I am seeking advice and suggestions from all of the tower guru's on this
reflector in planning the construction of a 60' Universal Manufacturing
self supporting aluminum tower.
The tower will be built next to my home in Morrison Colorado, just 15
mile west of Denver. We do get some snow, and winds in my area are gusty
to 50-60 MPH in a storm. No hard ground freeze in the winter temperature
usually in the low 40's and up. In the spring and summer we are subject
to heavy thunderstorm activity and again the gusty winds.
I primarily work VHF and UHF frequencies so most antennas are going to be
small in size. I could foresee a 2meter eggbeater at the top possibly
attached to a 10' or 20' aluminum mast and 2 70cm eggbeaters mounted on
side arms near the top to work the birds. The rest will be for
communications type receivers, primarily above 44 MHZ. Maybe someday I'll
get into the 20 and 40 meter stuff.
Universal calls for a hole 4.5 *4.5' *5' deep, using 4 cu yds of
concrete. They also explain how to place and square the tower (1st 10'
section) and tower legs while pouring the concrete and letting it set. I
plan to have the closets point of the tower foundation within 4-5' of the
house foundation. This is about as far as they go so the questions I
have are as follows:
1. Should I drive re-bar in each corner and tie the four corners
together?
2. Is there any special type cement to use or does it matter?
3. Do I need to frame the entire foundation or just the top foot
so I have a smooth the top?
4. Any question I didn't think to ask?
The grounds at my today are configured one for electrical, and a separate
one for the chimney mounted mast I am currently for my antennas. They are
about 50' apart. I have have considered building a halo ground around the
entire house using # 2 or #4 bare ground wire. A version of this was
proposed by Dave,WB4FUR. I wanted to through these questions out for
discussion:
1. What is the best way to ground dissimilar metals, i.e.,
aluminum to cooper ground rod?
2. What is the best method of ground rod placement and
connection in terms of the tower ground?
3. Do all grounds need to connected together?
4. Do I need to run an Isolated copper ground cable down tower
to ground side arms ect.?
5. Any other question I should have asked?
If you have any questions please drop me a note and I will quickly
respond.
Thanks in advance to all of you who respond.
73's
Steve
W0SJM@amsat.org
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