[TowerTalk] screw anchors

[k0dan]

Wow. Deja Vu all over again! That's EXACTLY what my failed anchor looked
like! Lucky you, you found it and took corrective action at the last
possible minute. I've already told my tale of woe.

73

Dan
K0DAN
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Hachadorian" <k6ll at adelphia.net>
To: "Towertalk Reflector" <towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 3:16 PM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] screw anchors


> I posted this to Towertalk in November of 1996:
>
> ----------------------
> Scary Story
>
> It was not a typical balmy afternoon in Yuma, Arizona on Friday.
> There was a cold front approaching from the north, which was
> kicking the wind up to about 30 mph. I happened to glance out
> the back window and noticed that one of the guy wires on the
> 48' Rohn 25 foldover seemed to be vibrating more than usual,
> so I went out to investigate. The tower is four-way guyed, using
> the recommended Rohn GAS604 earth augers to secure the guy wires.
>
> The vibrating guy wire seemed a little loose, so I began to tighten
> the turnbuckle. The guys tightened up momentarily, but then went slack
> again! The wind was blowing pretty good at this point, and I was
> horrified to realize that the earth auger was pulling out of the
> ground! There is no way to get a vehicle into the back yard to serve
> as a temporary guy support. I immediately released tension on the
> opposing guy wire, trusting in Jesus and Rohn's conservative
> engineering to keep the tower standing. There is about 17 square feet
> of antennas on top of the tower. Naturally, the wind was blowing
> in the worst possible direction.
>
> I got on the phone, and found the one and only source of earth
> augers in town, a farm supply store a few miles away. I got their
> largest one, about 4' long, painted, not galvanized, with a 5"
> diameter
> auger on the bottom. I screwed it in next to the defective one,
> transferred the guy wires, and tightened them all up.
>
> The defective earth auger could then be twisted by hand, but
> I had to tap it with a hammer to get it out of the ground. What
> came up was a scaly, crusty, two foot long rod, rather than Rohn's
> four foot long rod with a 6" auger plate at the end! The end of the
> rod had a pointy piece of metal that looked as if it had been
> stretched too far. I guess that corrosion had eaten through the
> 5/8 rod, to the point where the remaining metal couldn't support
> the tension, and then it just stretched like taffy and pulled
> apart.
>
> The augers have been in place since 1978. They looked perfect
> above ground. Even below ground, it was hard to tell whether
> the crusty stuff was dirt or corrosion. Looking at it more
> closely, the galvanizing had eroded off, and rust had penetrated
> to a depth of about 1/8 inch all around.
>
> The moral of the story of course is to routinely inspect all guy
> anchors. I remember reading that advice before, but of course
> problems always happen to the other guy, and we don't need to
> worry about corrosion here in the desert! There's nothing like a
> little
> personal experience with a Significant Emotional Event to drive a
> point
> home! Needless to say, I will order four new anchors from Texas Towers
> on
> Monday. It _can_ happen to you!
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> I remember that someone (Rauch?) suggested at the time that the guy
> wires should be insulated to keep currents down. The new anchors had
> already been installed before that suggestion was made, and I never
> did go back and retrofit the guys. I think I will get four new anchors
> now and convert the lower guy set to Phillystran at the same time. The
> upper set is already Philly. Then I'll try shunt feeding the tower.
> I'm 62 now, so if it all falls down when I'm 80, I probably won't even
> notice!
>
>
> Dave Hachadorian, K6LL
> Yuma, AZ
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