On May 19, 2021, my neighbor and I had a tree removal company come out and do their thing. We had a “huge” Elm tree that sat on our property line and was starting to really cause some damage to our roofs and my driveway. It was one of the tallest trees in the neighborhood and provided us with a lot of shade, but the damage that it was starting to cause was more than it was worth.
Here is an overhead view of my property, with the line drawn for my Off-Center Fed Dipole. The tree that was removed is shown on the left side of the picture, overhanging into the street.
As you can see, the tree was stretching itself out over the roof of my house and my neighbor’s house. What you can’t see is that my driveway (which runs along the north side of my house) was being lifted up at the end, because of the roots of the tree. We’ve owned the house for 25+ years, and each year the driveway was being lifted higher.
For an idea of how tall and how stretched out the tree was, below is a picture that I took, just before it was removed. This can also be seen in the time-lapse videos that I have linked, below.
What I’m not exactly sure about, yet, is how this will effect my propagation on HF and VHF. I suppose time will tell on that. I do already know that my ADS-B receiver (the antenna for it is on top of the mast on the left side of the previous picture) seems to be picking up signals much better to the northwest.
Below are some time-lapse videos of the tree removal. There are times in the videos where nothing seems to be happening. Those are the times where they either got a slow start or went to lunch, or something. Each of the links are set to open in a new tab, when clicked.
Now that the tree is gone, I can finally get started on replacing the roof on the house, without fear of it being torn up, right away. I will also need to work on getting the end of the driveway back to “normal”. I am really happy about the view of the sky to the northwest from my house, now. It’s also going to take some time for us to get used to the tree not being there. It’s a little weird.