[TowerTalk] burying conduit vs pulling when

[Shawn Donley]

There seems to be many approaches to putting cables in the ground and I don't think there's just one good way.  I just finished an install at the home QTH.  I decided to use 4" corrugated flexible drain pipe that has slots for drainage.  The 120 ft of pipe was covered with a soil sock.  I pulled my cables with the drain pipe on the surface of the yard.  Had 2 runs of LDF4-50A hardline, a run of BuryFlex, two runs of direct bury CAT6 and a run of RG-59.  I used mule tape for the pull rather than a round rope.  To get the mule tape through the pipe, I first used some mason line hooked to a 8 oz lead fishing weight.  Put the weight in one end and lifted the pipe up to get the weight to slide forward.  Continued to scoot the weight along by lifting the pipe and moving forward.  Only took a few minutes.  After the mason cord with the weight exited, I used it to pull the 1/2" mule tape through.   Used a little trick to keep the front end of the cable bundle from snagging inside the pipe.  I used a Kellum grip to grab the BuryFlex,  which in turn was tightly taped to all the other cables for a foot or so.  Then I ran the pull wire of the Kellum through a PVC pipe cap that had a hole drilled at it's center.  The pipe cap diameter was slightly less than the ID of the corrugated drain pipe and the cap itself had a nice rounded front so no sharp edges to catch on the corrugations.  All the cable ends were tucked up in the cap so no cable end was exposed.  I used a liberal amount of cable soap.  The pull went very smoothly.  Could almost push the bundle through but my wife pulled while I pushed at the other end.  After the cables exited, I walked the pipe into the trench that was dug using a friends power equipment.  The pipe was originally laid a few feet to the side of the trench.  Enough mule tape was left at both ends to pull more cables later.

So time will tell if this works out.  Even with the soil sock, dirt might accumulate.  My soil drains well so unlikely to have standing water in the pipe.  Thought about using 4" corrugated but figured 3" would work, plus I could add a remote switch at the tower side later if needed (hence the CAT6 for misc use).

Good luck with your project.

N3AE