I guess what I was trying to ask is how many OTA channels there are in England.
Lots!
But in the UK you have to pay a âTV licenseâ each year which is sort of like a tax. Itâs used to fund the BBC.
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HOAs canât prohibit you from installing an OTA antenna, but if youâre in a condo they can prohibit you from drilling through the âcommon areaâ walls and patio door on your own patio.
Great, you have an antenna, how do you get the signal inside? lol
<-- no longer lives in an HOA
Fun Fact: They sell flat coax cable attachments that make it easy to squeeze the cable through a window or door.
We cover that here:
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Those Antop and other similar designs are the least âoffensiveâ to look at, as seen by HOA entities, the fact they donât look like conventional antennas helps a lot. I still donât understand how an antenna on a rooftop could be seen in any way as unattractive or detrimental to a neighborhood.
They pay tax on those in Great Britain. Itâs something of a hidden tax, under the guise of a âmedia fulfillmentâ license or something like that. Theyâll probably be doing that in California sooner or later.
Thatâs the mistake I made. I really do dread having to go back up there if a problem arises. I got carried away, knew nothing about antennas (or OTA for that matter) at the time I bought & hoisted it, so all I could think of was âthe higher the betterâ.
So hoist up the John Bâs sail
See how the main sail sets
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I think itâs the snob factor. For the past 30 years it was the poor folk and rednecks who couldnât afford cable that had these rusty antennas with a broken or missing rod (like a missing tooth) on top of their mobile homesâŚ
Hadnât thought of it that way, makes sense. It bothers me how many of these HOAs and Condo associations try to bluff owners into thinking they canât, and how many of those homeowners just believe it, take it at face value and leave it at that.
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Itâs not only the HOA that is ignorantly aggressive. Most of these HOAs delegate their responsibilities to âproperty managementâ companies who think they earn their dollars by harrassing the actual property owners. I actually told one of their officers, âYou better change the tone of voice in your letters because Iâm the one who lives here and is the property owner - not you.â This property management firm acted as if the subdivision was their fiefdom.
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Yes and whatâs more, some of those Property Managers really know nothing about home ownership to begin with. Some of them live in Apartments twenty miles away, and youâre right, they can get a little heavy-handed in dealings with the actual homeowners. Theyâre even worse with renters.
I think it depends on the community. I was the treasurer for an HOA locally (donât ask. they were in serious financial trouble, I stayed on for a year, helped get them somewhat back on track; but couldnât deal with the crazies anymore, so quit. and moved), where the property management company didnât interfere much. Nearly everything came directly from the board or the local office manager (which was an employee for the condo association, not the property management company)
From the board I was on, it was a bunch of power hungry old people. They didnât only want to follow the by-laws to the spirit of them, but to the letter. âYour bicycle needs to be perpendicular to the railing on your balcony, itâs off by 45 degrees, thatâs $10/day fine.â or âYou canât have a video door bell, our bylaws which were written 40 years ago donât mention video doorbells as an approved door bellâ umn⌠yeahâŚ
They spend HOURS on stupid little things, like a loud neighbor, or the trash being left on the curb. The fact that the condo was short hundreds of thousands of dollars a YEAR and was draining the reserves? Meh, not something they can easily fix, so they glanced over it.
But at the same time, serving on the board, opened my eyes to some of these rules and why theyâre in place. I thought 90% of the rules were BS and to annoy the owners and from power hungry board members. I was only partially right, it turned out only 35% of the rules were BS ;).
/end side tangent
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