Indiana City Eyes Sat Install Restrictions

[Steve Mehs]

An Indiana city is considering an ordinance that would restrict the installation of satellite TV dishes, despite federal rules that prohibit most of those types of regulations.

The proposed regulations are being proposed by the Plan Commission for Elkhart, a city with a population of about 43,000 located in northern Indiana. At first, the proposed regulations were going to prohibit the installation of satellite TV dishes on the front sides of houses. But reports from the town suggested that the real concern is the mounting of dishes on poles in front yards.

According to the local newspaper The Elkhart Truth, city officials said they believe dish restrictions won't violate federal rules as long as they don't interfere with the reception of video programming. "Our legal department has researched and determined that as long as we don't prohibit someone from getting a signal, it's a reasonable regulation within our powers," Craig Phillips, the city's assistant director of planning, told the newspaper.

Industry insiders familiar with federal rules dealing with dish installation laws disagreed with the city's position, saying local dish restrictions can only be enforced if they involve historical or safety reasons.

While not specifically familair with the Elkhart case, an official with the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association said once municipalities and other governments are given details of the federal rules, they typically drop their dish installation restrictions.

The proposed rules may go before the Plan Commission on April 7.

The rules prohibiting local governments and other entities such as homeowner associations from restricting the installation of satellite TV dishes are contained in the Over-the-Air Reception Devices Rule (OTARD) from the Federal Communications Commission. More on the rules can be found at: http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/otard.html.

From SkyReport (http://www.skyreport.com/skyreport/feb2003/022703.shtm#two) (Used with Permission)

[Nick]

"...reports from the town suggested that the real concern is the mounting of dishes on poles in front yards."

I don't understand the inherent negativity some people have toward small DBS dishes. Is it that they don't understand the technology, therefor fear them (messages from outer space and all)? Rather than seeing our precious dishes as 'unattractive' or unsightly (LUDs or SUDs), I perceive my dish as a symbol of contemporary living. A statement that I am hip, a happenin' dude who is ahead of the curve!

Perhaps it's the color. Dull 'battleship gray'? Who thought that was a good idea? I admit that the color is really, really boring, but certainly not worthy of being outlawed or banished to the back yard. What if we painted our dishes to look like a round boxwood or a huge sunflower, or Alfred E Neuman? What about a big yellow smiley face?

What about people who park their big, ugly vehicles in the driveway, or worse, in the street. What's so attractive about peeling paint, rust, dents, or a dirty old pickup truck. Even a brand-new H2 is still ugly as sin.

So it's OK to have trash cans out front but not dishes? It's OK to leave the lawnmower on the carport or, even worse, leave the garage door open, exposing all your ugly junk inside? How about that distasteful ladder you left up against the side of the house last summer, or that busted transmission sitting next to the driveway still leaking fluid into the ground? Can you say "environmental disaster"?

If it's about 'ugly', there are many things uglier than a dish, including some houses themselves. I once saw a house painted purple with yello trim. Now that's ugly!

No one complains about that bent and rusted big-ass deep fringe antenna on a 10 foot pole mounted on the peak of your roof or strapped to your crumbling chimney.

So I've come to the conclusion that it must be the fear factor. So take down your dish on a sunny Sunday afternoon and go over to your neighbor's house. Sit down with him in his living room with your dish on your lap and explain, in simple terms, that your dish does not need to be feared. It's not much different than a large pizza pan or a real wide wok. Go to into his kitchen and cook up a little stirfry on your dish, or simply bake a batch of tasty cinnamon buns. this will make him feel at ease with your dish.

Take your dish to the next city council meeting and pass it around. Let people look at it and feel it. They will become comfortable with it and will be able to overcome their fears and come to love your dish almost as much as you do.

Soon, people will want one of their own.

[JayeDVXIII]

I don't understand..WHY would they try to pass an ordinance like this? No one has even mentioned this..what is their reasoning? The "ugly factor" seems to be just a guess. Besides, I didn't think a city had the right to tell someone what they can't have on their own property unless it was super dangerous or something?

Sounds more to me like the city is in cahoots with the local struggling cable company or there is some other underlying reason.

[mtnlion25]

In my experience as an installer certified by the SBCA for over a year with a major chain, these regulation attempts are more to scare the uninformed citizens. There were a number of homes that I went to where the residents believed restrictions were already in place and despite my explanation that those restrictions weren't valid, even showing them the FCC regulation, most didn't want to either believe it OR buck the system. In some communities, people claimed that if they had the dish put up in an unauthorized location the community would find SOME way to punish them, so to speak. I also spoke with many homeowner's association presidents (ugh) and community leaders and they all assured me that their "regulations" had been looked over by an attorney and found to be within the FCC guidelines. In no case where the customer actually had me install the dish against the wishes of the community was it ever taken down or any action brought against the customer.

