[TowerTalk] Driving ground rods in rocky soil

[Peter Dougherty]

At 05:10 PM 05/24/2007, jeremy-ca wrote:
>If it MUST absolutely have a ground rod, which I dont understand 
>why, then drilling is one option it seems. You can rent air or 
>electric impact drills and extensions. You may want to treat the 
>soil down the hole with a saline solution and salt crystals as it 
>appears that you wont get much ground conductivity with just the rod.
>
>I live on a ridge with solid ledge less than 2' down and run on the 
>ground radials for my Beverages and elevated radials for verticals.

That's the description here, too. on the western side of a small 
rocky mountain. There are a few places I got an 8' rod down using the 
electrician's Bosch hammerdrill last year, but most only went down 
about 4 to 5 feet. I suspect this soil conductivity is also extremely 
poor. All this for a few countries on 160 and a few more on 80!



Cheers,

Peter,
W2IRT