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[TowerTalk] Burying radials and/or coax

To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: [TowerTalk] Burying radials and/or coax
From: n8de@thepoint.net (Don Havlicek)
Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2002 20:37:01 -0500
To those of you who inquired, here is the way I do it.
Sorry .. but my scanner quit, so I can't send a diagram of this item.
[No webpage up and running yet!]

I bury my coax with a device that I built that I pull behind my garden
tractor .. it has a flat bed upon which I mount the coil of coax, and
has a 'knife-blade' [made of a triangular piece of 1/8" aluminum panel
stock] under it which cuts a swath in the turf .. it also has short
lengths of aluminum tubing
[various diameters from 3/8" up to 1.5"} projecting underneath the 'bed'
which guide the coax, radial wire, etc... down into the 'slot'.  I can
'bury' 200' of coax in about ten minutes, just driving the tractor from
the shack to the antenna [or vice-versa].

Think of it as a rectangle of three 2x12's laid side-by-side with a
second layer of 2x6's around the outer edge to frame it.  All connected
with carriage bolts with the nuts recessed in the top edge of the 2x4's.

The tubing through which the cable/wire runs is simply placed through
holes of corresponding size drilled through the bed of 2x12's [rear-most
one], and at a slight angle to the rear with the 'blade' of [in my case]
stainless steel [not aluminum panel - that was the first one!].  This
'blade' is bolted to the middle 2x12 by two pieces of 1/8" aluminum
stock that is bolted through the middle 2x12.  

There are eye-bolts on each side of the front 2x12 & 2x4 brace .. they
are connected to the garden tractor with a length of chain that allows
for turning the tractor without the rear of it contacting the burial
'sled'.

On the top of the 'sled' are two pieces of angle [aluminum or steel -
can't remember which], through which I can pass a rod that goes through
the center of the roll of coax/wire/ etc....  

The wire is then fed down through the appropriate piece of tubing.

I put two or three cinder blocks on the 'sled' .. and drive !!!

If you have any questions about this device .... please let me know !
73
Don 
N8DE

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