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Re: [TowerTalk] Soil testing

To: TowerTalk <towertalk@contesting.com>,"Ronald, Douglas S" <douglas.s.ronald@lmco.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Soil testing
From: Jeff Goldman <k3dua@erols.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 00:31:38 -0500
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
Doug,

I do understand your need to find out the soil specifications, but I 
wonder why you are going to the trouble and expense to level the lot.  
How bad is the lot now (as far as flatness), before leveling?  If the 
land is with +/- 3-5 feet, it won't make any difference to the antenna 
80+ feet up on top of your new tower.

And The most important item is to put the base and guy anchor concrete 
into undisturbed soil.  A slight difference in the absolute elevation 
of one guy anchor to another guy anchor, or relative to the tower base 
will be insignificant.  As long as the angle of the guys (relative to 
the tower) are within a couple of degrees of each other there should be 
no problem.  I had a 60 foot Rohn 45 in my yard (at my last QTH) where 
one guy anchor point was about 5 feet above another, and that tower was 
up for over 20 years.

Save the money from the leveling and put up a bigger antenna!!!

73,
Jeff, K3DUA



On Mar 29, 2006, at 3:59 PM, Ronald, Douglas S wrote:

> Tower talkers,
>
> Before I hire a soils engineer and drag him out to a remote location, I
> was wondering if there were some subjective tests I could do on my own
> to ascertain my soil strength.
>
> I'm putting up an 80' tower with 4 guys all of which need reinforced
> concrete foundations. I plan on contracting with a local bulldozer 
> owner
> to flatten an area of 230' x 115' +- 3 inches with compaction to 95% in
> the fill areas. Since I probably won't be there when the work is done, 
> I
> would like to check the quality of the compaction. The antenna uses 
> 4000
> PSI soil for its specifications. I am hoping there is a probe or
> something I could pound into the prospective areas to see if the
> compaction is even close to the 4000 spec.
>
> All I know about the soil from looking at it, plus when a well was
> drilled, was 2 to 3 inches of top soil above several tens of feet of
> chert.
> There are outcroppings of bedrock which I have seen a D9 with a ripper,
> turn to gravel on a neighbors parcel.
>
> This has probably been discussed before, but I didn't find much in the
> archives other than some screw anchor questions.
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Doug Ronald AE6SY
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