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Re: [TowerTalk] Please critique my plan for installing this tower and li

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Please critique my plan for installing this tower and lighting protection
From: David Gilbert <xdavid@cis-broadband.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2016 15:41:37 -0700
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>

Just a few comments from a non-expert:

CMU blocks, or portions thereof, can be used to support your rebar cage off the ground. In my case, I pre-embedded pieces of angle iron in one cell of a CMU block, and clamped my rebar cage to the angle iron. I drove another section of angle iron through the other cell into the ground, and then filled that cell with concrete to secure it in place. See http://ab7e.com/AB7E_Tower_Page_4.html for details.

Paint on the rebar cage is a really bad idea and totally defeats the purpose of a Ufer ground. You WANT the rebar to contact the concrete, which itself is conductive when damp (which it will almost always be) so that it distributes currents over a larger area and volume. Besides, the alkalinity of concrete inhibits rusting ... you will almost never see rebar totally encased in concrete have substantial rust even after decades.

I can possibly understand the tower manufacturer not wanting the bolts be the primary current path to the Ufer cage (although I'd bet those bolts could handle a lot more current than the tower legs themselves), but you definitely need to connect your tower to the rebar cage. In most jurisdictions it would be a code violation not to.

Silver soldered connections for lighting protection is also a horrible idea. The solder joint will have the highest volumetric resistance by far and it will blow apart under a high current load. The best connections are exothermic (Cadweld, etc), but a really good mechanical connection is good if you can keep it from corroding. I could see silver soldering a properly clamped mechanical connection to protect it, but never rely on the solder to conduct the current.

If possible, ground the shields of your coax at BOTH the top and bottom of your tower. Lighting is low frequency RF (low megaHertz region), and a wire grounded at one end can still pick up considerable radiated energy an appreciable portion of a wavelength further away.

Good luck with your project!

Dave, AB7E



On 4/18/2016 7:28 AM, Dick Blumenstein wrote:
Hello tower and antenna gurus-

I was hoping that some of you would critique my upcoming plans and also answer any questions I have to see if they can be improved. (Thank you in advance for spending the time wading through this detailed description!!)

I'm a relatively new subscriber to this forum and definitely new to owning a tower. I've read (a couple of times) what appears to be an excellent book by Steve Morris (K7LXC) "Up The Tower" and am trying to install this correctly the first time.

1. Tower - The tower is a 20 year old used 73' US Tower (Model HDX-572) in fairly good condition. Before starting the installation, I will pull it apart, replace the pulley sheaves and wire ropes as well as wire brushing and spraying on a coat of high-zinc content cold galvanizing paint. (It has a prop pitch motor for a rotator).

2. Concrete base - The recommended hole in the ground for the concrete base is 5' x 5' x 8' deep. There are 6 @ 1" diameter A36 anchor bolts required in the drawings which are specified at 27" long each. A major bolt supplier wanted over $130 per bolt for them! Wow! After much reading, it appears that I can possibly substitute an anchor rod (36" long and threaded at each end) made to the ASTM F1554 Gr 55 specification that is also "S1 Weldable". I plan on putting a heavy duty WELDABLE nut on the bottom of each rod and just tack weld the nut in one place on the bottom to secure each nut. The anchor rod is hot dipped galvanized all except for the bottom end which is threaded for the weldable nut and then is cold spray galvanized afterwards. The bolts are arranged in 3 pairs of two, so I plan on getting made 3@ 1/4" thick A-36 steel plates (3" x 6") made to slip down over each pair of anchor bolts and sit above each pair of welded on nuts. This will properly space the bottom of each pair of "bolts" as well as providing more pull-out strength to each pair of "bolts". At this time, I see no other way of holding the anchor bolts in place while pouring concrete except to suspend the tower plate as high as I can over the hole so that I can have room to work and smooth out the concrete below it when the hole is filled. Only 6" of threaded rod sticks up above the top of the concrete, so it only gives me about 4" of working height under the suspended base plate to work the top of the concrete.

3. Rebar cage - There is a rebar cage surrounding the 6 anchor bolts. Any suggestions on how to hold the cage off the bottom of the hole and center it in the hole without having extra rebar hammered into the sides of the hole to hold it into position? I would assume that any rebar sticking out past the edges of the concrete into the soil might provide a path for moisture to intrude into the concrete, eventually corroding the steel. Also, should I spray some anti-corrosive paint on the rebar cage? (See next paragraph concerning a Ufer ground. I assume that a coating on the rebar cage would reduce its grounding effectiveness.)