[Mike123abc]

It is probably an attempt to try to force the local homeowners to try to find a better location for their dish. Sticking the dish on a pole in the front yard of every house the installer visits might be the fastest and easiest. I can see the city or a home owners association trying to get installers to put the dish where it cannot be seen if at all possible, i.e. get the installer to carefully consider where to put the dish and perhaps take time to put it in a hard for the installer to get to location but is hidden.

[Steve Mehs]

:lol: Nick I could just see someone taking their dish everywhere telling people to embrace technology not fear it. :) DishDepot sells Dish500 disks with logos of the major FL colleges on them, they look pretty cool. But I really liked the Red, white & blue Dish500 that was iven away on a Tech Chat last year. If I lived in this place I'd have a sepearte dish for each of the 4 E* locations, seperate dishes for each of the 3 D* locations, a dish for Bell, one for StarChoice and an old Primestar for variety, all mounted in a row, maybe in the shape of a middle finger none the less :D

[waydwolf]

    This is just a further part of an annoying trend in America, namely that "Your Business is My Business". Everyone is in on it.

    We hate Bill Gates because he has money and we don't, but his money isn't ours and is none of our business. We wonder about what is behind our neighbor's picket fence and pass rumor and cast aspersions when it is none of our business. We have homeowners' associations that do not represent the homeowners but one small group of anal nosy control freaks who think that minding their own business involves everyone around them because they think our business IS their business.

    People more and more these days define a plus to someone else as a negative to themselves by the most flawed and inane logic put forth since Creationists sullied my faith with pseudo-science(yes, I believe in God *and* science, and that's my business, but I deign to share with you by my choice; that's how the world *should* work, peaceful choice and not dictators forcing it on people against their will("have you now or have you ever been?")). People define their success by someone else losing and they should lose really badly or else we're really not winning that well.

    Neighbor has a satellite dish visible? Well them doing that lowers my property value. How? In what way on what planet does that instantly follow? Neighbor has orgies by his pool behind his fence. I'm not getting any wonderful wild sex so why should he? Poppycock.

    Yet we have a very convenient ignorance of this insane obsession with what other people are doing and having when genuine efforts and labors are required to do something about it. Whine, moan, rant when another country has children making Nike shoes because it is simple, empty, has zero risk and zero cost, and is totally geared to our own cathartic release. Iraq is busy using chemical weapons banned by international law for a very good reason after the carnage of World War I on their own people, executing people all willy nilly for no reason better than they felt good doing it, and trying to gain nuclear weapons after proving themselves ultra nosy in a violent way(what else do you call invading a neighboring country one morning to check out their oil supply and take hold of it?)? Oh, that would require effort. Now it is conveniently none of our business.

    But satellite dish bans? Oh that's going to do the world some good. And if not, it makes the people behind it feel better by nosing into the business of DBS viewers. And that's the point. We use government and any other power at our disposal to wheedle and inveigle our way into other peoples' business for our own cheap feelings enhancement.

    Stop the planet. I'm sick and want to get off.

 

 

[waydwolf]

Originally posted by Mike123abc
It is probably an attempt to try to force the local homeowners to try to find a better location for their dish. Sticking the dish on a pole in the front yard of every house the installer visits might be the fastest and easiest. I can see the city or a home owners association trying to get installers to put the dish where it cannot be seen if at all possible, i.e. get the installer to carefully consider where to put the dish and perhaps take time to put it in a hard for the installer to get to location but is hidden.

    Only in the wild insane delusional imaginations of installation managers, satellite dealers, and people who take their own sense of offense at other peoples' activities way too seriously(and by their actions show a severe need for medication and professional help) can we hide dishes.

ORDER OF IMPORTANCE FOR DISH INSTALLS:
1. SAFETY
2. SAFETY
    We install no place we cannot reach safely unless we're negligent idiots with a death wish. Falling from three stories up is NOT pleasant and that's first-hand testimony. That's why the first two are safety.
3. GROUNDING
    NEC and local codes REQUIRE we ground. Can't reach ground and we can't install. We do it and we're open to unimaginable damages in lawsuits not to mention criminal prosecution if the powers that be are bored and need to sharpen their claws on some fool.
4. LINE OF SIGHT
    Yes, this comes way down the list.

    I tell people that above list constantly and STILL I get morons who INSIST that because their neighbor had a fortuitous house placement and alignment such that their backyard was facing the right way and had a really lucky overhang and bend in their house, that they can have it installed behind their house, facing THROUGH their house, four hundred feet of forest, and sixteen other neighboring houses.

    *sigh*

    What else should we expect in a world where AOL and electric tooth brushes are considered mysterious high tech science by the average American?

 

[Jacob S]

I guess those residents will just have to put a dish cover on the dish to hide it so its not visible.

[Cheyenne]

Not sure about rest of nation, but around here the cable company
adds a "franchise fee" to cable subscribers monthly bill.
This is something like $ 4.50/month.
Guess where this money goes..... To the city !
No wonder in the time of major budget problems for local governments can they find the importance of passing such a
law. As soon as they start "taxing" DBS services, it will be OK.