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Re: [TowerTalk] Burying Radials

To: "towertalk@contesting.com" <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Burying Radials
From: Donald Chester <k4kyv@hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2017 20:05:03 +0000
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
I tried using a lawn edger, but the problem was dirt falling back, and flung 
back by the edger blade, and filling in the slit before I could push the wire 
in.  I finally gave up in frustration and fabricated a home-made plough 
patterned after the big ones the phone company uses to bury telephone wire, and 
that professionals use to lay radials for broadcast stations.  It has a sharp 
leading edge that cuts the slit, and a tube brazed to the rear edge that lays 
the wire, all in one operation.  I cut the pieces out of  scrap metal I had 
lying around, and took it to a welding shop and let them assemble it.   I 
attached it to a heavy duty Troy-Built rear-tine garden tiller I borrowed, with 
the tines temporarily removed, and with an assistant, laid 16,000 feet of #12 
soft drawn copper in four days.  120 quarter-wave  radials for 160.  It would 
have taken me months of  daily work to have buried them by hand using a spade.

Don, k4kyv
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