When Trees Aren’t Our Friends

A number of years ago, I wrote that hams often view trees as an enemy, preventing us from getting antennas up in the air, or interfering with satellite and VHF/UHF communication.  I suggested that we could alter our perspective and use the trees as a natural antenna support.  For the past decade I did just that, running a 450 foot circumference loop through my trees, and more recently installing a 160-meter Inverted-L

This past Tuesday Tropical Storm Isaias was winding its way into Canada via Albany, about 200 miles to our west.  We had a little wind and very little rain (being on the far eastern side of the storm).  Things changed drastically around 5:30 PM when a narrow feeder band, stretching from Isaias down to North Carolina, cut through the state.  It only lasted about 30 minutes, but it brought very strong winds to the state, knocking out power statewide to over 1/3 of the population.  There were many reports of trees down on top of houses, cars, RVs, etc.  Fortunately there were no fatalities.

In my case, at 5:45 PM, a loud snap with a resounding boom left our house vibrating.  A 150 foot tall oak tree had blown onto the rear corner of our house, splitting and dropping down two sides of our home.  The damage to the house was fairly minimal — the rear part of the roof needs to be replaced, window screens were ripped, and there is some painting to do.  Fortunately we still had power and air conditioning, plus the house appeared to be water-proof and structurally sound.  By the next morning companies had visited to bid on the work, and the tree was removed on Thursday.

An unfortunate side-effect of this was the loss of BOTH of my HF antennas, taking me off the air for the first time in a decade.  The loop was always an annoyance to my wife, who could see the wire snaking into the woods, so it will not be put back up (I will miss its low noise level and ease of tuning on all ham bands).  The loss of the Inverted-L was a real blow.  A good friend of mine, Willy W1LY, who has probably installed more antennas that anyone in the state of Rhode Island, will come by to shoot support lines into different trees later this week.  With some luck I’ll be back on the air for our weekly net on Wednesday at 3.9 MHz (7 PM local time).

Tall oak fell, splitting along the back (seen here) and side yard, taking down both HF antennas.