{"id":156852,"date":"2025-09-20T15:28:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T15:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/156852\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T15:28:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T15:28:07","slug":"yarm-amateur-radio-enthusiast-at-risk-of-losing-lifelong-hobby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/156852\/","title":{"rendered":"Yarm amateur radio enthusiast at risk of losing lifelong hobby"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A 92-year-old man has lost a battle with Stockton Council to keep an antenna in his garden that allows him to talk to fellow radio enthusiasts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ray Pratt, who uses a wheelchair, spends much of his time chatting to people via his home amateur radio setup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s all good and we can spend hours talking, radio is my life,&#8221; he said with a smile.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Stockton Council instructed Ray to apply for planning permission for the poles that hold up the antenna, which was subsequently denied.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ray, who has an opportunity to appeal the decision, said he would be lost without his radio.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The council said it had a duty to investigate all breaches of planning and the masts were refused due to their visual impact and harmful effect on neighbours.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Video produced by Alex Challies &amp; Adam Clarkson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 92-year-old man has lost a battle with Stockton Council to keep an antenna in his garden that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":["post-156852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}