4. Tower grounding - I've read about "Ufer" grounds and then wrote to US Tower to ask why the 6 anchor bolts were not connected in any way to the rebar cage surrounding the bolts? They wrote back recommending to NOT connect anything to the anchor bolts inside the concrete. Hence, I plan to somehow connect all the steel rebar cage around the anchor bolts to a copper strap and bring it to the surface of the concrete pad to then run copper strapping to the base of each tower leg. Each tower leg will then have a copper strap go out to some kind of an array of multiple ground rods. Not sure how many ground rods I should really put into an array off of each tower leg? I plan on silver soldering all ground connections using silver solder and MAPP gas. For instance, I may use a 2" wide solid copper strap from the Ufer ground penetrating the concrete base, past and connected to each tower leg and then on to the outlying ground rod array. Whenever the copper strap encounters a ground rod, a hole is drilled in the strap the size of the ground rod and silver soldered at the top of the ground rod to the copper strapping. I will use a stainless connector to connect each steel tower leg to the copper strapping. (Any idea where to get them?)

5. In the ARRL ham radio book, it suggests to connect all the ground rod system arrays that are around the tower with a large copper wire loop and then take that ground line (at least 6 gauge or bigger) back to the house where it connects up to the power company's ground at the power entry into the house and also the antenna ground junction box just outside my shack wall.

6. Antennas- I plan on having 3 antennas. The tower came with a Hy-Gain LJ-205CA 20m 5-element yagi antenna that I will initially install and then possibly replace with a 3 element SteppIR yagi in the future. In the original tower setup there was a dipole with traps that well served the previous owner, hung off the tower top that covered 160 to 40m. I plan on keeping that. Furthermore, for local communication, I plan to put above the yagi, a new 17' 2m/70 vertical that also came with the tower. The previous owner did not use one, but I would like to install an NN4ZZ "TiltPlate" so that when I crank down and lower the antenna system to the ground I can maintain it parallel to the ground without using ladders.

7. Antenna and rotator control wires arriving at the tower- There are 4 cables arriving at the tower; 3 antenna coaxes and 1 rotator control cable. I plan to install a PVC box near the base of the tower into which all the cables are fed. Inside will be a copper plate onto which is attached a copper grounding strap from the grounding system mentioned in #4 above. Each antenna coax will terminate in a connector and go through a Polyphaser which is also grounded to the strapping. The output of each Polyphaser will be a coax line which then exits the PVC box and heads outside next to the tower to run up the side of the tower to the antennas. In addition, inside the box, will be a grounded Polyphaser IS-RCT Rotator Control Line Protector to help protect the prop pitch motor and its controller back in the shack.

8. Controlling the "floppy" antenna and control cables? - In the ARRL book, there was a picture of someone using a fishing net to let the coax and control lines coil into it when the tower was cranked down. Anyone have a better "looking" suggestion other than letting the wires sit on the ground? (I plan on physically being at the tower each time I raise or lower it.)

9. Antenna and rotator control wires leaving the shack- The antenna wires are direct buried between the shack and the tower. Is it OK to run the prop pitch controller cable right next to the antenna coaxes? The distance from the shack to the tower might be about 40-50 feet. I may possibly run them inside a drilled out pvc pipe for protection, or just dig a trench and use sand as a filler around the direct burial cables. Just outside of the wall of my shack will be another PVC box slipped over a ground rod embedded in the soil. Inside the box will be a copper plate assembly that is clamped onto the ground rod which also holds 3 more Polyphasers. The antenna coaxes from the tower will go through the Polyphasers before heading through the wall into my shack. A 3" wide copper strap will go from that copper plate inside the box, through the wall onto a large copper buss bar which serves as a ground for all my shack equipment. Do I also need to put another Polyphaser IS-RCT Rotator Control Line Protector, in this PVC box, too (I suspect so)?

10. RF ground, too?- At my previous home, all I had were a bunch of parallel vertical antennas suspended from a tree. I previously had 2 additional "RF grounds" (besides the regular ground rods) composed of drilled out copper pipe, each located diametrically opposite each other about 12 feet from the shack entrance ground rod and connected to that ground rod. Each copper pipe was filled with salt to increase its supposed effectiveness. Now that I am using a tower, do I still need salted "RF ground rods" outside the shack wall in addition to the regular ground rod?

11. Lighting rod protection - In Steve Morris' book "Up The Tower", he suggests putting a lightning rod as the highest point above the antenna system. However, I don't see how to do that. Won't that effect the performance of the 2m/70 vertical right next to it?

Any suggestions would be appreciated from hams who have gone through this before.

Thank you so much, and 73.

Dick, K0CAT


E-Mail: rcblumen@centurylink.net

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