Pictures of our Mega-Tree From 2007

Our Tree originally was 52' Tall, and contained 19,500 lights and 40 strobes.

For 2008, it was increased to 60', 49,500 lights and 60 strobes.

The core of the tree is a Rohn 25G tower, built on a hinged base that can be removed after the show.

The guy lines are set just below grass level so they can be mowed over.

The Rohn Hinged Base installation. The bolts are set in Concrete, just below grass level. We'll take the base off and plant some grass over it. Then in a few weeks, we will put it all together and pull the tower up into place, then set the guy lines.

Lots of concrete.  By the way, it's the second week of September... We'll be Wakeboarding tomorrow!

The guy lines are actually stainless steel cable, stubbed up just below grass level. (The rod will hold it in place until the concrete sets.) At the last minute, we added an 8" eye bolt with a fender washer at the bottom. Thought we'd attach the lower guy wire to it for a backup in case the cable failed.... It wasn't stainless though and quickly rusted....

It's now the weekend before Halloween, and we decide to stand the tower up. That's me finishing guy lines etc... (The two red lights aren't required, but the CareFlight helicopters coming to our hospital pass right over our house....)

That's my wife, Kandi. She's now painfully aware that I've lost my mind......

It's such an awesome view up here!!!

I pulled the lights up to the 44' mark on the tower, just below the star.

The controllers are mounted about 15' below the top, with each slice having a cable with a plug for clear and one for multi's. The 4 strings per slice made it a mess, so I connect some outside the cluster, and some inside.

We attach the lights with Spring clips. There are 16 channels each multi/clear, with four runs for each channel. Thats 64 clips!. It really got crowded, so we moved some to hose clamps on the legs... We should have put half on the rung underneath, as you can't tell the difference from a distance....Each line is actually 12 gauge THHN wire, with the two light strings zip-tied to it. The wire is then attached at the bottom to 18" 3/8" rebar hooks driven into the ground.