You're lucky, Pete. About 12 years ago I dug up a rod that had been in the
ground only 3 years. The clamp had completely disintegrated and the wire was
no longer connected to the rod. Must be a lot more acid in our soil up here
in NH, maybe from all that acid rain the factories in the Midwest used to
send over here.
This is why I converted to Cadweld joints. So far, they're holding up well,
even after 11 years.
73, Dick WC1M
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Pete Smith [mailto:n4zr@contesting.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 2:47 PM
> To: towertalk@contesting.com
> Subject: [TowerTalk] buried ground connections - a 13-year data point
>
> I thought this might be of some passing interest. Today I excavated
> the
> bare copper ground wire that I ran between each tower leg and an 8-
> foot
> copper-plated steel ground rod when my tower was installed in 1995.
> The
> connection between the wire and the ground rod was made with one of
> those
> "acorn-shaped" ground clamps. Since then, this connection has been
> undisturbed under a couple of inches of moist West Virginia loam.
>
> I was fully prepared to find severe corrosion, or no wire left at
> all. Instead, what I found was completely intact wire, a pristine
> ground
> rod, and an intact connection between the two that was still nice and
> tight.
>
> What's the point? I don't know, except that, in some conditions,
> simple,
> quick and cheap may be quite adequate.
>
> 73, Pete N4ZR
>
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