Topband: Radials over a stone wall

[N2TK, Tony]

Thanks Bill and Herb about drilling a hole through the wall. That could be
tough. It is a stone wall with no mortar. It is about 20-28" thick. It is
well constructed with large field stones. It would be rough to drill through
all of that. I had thought about taking portion of the wall apart but
figured I would never get it back to looking as good as it does now. The
stones go fairly deep so not much chance of going under the wall.

73,
N2TK, Tony

-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Wichers [mailto:billw at waveform.net] 
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2012 12:26 PM
To: N2TK, Tony; topband
Subject: RE: Topband: Radials over a stone wall

I would expect an "up and over" to clear the wall would result in a
choke-like effect on the radial and would, at best, reduce the radial's
effectiveness.

It should be easy to just drill some small (maybe 1/4"?) holes through the
wall in a few places to pass the radials through. With a decent hammer drill
and a carbide bit a small hole like that is pretty quick and easy to
complete -- even in concrete or stone. Then just use a piece of coathanger
wire as a wire fishing tool to run the radials through the hole.

I use a wire pulling tool called a "creep-zit" to pull radials under fallen
trees and logs in the woods. It works great. I basically just take one of
the 6 foot long fiberglass rods (each of which is a little over 1/8"
diameter), tape the radial to one end, and then I can push it under fallen
debris easily. With a little practice you can even get around hidden
obstructions in the ground this way.

  -Bill


> I shunt feed my tower for topband. I use variable vacuum caps and a
vacuum
> relay at the base to switch between the low end and the high end of
the
> band. It seems to work okay. I have 100' buried radials spaced 10' at
the
> ends from o degrees going clockwise through about 220 degrees. I have
a 4'
> high stone wall that runs about 20/200 degrees that is about 35' at
its
> closest point to the tower. So the radials are progressively shorter
on
> the
> West side of the tower.
> 
> 
> 
> I am making an assumption that going up over the wall will distort any 
> benefits of extending the radials on the West side? Is that a true 
> assumption.
> 
> I can't really have the radials go from the tower base up at an angle
to
> clear the stone wall and continue on. If I am to extend them the
radials
> would have to go on the ground to the wall then up and over and back
down
> to
> the ground.
> 
> 
> 
> 73,
> 
> N2TK, Tony
> 
> _______________________________________________
> UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK