Some years ago, there was an article in QST about using trees as
antenna. There was a sort of toroidal winding in the air, the tree
beeing in the center. If I remember well, the article reported
experiences in the army.

Do you remember ? Can you give me more information ?

Thanks a lot !


The Military certainly did experiment and use such systems, particularly
during the Vietnam war.

There are several papers floating about on the subject, such as those from
the United States Army Electronics Command (ECOM):

"The Effects of Foliation on Transmission from a Toroid-coupled Tree", ECOM
Report No. 3473, September 1971
"Signal Propagation at 400 kHz using an Oak Tree with a HEMAC as an
Antenna", ECOM Report No. 3504, November 1971

"Performance of Trees as Radio Antennas in Tropical Jungle Forests", ECOM
Report No. 3534, February 1972

"Utilization as RF-Antennas of Live and of Lifeless Structures in Natural
and in ManMade Jungles", ECOM Report No. 4133, June 1973



73

Jeff