That's pretty much what we have here as well. We do have a formal contract with the county that spells everything out, but in general the water authority guys know who's allowed to be there. I've been maintaining our system on that tower for about 6 years and I think I know all the water guys. Most of them stop by the shack to talk whenever they come out (and I'm sure they're checking up on me as well).
We have a daisy-chain lock system and the one time that somebody bypassed my lock, the water guys were out in a very short time to unlock their lock for me. They were also very responsive when I called about a power outage (blown circuit breaker inside the pump-house due to a lightning strike on the tower). partially because we're on the same circuit as the beacon lighting on top of the tower. (They were happy I let them know that power was out and the beacon had gone dark.) Same thing when they hit our power cable with a backhoe. it was repaired within 4 hours of the accident. We do have a good relationship with the county, the city, and the EMA. Our ARES program is growing by leaps and bounds and the county is very happy to know that we're here to help. Building that relationship over the years and providing a little bit of public service has gone a LONG way with keeping out happy home on the tower. BTW, in another community about 30 miles from here, the city BEGGED us to put a repeater up. They gave us a spot on the tower, including a DB-224 and feedline. They also gave us a spot in their shack and we get free power. Needless to say, I jumped through hoops getting a repeater installed there. 73, Mike WM4B _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of NORM KNAPP Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 9:56 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Repeaters and Water Towers >From what I understand from talking to people who work for water authorities in my particular area, the fenses and gates must be in good order and access must be restricted (whatever that means). Having said that, my friend WX4MOB was just given permission to put his repeater on one of the local water authorities tanks free of charge. ----- Original Message ----- From: Repeater-Builder@ <mailto:Repeater-Builder%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com <Repeater-Builder@ <mailto:Repeater-Builder%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com> To: Repeater-Builder@ <mailto:Repeater-Builder%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com <Repeater-Builder@ <mailto:Repeater-Builder%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com> Sent: Thu Aug 20 20:27:02 2009 Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Repeaters and Water Towers I worked for local government for almost 35 years, retiring last year. We had both municipal water and electric departments. There was absolutely no homeland security involvement with our utilities. Sounds like your municipality is feeding someone a line. Chuck WB2EDV ----- Original Message ----- From: "kc8fwd" <kc8...@hotmail. <mailto:kc8fwd%40hotmail.com> com <mailto:kc8fwd%40hotmail.com> > To: <Repeater-Builder@ <mailto:Repeater-Builder%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com <mailto:Repeater-Builder%40yahoogroups.com> > Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 9:14 PM Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Repeaters and Water Towers > We have a repeater at a water tower site and they are concerned that they > can get in trouble if they let us have access.It has been there for six > months.I am just taking over getting it to run at par.They just don't want > to get in trouble with homeland security. >
