Glen, May I assume that your intent is to occupy space and consume power at a city-owned site, for free? If so, you probably should be prepared to demonstrate that your equipment is of very high quality and will be installed and maintained as if it were an important commercial system.
Some city officials are prejudiced against Amateur Radio installations, because they think we are just a bunch of CB-ers who will get in the way and/or cause interference to the city system. Once such an installation is blamed on a Ham group, it is almost impossible to regain confidence. It really doesn't matter if the perception is accurate or not. The important thing is to demonstrate that your group has the knowledge, experience, and financial resources to perform a first-class installation. Moreover, you must have a lot more than a vague potential to help the city; you need to show that your repeater will free up other resources as well. One tack is to provide direct support to local Red Cross offices, and get some publicity for that work. Many police departments have a Community Service section that uses outreach programs to improve relations with the public, and your club can help out in that area. Once your club has established some trust with local agencies, it is a small step to work with the city to install Amateur radio equipment at city-owned sites. It is very important that you contact the person who directly maintains the city radio equipment, and gain his or her trust. Otherwise, you can spend months trying to butter up a city official, only to have the idea shot down by a radio maintenance tech who doesn't want to have a cheap repeater taking up space in his/her radio room. You might even invite this radio tech to speak at a Ham club meeting, to inform your group about how important his/her job is to the city. If this tech sees that your group is savvy about radios, that can make a huge difference in getting space at a city site. 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Glen Briggs Aka KBØRPJ Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2007 10:27 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Repeater-Builder] tower tips.. Anyone want to share some talking points they think are good when talking to owners about wanting to put an antenna on their tower? right now we talking up community service and emergency communications, any other points? Thank You for your time, Glen Briggs - KBØRPJ President - North Central Missouri Amateur Radio Club Grundy County Local Emergency Planning Committee Member http://www.northmohams.org <http://www.northmohams.org> -Home to the North central Missouri Amateur Radio Club-
