed to comply with the contract. 

Details

WADNR completed an audit and found several of their sites with equipment not captured in legal contracts. They did not single out amateurs as apart of this effort. Those amateurs that breached their contracts had a couple of things happen.

*	Their amateur discount was revoked.
*	And they were offered to renegotiate their contracts but at the commercial rate. Going from ~$80 a year ~$400 a month is a shocker.

Note: Commercial sites charge based on floor space and tower location.

There are several efforts underway to ensure we repair our relationship with WADNR. There are still several amateurs that have great relationships with WADNR. Please don’t f*** this up for them.

If you still have concerns, you are welcome to reach out to me or the HamWAN leadership. Please know that all of us are trying to remain respectful of those that got caught and drug us into this drama. I would love to out those guys as I have a history with a few of them, but it doesn’t benefit the issue or our hobby to do so. 

73 (Ham radio way of saying Best Regards),

Jamie Hughes

WA7JH

President / Public Information Officer / Repeater Committee Chair, KCARC

Public Information Officer, ARRL – Western Washington Section

Email:  <mailto:president at kcarc.org> president at kcarc.org

Phone:  <tel:+13603408886> (360) 340-8886

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