[TowerTalk] Digging the hole

[RICHARD BOYD]

In a previous message to Andy I said I thought it depended on your age and
physical condition.
The comment on the Marine doing it in 6 hours more or less matched my guess
of half a day
for someone really in shape, minimum.

I also suggested to have a ladder handy.  climbing out can be challenging
once you get beyond a few
feet.

For bringing dirt up out of the hole once you get over a few feet, shovel
into a bucket that has a rope attached and have someone else haul the bucket
up and dump it out.

Use a spud bar or "digging bar" to break up soil in the bottom.  A hand post
hole digger can also help in such close quarters to bust up the dirt in the
bottom.

A friend of mine, W3IO, was quite pleased with finding day laborers (they
hang out at one of the local 7-11s looking for people to come by and hire
them) for something like $5 an hour (and it was a few years ago) plus buying
them lunch from McDonalds.  They had his self supporter's base excavated
nicely within a few hours.  Another guy, N3ORY, does the same thing very
successfully with pickup laborers.

I think it was N3ORY who pointed out that round holes can meet the tower
mfgr's specs too, and they can be drilled.  Sometimes the crews (many of
whom are contractors, not power company employees) that dig telephone pole
holes can be hired cheap, on the side, to drill your tower foundation.  If
it takes several drills you can then turn a four-round-hole excavation into
a nice square hole yourself without
too much trouble.

Years ago when I had a tractor with a fence post augur on the PTO on back, I
could knock out a
fence post hole in less than a minute.  Though it was a much smaller
diameter hole, I would think
do that 10-20 times in your tower base area and you'd have a lot of the work
done.  Then just
clean it up.

Just some thoughts.  73 - Rich, KE3Q




----- Original Message -----
From: "VeeAthreePL" <va3pl at cuic.ca>
To: <towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2003 7:57 AM
Subject: [TowerTalk] Digging the hole


> Just wandering how long (in hours perhaps) it will take to dig 4 X 4 X 6
> feet deep hole in medium to heavy clay using just hand tools like a
> shovel and stuff by one person. I am looking for ball park number of
> hours in order for better planning to put up my TX-455 crank up tower.
>
> 73 de Andy - VA3PL
>
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