[TowerTalk] Easy method of digging

[Tom Hammond]

Dave KG7EW, writes:

>I will very soon be digging a hole  7 feet X 3.5 feet X 3.5 
>feet in my back yard to install my self-supporting crankup 
>tower.  I have checked out several options to do this and 
>here are the basic options.

Lemme tell you from experience... you DON'T WANNA DO IT YOURSELF!
But it does make good sense to be present when it's being dug.

Having dug several bases for towers of the years, I decided that
my 'final' tower base (e.g. tower base at new home 5 years ago) 
hole would be dug by a professional.  In the years leading up to
the 'final' tower, I've dug/helped dig a bunnch of holes.  Now,
mid-Missouri is riddled with ROCK!  Not always large rocks, but
rocks just large enough so as to make it virtually impossible to
dig a nice hole by hand... at least for one of us 'older' types.
So I decided to have the hole dug by the contractor of our new
house which was also being built at the same time.

The builder came by once a month to collect his monthly pound of
flesh and to discuss how things were going and to make sure we
knew what was coming up next in the building process... but
mostly to get paid (the pound of flesh).  At this particular
meeting, he happened to mention that he was gonna have 'the
backhoe' out at the site on Monday to do some 'fine' excavating
work.  With this in mind, I asked him to have the backhoe operator
dig the 4' x 4' x 8'4" hole (4.9 cu. yd.) for my US Tower 72-footer 
which was already laying on its side in the upper yard.  He agreed, 
and we went out and marked off just where everything was to go.

Monday came and I went off to work, knowing that my XYL, Jeri
(K0RPH), would call me when the work was to begin, so I could
take off and observe.

Well, 3 o'clock came and went and still no word from Jeri.  
Finally, at 4 p.m., she called to tell me that the hole "WAS DONE".
I expressed some regret at not being present to watch, and then
asked how it'd gone.  

The response was, "Oh, it went well... they DID have a bit of a 
problem though."  

"What type of 'problem'?"

"Well, they hit rock (fortunately limestone) at a depth of two feet."

"Oh great! How'd they handle that?"  

"The backhoe switched from its bucket to a pneumatic jackhammer 
and it went right thru the nearly 4 feet of rock."  

"OK, great!  Were they able to get it hollowed out to the size
required?".

"Well, it's a 'bit' larger than that."

"HOW much larger?"

"Well, it's kinda like 7' x 7' x 7'8"...!"

"Great!  My hole, which I must fill with concrete, has now gone
from 5 cu. yd. (slightly less than one truckload), to 13.6 cu. yd.
(slightly MORE than two truckloads)!!!"

So here I now am, with eight jillion (I don't know HOW many) pounds
of concrete in the ground.  I finally managed to pay off the bank
loan to pay the concrete bill.  But the tower's NEVER gonna pull
(or rotate) out of the ground!  That's for sure!

The moral of my story (which I hope you enjoyed), is that it's still
better to have a hole of this size dug by a professional, with the
right equipment, and on time, than to attempt to tackle it yourself.
If I'd rented a mini-backhoe and tried to do it myself, I'd still 
have been stymied at two feet of depth... then I'd have still had
to hire a chipper to come out and go thru the rock.  Had I tried to
dig it by hand, I'd NEVER have gotten it done.  The increases size 
of the hole was only an unfortunate result.  The real thing is that
the hole WAS dug... where I wanted it... by folks who had the right
stuff to do the job, the first time.

73 - Tom Hammond   N0SS

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