[TowerTalk] Burying Radials

Donald Chester k4kyv at hotmail.com
Thu Mar 30 16:05:03 EDT 2017


I tried using a lawn edger, but the problem was dirt falling back, and flung back by the edger blade, and filling in the slit before I could push the wire in.  I finally gave up in frustration and fabricated a home-made plough patterned after the big ones the phone company uses to bury telephone wire, and that professionals use to lay radials for broadcast stations.  It has a sharp leading edge that cuts the slit, and a tube brazed to the rear edge that lays the wire, all in one operation.  I cut the pieces out of  scrap metal I had lying around, and took it to a welding shop and let them assemble it.   I attached it to a heavy duty Troy-Built rear-tine garden tiller I borrowed, with the tines temporarily removed, and with an assistant, laid 16,000 feet of #12 soft drawn copper in four days.  120 quarter-wave  radials for 160.  It would have taken me months of  daily work to have buried them by hand using a spade.

Don, k4kyv


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