When a tree is a tree is... an antenna!

[VK5IR]

Flicking through my old Radio and Communications mags a little while ago, I came across this really interesting artice about a bloke who bung a screwdriver into a tree that was connected to his feedline whilst portable and worked as far as England. I enjoyed reading about it that much, I thought I'd share it with everyone.

The article was scanned out of R&C magazine, September 1998 issue.

Just click on the links below then click on the "free" button at the bottom of the next page that appears.

Page 1 - http://rapidshare.com/files/47906369/page_1.jpg.html
Page 2 - http://rapidshare.com/files/47907336/page_2.jpg.html

Enjoy.

PS I'd love to hear what others thought of this article and whether anyone else has tried such an experiment.

VK5FTDM
Theo.

[VK2OMD]

Flicking through my old Radio and Communications mags a little while ago, I came across this really interesting artice about a bloke who bung a screwdriver into a tree that was connected to his feedline whilst portable and worked as far as England. I enjoyed reading about it that much, I thought I'd share it with everyone.

...

PS I'd love to hear what others thought of this article and whether anyone else has tried such an experiment.

VK5FTDM
Theo.

Theo, your story goes to the meaning of the term "works".

You will frequently hear hams assert that their antenna "works", or more commonly "works real well", and you will hear OM on air flatter the other station by telling them that their "antenna is working real well for them".

Another oft cited proof of "how good an antenna works" is QSOs, especially DX QSOs, eg "it must work real well, I had a DX contact on just 10 Foundation Watts".

When you get beyond the hyperbole, there aren't any magic or miracle antennas, there is an explanation for how they all perform when you know / understand enough about the environment. The main contibution might come from elements that you don't intially consider to be the real antenna, things like feedline, power cables, mic cables, the person holding / operating the equipment.

If "bunging a screwdriver into a tree" "worked real well", it would be used a lot more!

Beware of miracle antennas, especially those that the promoters claim cannot be explained by using conventional analysis techniques, they probably do not perform well at all.

Owen

[VK4BKP]

Last night I was listening on 20 metres when at around 1-2am all of Europe opened up. I have 2 HF antennas, a vertical that is used as a 1/4 wave for 20m high on the roof and a dipole in a tree for 80m. Anyway the tree antenna was hearing Europe quite a bit better than the 1/4 wave vertical. Maybe it had some lobes into Europe, as these things can become directional with length. It certainly had a lower noise level.

Obviously there are many better antennas, but in a pinch it's hard to beat the simplicity of something thrown up a tree.