Topband: Radials

[doktorij at bellsouth.net]

Hi Adrian,

Unless you're blessed with soft loamy soil that cuts easy, I would hazard to guess that any way you go will be hard work. If you have nice soft loam you can use a "sled" like in ON4UN's book or one of the old Ham Radio magazines.

I've used staples, which work reasonably well. I've found that adding some dirt over the top of the radials once they are in place encourages the grass to grow over the wires quicker. Although many folks go with bare wire, I've used coated wire. I've been lucky to find some closeout deals on #16 with a plastic coating used for automotive wiring. Black wire seems to covered by overcoat quicker than white or light colored wires. I'm not sure why this is, but it seems to be true here in east Tennessee.

If you need to slit the ground, a gas powered lawn edger is a blessing. You can probably rig up something to feed the wire into the slit. We wound up doing it by hand (two folks slit and laid thirty 60' radials in 8 hours). It is easiest to do this with moist soil in our case. We have a lot of clay and this time of year it is generally hard as brick.

Good luck with it... I'll be adding more in a few weeks myself!

Cheers,
Julius
n2wn