[VHFcontesting] Trees

[Herb Krumich]

Several years ago we had to switch field day locations.
For that year, we found a location in a state park convenient to where we lived.
We had some wire antennas up for 80 and 40 and a tribander about 30 feet off the ground.
The contest started and after a few hours, rumors had it that we were hearing OK on 20 meters but nobody was coming back to our calls. I got relief at our CW position and walked over to try and figure out the problem. The transceiver they were using looked like it was working, but the power supply had no current meter in it. Hummm
I went to my car and got another PS. Radio was drawing about 20 amps and the SWR checked good.
Make a long story short. About 200 feet from the tribander was a massive row of 100 foot spruce trees. They apparently were wet and were taking every bit of our power to ground. As the day went on, we started putting contacts into the log.
Moral of the story - Watch out for big wet trees
73's Herb K2LNS