[TenTec] Making a new house "radio friendly"

[B. J. "Tony" Martin]

Hi Mark,
Sounds like a fun time......enjoy it!
My suggestion is not the slightest bit technical, but comes from
experience.  When you are laying out your shack, make it
twice as big as you think you want it to be now!   The same
thing goes for building a workshop, garage, etc.
Good luck and I am certain you will find a wealth of technical
advice from these wonderful folks.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and Happy House Building
Tony, W4FOA
Chickamauga, GA

Mark Erbaugh wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> My wife and I are having a new house built. I'm looking for suggestions for
> things that I can do (or have done) during construction to help with setting
> up my ham station at the new house. We have almost 4 acres and I am looking
> forward to having a real 'antenna farm.'  I think I've decided on the tower
> / (initial) antenna setup. I want to use a Glenn Martin 70' tower with Hazer
> as I want to be able to work on the antenna with both feet firmly planted on
> terra firma. I plan on using a Force 12 5BA for 20 - 10 m. I currently have
> a Force 12 C4S and really like the construction and performance. I'm not
> sure about 40 - currently the C4S has a rotatable diope element, I would
> loose that with the 5BA. For 80 and 160, I'm thinking a trapped dipole
> installed as an inverted vee from the tower.  I've got enough real estate
> for a full length 160 antenna.
>
> The areas I'm looking for ideas with are grounding and getting the cables /
> wires from the house to the antenna. The shack will definitely be in the
> basement.  I and considering burying some ground rods under the basement
> floor before the floor is poured. That way, I would have an extremely short
> RF ground (which is good, right?). However, I don't know if that is a good
> idea. I'm wondering why the electric service is always grounded outside the
> house instead of through the basement floor.  Also, this house will have a
> septic system an leach field, which I understand will consist of about 2000'
> feet of buried plastic pipe. I'm considering burying some wire for ground or
> counter poise radials purposes along with the pipe. I'm not sure which. I'm
> currently not contemplating a vertical antenna, but I hate to pass up the
> opportunity to get some wire in the ground. If I use the leach field as a
> counterpoise, I would probably want to bury insulated wire, but if I use it
> as a ground, I'd want uninsulated wire. If I bury either insulated or
> uninsulated, I can envision that the copper will be in a pretty nasty
> environment (moisture, salts and bacteria), are there steps that I can take
> to keep it from corroding away?
>
> What's the best way to get signals in and out of the house and leave me room
> for expansion. I am looking forward to playing with different antennas and
> hope to make it easy to run new wires, etc. The basement walls will be
> poured concrete. I'm thinking of having them embedd some PVC pipe during the
> pour to serve as sleeves for smaller diameter pipe and conduit which will
> eventually be run to the base of the tower.  Not wanting overkill, but
> wanting room for expansion, what size pipe should I use? I plan on using an
> antenna switch at the tower; which will reduce the number of coax runs.  I
> know it's not a good idea to run electrical service in the same pipe as my
> coax, so I will bury a conduit for that.  I don't think I 'need' 120V at the
> tower, but I think it would be nice to have - especially for powering tools
> when working at the tower.  What about control lines for my rotator and
> antenna switch? I suspect that these will be 12 or 24 VDC. Can these be
> safely run in the pipe with the coax or in the conduit with the 120V? Or do
> I need a separate conduit for them.
>
> Also, should I run the coax / eletrical underground all the way to the
> basement from the tower, or should I bring it above ground near the house
> and then go back underground?
>
> Thanks in advance for any suggestions and 73,
> Mark, N8ME
>
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