[TowerTalk] Connecting radials to tower

[Bill Ogden]

I have a TX-455 crank-up tower and am attaching radials to it.  (I feed the tower with a half-sloper connected to the top.)  I have two ground stakes about 24" from two of the tower legs.  The stakes are connected to the tower base with #2 battery cables. They clamp to the ground stakes very well, after inserting copper shims in the clamps.

I would like to connect all my radials to the ground stakes.  This is much neater and easier than trying to connect them to the tower.  Is there any downside to this? The radials will terminate about 24" from the tower leg (with half going to each ground stake) and depend on the heavy battery cables for the connection to the tower.

Taking this another step, it would be convenient to terminate several radials in a wire nut (potted with hot-melt glue) and run a single wire (about 12") to the ground stake.  Might this be a problem?  (The clamps on the ground stakes are getting crowded.)

Last question: I am using a variety of wire for the radials.  This includes a lot of old RG58 (with the core and shield soldered to a #14 wire for connection to the ground stake), some telephone cable (2 pairs, twisted, with all four wires soldered together---dunno what effect the twist will have), some old LAN cable (3 pairs, not twisted), etc. Any problems with a mixture like this?  Most of the radials are about 60' long, except on the house side where they narrow to 30'.)

Bill
W2WO