John, Sometimes the soil is difficult but not impossible to drive 8 ft rods
into. When conditions are marginal there are a couple tips that might help
you as they have myself. When I use a sledge hammer to drive a ground rod
and the soil is resisting my efforts the rod begins to bend and then further
pounding is futile. If you are using 5/8 inch rods just place a length of
3/4 inch ID pipe (scrap or rusty is OK) a couple feet long over the rod and
put a little tape on it to hold it in the region that is starting to bow.
This will keep it going and not bending excessively. I keep a couple lengths
of pipe handy, a longer one for early on and a shorter one for later.
If you have, can borrow, or rent a "demo hammer" (small electric jack
hammer) larger and more powerful than most hammer drills. you can use it to
drive rods into the ground. There are special tools to put into the hammer
in place of the chisel tips. It has a cup on the end of the tool to make it
easy to keep the hammer on the rod while it is hammering. These demo
hammers can be a handful but with a good ladder or two ladders and two guys
it makes the job easier. A demo hammer has let me drive rods that were
totally impossible with a T-post driver or sledge.
Good luck and 73,
Patrick NJ5G
-----Original Message-----
From: john@kk9a.com
Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2013 8:36 AM
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Filter location and grounding rods
I only use shorter ground rods when I cannot push in a longer one. Using
more shorter ground rods will cost more as there are more connections to
purchase and the soil is likely dryer near the surface so they may be less
effective.
John KK9A
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] Filter location and grounding rods
From: Hans Hammarquist <hanslg@aol.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2013 00:05:45 -0500 (EST)
Gentlemen,
Grounding the shack, I am planning to put a couple of grounding rods
around the
shack. I heard somewhere tha it is more efficient to use several short (4
feet)
grounding rods than one long (8 fet) rod. Does anyone knows how many short
rods
are needed for each long rod or is this a fractional number?
With best 73 de,
Hans - N2JFS
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