[TowerTalk] Ground Rods

Mark Robinson markrob at mindspring.com
Tue Nov 30 16:17:16 PST 2010


Yes I was lucky pounding in my 10 foot ground rods with a sledge hammer 
until I got to the last two. It took me 2 hours to pound in those last two 
ground rods. Maybe it was later in the season and the ground was a lot drier 
by then.

Mark N1UK


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <john at kk9a.com>
To: <TOWERTALK at contesting.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 30 November, 2010 6:05 PM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Ground Rods


> This summer I installed 10 ground rods in my red clay , shale, quartz, 
> etc.
> ground.  I got almost no where with a sledge hammer and had to resort to
> using a jack hammer to pound them in.  Even with this machine, many only
> went in 6-7 feet deep.   At my P40A station I was never able to drive in
> ground rods by hand more than a few feet deep.   Those that say it is easy
> to drive in ground rods have never tried it in hard soil conditions.
>
> John KK9A / 4
>
>
>
>
> To: towertalk at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Ground Rods
> From: David Gilbert <xdavid at cis-broadband.com>
> Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 11:35:10 -0700
> List-post: <towertalk at contesting.com">mailto:towertalk at contesting.com>
>
> I think there is danger in generalizing.  I live in very rocky terrain
> (check out my tower installation pics at ab7e.com) and if I'm lucky I
> can get about 75% of four foot rods to go in all the way no matter what
> I pound them in with.  Even then virtually all of them take a "skew
> path."  Eight foot rods have a 100% chance of stopping on a large chunk
> of granite before they get even close to being all the way in.  I
> suspect other hams in other locations have similar issues.
>
> My only recourse was to put in more rods to ground my tower, and I built
> my own exothermic mold (standard type, not One-Shot variety) and bought
> a bunch of Cadweld powder on eBay so I could make as many wire-to-rod
> connections as I needed.  The biggest reservation I have is that I'm
> less likely to reach moist earth during our dry springtime with the
> shorter rods, but that's just something I have to live with.  No storms
> then anyway ...
>
> 73,
> Dave   AB7E
>
>
>
>
> On 11/30/2010 11:10 AM, Mark Robinson wrote:
>> I put in 10 foot copper clad 5/8 ground rods around my tower. Most of 
>> them
>> went in pretty easily..
>>
>> Mark N1UK
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Dan Bookwalter"<n8dcj at yahoo.com>
>> To:<towertalk at contesting.com>
>> Sent: Tuesday, 30 November, 2010 12:43 PM
>> Subject: [TowerTalk] Ground Rods
>>
>>
>>> Ok , i have seen several discussions regarding what people are using for
>>> ground
>>> rods.... some use actual 5/8" ground rods , while others use 1/2" copper
>>> pipe ,
>>> thoughts on which is better ?
>>>
>>> also i was thinking about using 4ft ground rods instead of 8 footers ,
>>> but
>>> use
>>> twice as many of them , it is much easier to drive the 4 footers  ,
>>> thoughts ?
>>>
>>> thanks
>>>
>>> Dan N8DCJ
>
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