On May 14, 11:28�am, Michael Coslo wrote:
So what are you vertical users radial trenching secrets,
anyhow?

Here are a couple of methods:

The first method is to get a gardening spade with a straight (flat)
blade. Hold it with the blade vertical and push with your foot so it
makes a straight slit in the turf. Move it one blade-width and
repeat.

Push the wire into the slit with a garden weed puller (long rod with a
forked end.


The second method requires a special homemade tool. Get a linoleum
knife (the kind with a curved blade) and sharpen the outside edge.
Take a piece of ~1/4" copper tubing, bend it to a curve, and solder or
epoxy it to the side of the blade.

The radial wire is fed through the tubing. The knife is pushed into
the ground and pulled along, making a slit and burying the wire at the
same time. Requires soft soil!

--

My favorite trick is to not bury the radials at all.

At my old house on RadioTelegraph Hill, I had a nice homebrew 20 meter
vertical mounted on the garage. The bottom of the radiator (16 feet of
half-inch EMT) was 10 feet up, and very inconspicuous. The radials
went over the roof and yard, and were of fine wire so that they were
almost invisible. Homemade insulators of clear plexiglas did the job
at the far end.

Whole thing cost me maybe $10. I made thousands of QSOs with that
antenna.

73 de Jim, N2EY