[TowerTalk] Palm trees as guy anchors

[Jim Reid]

At 08:41 AM 9/17/97 -0700, Dick Flanagan wrote:

>At 7:34 AM -0700 9/17/97, Ed Jensen wrote:
>>Here in El Paso, I have several palm trees in likely spots.  I wonder if
>>anyone has experience in using palm trees as anchors.  Are their root
>>systems extensive enough to serve?
>
>The big stout date palms should be fine, but I would worry that the tall
>coconut palms would sway so much in a strong wind they might be more
>dangerous (pulling on the guy wires) to the tower than the wind, itself.

Aloha from usually windy Kauai,

If you go low on the palm,  there is little swaying motion,  some.
Palms have, not a deep,  but a very wide area of  root coverage.
They spread a carpet of roots,  perhaps up to 3 or 4 feet deep at
the lowest,  all around the tree,  our as far as 30 feet from the
tree base.  At least that is the case with the coconut palms
out here.  They have developed just the opposite strategy of the
Norfolk and Cook Island pines that are also here.  These pines
put a tap root down that is as great in diameter as the tree trunk
above the ground,  and it will go nearly as deep into the ground
as the tree is tall -- 60 feet or more!!

Both types of trees --palms and these island pines -- have developed
these techniques to survive the occasional Pacific hurricanes and
typhoons (as they are called West of the date line in the Pacific).

So both trees have served as antenna tie points out here.

73,  Jim, KH7M


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