This winter I put up a 90-foot Rohn 45 guyed tower -- partly to support my HF
Yagis and partly to serve as my top-loaded 160-meter vertical.
Because the ground was frozen by the time I could get around to putting down
radials, I laid some temporary radials on top of the ground just before the
first significant snowfall. Now the snow has gone (finally!) and everybody is
tripping over the wires, so now I need to bury two or three dozen "permanent"
radials. After looking in my junk box, the radials are most apt to be #12
insulated solid copper house wire (for mechanical strength) or #16 bare solid
copper wire (if I find any advantage to using it).
I live in a forest, so the top surface of my yard consists of pine needles,
clumps of moss, and numerous surface roots from pines, balsams, hemlocks, and
an occasional hardwood. Because there are so many roots I doubt that the
"EdgeHog" or any similar device would be of much use to me. Instead, I'm
thinking of hand trenching with a garden trowel a foot or two at a time, where
possible, and then using some kind of pound-in clip to hold each radial in
place where it has to come out of the ground to go over a tree root. (Probably
in pairs -- one on each side of the root.) Something that looks like a
miniature tent-peg seems like it would be ideal, but I certainly can't afford
real tent-pegs, based on the prices I've seen in area stores, and they're
typically far too big for what I have in mind.
Soooo.....I'm wondering if anyone knows of something that would do the "tie
down" job and is readily (and cheaply) available at Lowe's, Home Depot, or the
national hardware chains. (Whatever I use, I expect to need many hundreds of
them.) Alternatively, has anyone ever taken a large electrical or construction
staple and bent the sharp ends back up, so that they resist being removed --
much like the barb on a fish hook -- after being driven into the ground?
Bud, K2KIR
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