[TowerTalk] Close call with death

[Tom Haavisto]

Along the same lines:

A friend installed a self-supporting tower in his back yard - concrete
base went down 4 feet.
A few years later, his power went out.  Everyone else in the
neighbourhood was fine.  Called hydro, and they figured out where the
underground cable that fed his house was located.  Started off in the
back corner, swung *under* the tower base, then back to his house.  He
must have just missed it when he dug the base for the tower.  If the
cable had went straight (as he assumed it did), all would have been
fine.  They figure the base must have shifted slightly - just enough
to break the cable.

So - at some point, that cable you found will probably break, and
guess what they will find...

Tom - VE3CX



On Sat, Jan 15, 2011 at 4:34 PM, K2VI <k2vi at cox.net> wrote:
> Post hole digging to install the pipe in ground for the 43' zero five vertical. I disregarded the 1.5 inch fence post and used the scedule 40 1.25 I.D gavanized pipe. When digging i was about 38" down when i hit something hard. Hit it a few times thinking it was a root. Well i realized it was probably a rock and reached down and dug some dirt out to find out it was an orange heavy plastic pipe about 1" 1/8 . Also next to it was a 1" black tube. Im not sure if it was a huge power line but glad i didn't bust through. I just threw down some garden rocks and cemented the pipe in just above the underground lines. So im sure this will hold up firm when the cement cures. As far as grounding. I did drive an 8" ground rod next to the pipe about 10" away. I know i have to connect the ground rod to the radial plate but wondering about connection the antenna to the ground rod. If i connect a wire from the UNUN box on the antenna side and run it to the ground rod won't it couple to the ra
>  dial plate? Since both the radial plate and antenna connect to the ground rod in essence they are now both coupled together. Im in the dark here. Can someone please help me out here. I would greatly apreciate the help. thank to all. 73
>
> tony k2vi