[TowerTalk] Antennas in trees

Bob Moore ki6iv at sbcglobal.net
Sun Aug 2 13:46:14 EDT 2015


I have a home made air canon (potato gun) that I shoot a weighted tennis 
ball over trees, branches or whatever I aim at.  I fill the tennis ball 
with water (of course wet the entire ball to help lube it).  It easily 
clears any of the 100' trees I have used. (Once at Field Day we shot a 
weighted ball into the woods to see how far it would go, estimated about 
200' up and 500' out).  The ball very seldom gets hung up in the 
branches (I am dealing with Jeffry Pines),  Most of the time I just use 
enough pressure to go over the trees and don't need to worry about the 
ball and line in branches.  For my WARC fan dipole I shot over both 
trees (70' up) at once (lucky shot).  We have used the cannon for 
putting up the Field Day antennas and helping out others to get lines 
high in trees.   As for vertical wires adjacent to the trunks or in 
branches I have not noticed much affect unless everything is very wet 
and the wire is against a wet branch then the resonance is off some.

Good Luck,     Bob,  K6NV




On 8/2/2015 10:10 AM, Lew Sayre wrote:
> Yo,
>       I have 2  quarter wave 160M verticals each consisting of 12GA stranded
> wire that are suspended over their respective 130' fir trees. Mother Nature
> placed these two trees 3/8 wavelengths apart and oriented somewhat at
> 45/225 degrees. I use a COMTEK  2 vertical box to change the pattern or at
> least it is a placebo effect when I turn the knob on the COMTEK control.
>       I use a pneumatic antenna launcher to get the wires over the trees.
> www.akbeng.com   I have no interest in the company but have had a lot of
> fun using the device to get wires way up in the air over trees. The
> vertical wire breaks about every 3 years or so, so I have gained some
> expertise in shooting the weighted tennis ball over the top of the tree
> allowing for windage, flora and fauna and snide comments. My XYL does not
> understand the need  to shoot tennis balls over trees but refuses to climb
> the trees for me.
>       These two verticals seem to work.  I have 60 1/4 wavelength radials
> under each vertical. Going from 56 to 60 radials is where the AA-230PRO
> showed no further changes in impedance in the system so I stopped there.
> The system seems to work better here on this rocky ridge top during the
> rainy winter time.
>      The wires do not come straight down next to the trunk of the firs. They
> are held out away from the trunk by branches but are mostly near vertical.
> Yes, I have anecdotal stories of working EU and rare stuff with this
> lash-up but everybody has such stories. I do reasonably well during the
> 160M contests from the West Coast although nearby K7RAT/N6TR usually whips
> me handily but then he is a better operator than I am.
>     So to answer your question,   Yes!  Put up a wire over a tree, put
> radials underneath the wire  and get on the air. You will be happy you did.
>    73 and I remain,
>     Lew    w7ew
>
> On Sun, Aug 2, 2015 at 8:34 AM, Edward McCann via TowerTalk <
> towertalk at contesting.com> wrote:
>
>> How about some comments on performance of vertical antennas over the limb
>> near the tree trunk?
>>
>> Anyone?
>>
>> AG6CX
>>
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>>> On Aug 2, 2015, at 6:22 AM, <kb2m at arrl.net> <kb2m at arrl.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> I used to use a slingshot to shoot a sinker on a piece of fishing line,
>>> over the limb. But now I just cast the sinker over the limb of interest
>> with
>>> a short fishing pole. The sinker will return to ground much better then
>> the
>>> arrow. I guess what method you use depends on how accurate you can cast
>> :-)
>>> 73 Jeff kb2m
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: TowerTalk [mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
>>> ve4xt at mymts.net
>>> Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2015 19:03 PM
>>> To: Towertalk Reflector
>>> Subject: [TowerTalk] Antennas in trees
>>>
>>> Anyone have any advice for getting the fishing line to come back to
>> ground
>>> zero?
>>>
>>> I have no problem getting the line over a nice, tall branch but the arrow
>>> and tennis ball get caught up on the way back down. If I'm lucky, I can
>> snap
>>> the line and retrieve the arrow, but that's only happened once.
>>>
>>> I don't exactly have a bucket truck guy to call where I am (cottage). And
>>> I'm running out of cheap arrows.
>>>
>>> Kelly
>>> ve4xt
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
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