Every winter after the yard has been mowed for the final time and the leaves
have been collected, I've been hanging a 1/4 wave wire from a tree branch.
This year I have a 'dual' wire, one element for 30 and one for 20. I pound
in a ground rode to hold it in place and they lay 16 radials 16 feet long
around it on the ground with the ends held in with nails. The radials are
connected to the ground rod. It works OK, not great, but OK. I also use a
simple dipole up 40 feet on 30 and find the vertical works better under
certain conditions, and it doesn't have the end nulls the dipole has. It's a
nice temporary antenna and when snow is on the ground over those radials, it
does work much better. When spring comes, I take it down and roll the radial
wires up till next winter.
The wire vertical is maybe 15 feet away from the nearest tree, out on a
limb, so to speak. The tree has never been a factor. 3 years ago I did the
same thing for 40 and 30 and the wires were less than 6 feet from the tree
and it seemed to work OK.

"Stephen J. Beyers" wrote in message
...
I also have recently moved to a new QTH. At my last, I was a devotee of
ground mounted verticals with many buried radials. My main antenna there
was a 42 foot vertical, with 48 buried radials, each about 50 feet long.
This time, being older and less inclined to digging, and work in general,
but still being a devotee of verticals, I decided to try a vertical dipole
in a tree. It is 28 feet long (tall), with the bottom end inches off the
ground. The feed is in the middle with open wire line and an air-core
balun. I use a "balanced balanced" Richard Measures-style "L" network
tuner in the shack. The tree is a tall, skinny one, and the vertical wire
is about five feet from the tree. I have been using it for about three
months now, on 80 through 20 meters, mostly on my favorite, 40 cw.

I suppose at this point, following the pattern of others, I should go into
a dissertation on signal absorption by trees, effect on pattern, effect of
lack of radials, etc. I don't have any first-hand information on all that,
but I can say that it works great for me. Performance is comparable to
the aforementioned vertical at my previous QTH, considering that it is
somewhat shorter. I certainly wouldn't advise against trying one because
of seemingly adverse theoretical considerations.

Steve W9HJW