My Silent Key friend, W7MB, had a wooden pole about 70 feet high in his back
yard. He had a couple of cables running from the ground to the top of his
pole that acted as guides for an antenna mount that he could run up and down
his pole without climbing it. Worked great until he just could not seem to
keep the cables stretched tight. The bottom of both cables were attched to
earth anchors right at the base of the pole. He finally determined that he
was pulling the anchors slowly out of the ground everytime he tightened
them. Finally, he pulled the anchors totally out of the ground and saw that
the entire plate had simply rusted away and so did most of the rod, too. I
have one of these anchors which I have saved to show people and I can take a
photo of it if someone will vollunteer a site to put the picture on. Let me
know. Believe me, this will make you think twice about using this type of
anchor . . .
I have heard the W7MB salted the ground below his tower with various
chemicals to make a good ground plane for his antennas and it was obvious
that he had some sort of "secret weapon" at work since he was the first W7
to achieve 5BDXCC and from a small city lot inside the city of Portland, OR
. . . The "secret weapon" may be what had eaten his earth anchors alive . .
.
Stan
w7ni@easystreet.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chuck O'Neal" <coneal@attbi.com>
To: <towertalk@contesting.com>; "Tom Frenaye" <frenaye@pcnet.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 8:58 PM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] anchor failure from corrosion?
> Yes, I caught significant corrosion with the 5/8" dia. Rohn supplied guy
anchor rods
> about 3 years ago during an inspection of a tower I installed about 20
years previously.
> About 6" below the earth the galvanizing was partially gone and there was
noticeable
> pitting of the remaining steel, reducing the diameter by perhaps an 1/16"
of an inch after
> I
> wire brushed all the rust off. I then put on a cold galvanizing paint and
now inspect it
> yearly.
> I did this inspection because this guy anchor was in a damp area. It was
in an area of
> lots of
> vegetation and the soil was acidic, due to a lot of oak trees and their
leaves.
>
> No problems since, but I see evidence that suggests that the galvanizing
doesn't hold up
> as
> you would like.
>
> I would also like to see if anyone else has observed this. How many of
you are living
> with
> towers you put up 20+ years ago?
>
> 73,
> Chuck..K1KW
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tom Frenaye" <frenaye@pcnet.com>
> To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 1:24 AM
> Subject: [TowerTalk] anchor failure from corrosion?
>
>
>
> I hadn't ever heard of guy anchors on ham radio towers failing because of
corrosion I'm
> wondering if it's something all of us need to worry about - anyone with
firsthand
> experience?
>
> -- Tom
>
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