Why do you think people move into HOA's for?
Whole bunch of reasons. A short list:
- School district
- Price
- Location
- Community amenities
- Lack of reasonable alternatives
- Spousal pressure
- Fear
(there are more, those are just the reasons that come to mind)
Here's the BIG problem:
There are a considerable number of hams who live in HOAs/CCR-restricted homes who weren't hams when they moved there. Outdoor antennas weren't a consideration for them when they were house-hunting - but that's changed. Simply saying "MOVE!!" isn't always or even usually helpful.
There's also the situation where a child in an HOA family develops an interest in Amateur Radio. Does the whole family pack up and move so Son or Daughter can have an antenna?
Some HOA boards are reasonable. Some aren't. Some HOA rules allow exceptions, some don't. I have seen too many HOA horror stories, though.
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As for "the ARRL", they've got two major problems in situations like this:
1) It is better to do nothing than to do the wrong thing. From what I have read, the proposal that was voted down was the wrong thing.
2) No matter what "the ARRL" does, there will be many who won't like it and will be vocal about not liking it.
There are a considerable number of amateurs who think that "the ARRL" should NOT be involved in this issue. Their position is "you voluntarily signed a contract to follow the rules. If you don't like the rules, MOVE."
There are a considerable number of amateurs who think that "the ARRL" should be involved in this issue. Their position is "the rules are arbitrary and unreasonable. The no-antennas rule was set aside for TV antennas, why not for other antennas?" They also see no-antennas rules as a real threat to Amateur Radio as such rules become more and more prevalent in new home construction.
No matter what "The ARRL" does, they can't please both of the above groups.
This problem isn't new; ARRL has faced it since the beginning. Here's an example from history:
From the beginning of Amateur Radio until the early 1930s, the only voice mode amateurs used was AM. AM is a great mode, but it takes up a lot of spectrum, and the HF 'phone subbands were often a maze of heterodynes and QRM with a relatively few AM stations battling to be heard.
In the 1930s a handful of amateurs experimented with SSB, but the cost and complexity were far beyond what most amateurs could do. Then came WW2, and US amateur radio went silent for almost 4 years.
After V-J day, American amateurs got back on the air with a vengeance. The Great Depression was over, the war was over, WW2 surplus was inexpensive and plentiful. Many GIs who had learned Radio in the military became hams.
And the HF 'phone subbands were more crowded than ever.
Interest in SSB by amateurs revived too - but with some big differences. The phasing method of SSB generation, known for decades, became practical because of a 1946
Electronics article showing how to design the audio phase shift network needed for it. Surplus parts and advances in electronics made it much less expensive and easier to build an amateur SSB transmitter. Most of all, those interested in SSB wrote both theoretical (how SSB works and why it's better) and practical (build it!) articles for various magazines.
"The ARRL" decided to promote SSB. Besides the articles, there was a feature in QST almost every month called "On The Air With Single Sideband". The Handbook got an SSB chapter, and soon a compilation book "Single Sideband For The Radio Amateur" was published.
The ARRL leadership of those times felt they had to promote SSB. Amateur Radio was supposed to be "technically progressive", and SSB was already in use on HF with great success by commercial users, as well as being considered by the US military. And a lot of hams were interested.
But a lot of hams didn't like it at all. They complained that "ARRL is shoving SSB down our throats". They didn't want to sound like Donald Duck, didn't want a mode that required lots of complex circuits with lots of fussy adjustments, and didn't want to see their prized AM setups become worthless and unwanted. If the 'phone subbands were too crowded, they said, ARRL should get FCC to widen them!
That's just one example. On almost any issue, the same thing happens.