Blog

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.

Front View – Part 1

Front View – Part 2

Driveway View – Part 1

Driveway View – Part 2

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.

I just realized that I haven’t actually updated this site for almost a year! I do apologize.

What a year it’s been, though. I mean… seriously… 2020 has been so screwed up that there is no reason for me to go into any re-capping on what’s happened. Everybody knows, and everybody has had their own stories about it.

On that “own story” topic, I’ll just sum up what it’s been like for me, personally. My hotel has been shut down since March 28th, 2020. I had planned on opening it back up on July 15th. The owner (my boss) had different ideas, so we remain closed, for now.

Even though it has been closed, I have been at the hotel (almost) every day. All of the phone calls that come in to the hotel are being forwarded to my mobile phone. I have literally worked every day since March 28th, albeit, not a full 8 or 10 hour shift.

The worst part of this year was when we had to lay off all of our employees. I felt so bad during that time, that it was almost unbearable. After I realized that they would all be getting a nice bonus on their unemployment checks, I didn’t feel as bad. I did want to make sure that they were spending that extra money “like they had to pay it back”, though. At this time, it seems like most of them did.

There has actually been a lot that has happened in the past eight months, but rather than bore anybody with going over all of it, I will just say that I have learned that my wife loves me more than I might have realized. When I do get to go back to work for 10 hours per day, it will be a big adjustment for her. Even when I go to work for 2 or 3 hours, now, it’s hard. That being said, I think that 2020 has been great for making people realize what’s really important in life.

Meanwhile, now that North Dakota is the “hotspot” for COVID-19 in the world, I will wish anybody that reads this “good health” and an end to this thing (no matter what your thoughts are about it), as soon as possible.

Best 73, all.

Although I’m no longer running any air traffic audio feed, I am still collecting ADS-B data from airplanes in my region. Earlier today, I was out doing some things in town, and noticed a very “different” looking plane in the sky. It had circled, a few times, and from the looks of it, we could tell that it was military.

We decided to run up to the airport, to see if we could get a better look at it. Since it seemed to be military, I thought that they may be doing some “touch-and-go” type training.

It turned out that by the time we got to the airport, it was already on the ground, again.

It was amazing to see this very unique “airplane”, that close up. Here’s some video. The takeoff is toward the end: