Radial laying methods
Vertical antennas have some interesting features, but the radials
required for them are a nuisance to install. Ideally, we would like approximately 1 gazillion radials for a vertical. In reality, we often settle for less. Much less. When installing my Butternut HF6V, I ended up laying as many radials as my poor aching hockey damaged back could handle, then the next weekend repeated the process. I eventually stumbled upon a method that was fast and painless. Well-as long as everything went well... So what are you vertical users radial trenching secrets, anyhow? I'll relay mine after things get started. - 73 de Mike KB3EIA - |
Radial laying methods
On May 14, 7:28�am, Michael Coslo wrote:
Vertical antennas have some interesting features, but the radials required for them are a nuisance to install. Ideally, we would like approximately 1 gazillion radials for a vertical. In reality, we often settle for less. Much less. When installing my Butternut HF6V, I ended up laying as m any radials as my poor aching hockey damaged back could handle, then the next weekend repeated the process. I eventually stumbled upon a method that was fast and painless. Well-as long as everything went well... So what are you vertical users radial trenching secrets, anyhow? I'll relay mine after things get started. For trenching, a gas-powered lawn edger does a fine job with a dull blade. PROVIDED...you have all the buried PVC water sprinkler lines (if you have them) located; if you don't, that edger will slice right through PVC pipe with little effort. :-( Note: Edger blade rotation should be tossing excess towards the front for safety. Anyone with lots of rocks just below the soil (as I do) can get injured if the blade tosses things backward. What I need is a way of getting under a sidewalk AND lots of mature roots from tall cypresses. "Trenchless" line-laying with a pipe and pointy nozzle to hydraulically bore into soil is one way and will cost about $400 to $500 from a plumbing service that does that kind of thing. [estimate] Not good. Manual digging with a shovel for one such pass-through takes as much effort as manual hoe-trenching a couple dozen radials. BTW, radials themselves can be #14 solid THHN (nylon- jacketed PVC insulation) electrical wiring according to many who have used that. The insulation will preserve the copper longer and reportedly has little effect on final VSWR. Best prices for that seem to be (locally) Home Depot in 500 foot spools. 73, Len AF6AY |
Radial laying methods
On Mon, 14 May 2007 11:28:37 EDT, Michael Coslo wrote:
Vertical antennas have some interesting features, but the radials required for them are a nuisance to install. Ideally, we would like approximately 1 gazillion radials for a vertical. In reality, we often settle for less. Much less. When installing my Butternut HF6V, I ended up laying as many radials as my poor aching hockey damaged back could handle, then the next weekend repeated the process. I eventually stumbled upon a method that was fast and painless. Well-as long as everything went well... So what are you vertical users radial trenching secrets, anyhow? I'll relay mine after things get started. - 73 de Mike KB3EIA - For AM broadcast they are normally run in with a modified plow, with a guide tube for the wire on the trailing edge of the blade. Not practical on a residential lot, but if you are in the country a little welding could probably rig up a usable plow if you have access to a small (but bigger than lawn size) tractor. I used to like to then silver-solder the wire to a copper bus ring around the tower base. In any event, a non-trivial task. Bill KB0RF |
Radial laying methods
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 |
Radial laying methods
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Radial laying methods
On May 16, 2:50 pm, Michael Coslo wrote:
So I did what any other nut would have done, I bought a small electric chainsaw. for something like 39 dollars. It's what the pro's use, on a different scale. Friend of mine does fiber optic provisioning, and he's bringing on of these to my station to plant coax. See here ----- http://www.ditchwitch.com/dwcom/Prod...ductView/10588 73, RDW |
Radial laying methods
RDWeaver wrote:
On May 16, 2:50 pm, Michael Coslo wrote: So I did what any other nut would have done, I bought a small electric chainsaw. for something like 39 dollars. It's what the pro's use, on a different scale. Friend of mine does fiber optic provisioning, and he's bringing on of these to my station to plant coax. See here ----- http://www.ditchwitch.com/dwcom/Prod...ductView/10588 Well . . . there's a bit of difference between a ditch witch, which is made for digging ditches and offers the operator reasonable protection from flying debris, and using a chain saw that is designed for cutting wood. As Michael warns several times in his article, this "is a potentially dangerous operation, and involves using sharp instruments that are capable of causing serious injury or death. Don't even think of doing this. You have been warned!" I have the utmost respect for a chain saw, even when used in its intended application of cutting wood. (And I use one regularly.) I'd certainly be very aprehensive about using it to part the Red Dirt. Or black dirt, depending on your part of the country. 73, Steve KB9X |
Radial laying methods
On May 16, 2:50 pm, Michael Coslo wrote:
One other caveat - don't expect the chain to be very sharp after this bit of abuse. Yes, but when you're done planting the radials, you could use the dull chain as an antenna and maybe win a prize. See here --- http://www.n0ew.org/k0s/ 73, RDW |
Radial laying methods
One other caveat - don't expect the chain to be very sharp after this bit
of abuse. I needed to get another chain to restore the saw to it's proper wood cutting use. Having some experience with chainsaws- Contacting the blade with dirt will ruin the blade (as stated above), but don't do this with an expensive saw thinking that the blade can be changed later. It'll also ruin the guide wheels and clutch too. In fact, it is widely known among chainsaw operators that dirt = death to chainsaws. It mixes with the oil and becomes a grinding compound. Trench cutting has to be seen as an old saws dying gasp. It is also extremely risky. If you unwittingly hit something solid, the saw could bounce or kick back. It happens sometimes when you're cutting wood. Its bound to happen when you are cutting into something when you don't know what it consists of. Having said all that, I cant decided if my advise would be- be careful, OR- just don't do it. -- Jack VK2CJC / MM0AXL FISTS# 9666 Mid North Coast Amateur Radio Group www.mncarg.org |
Radial laying methods
Michael Coslo wrote:
Vertical antennas have some interesting features, but the radials required for them are a nuisance to install. [snip] So what are you vertical users radial trenching secrets, anyhow? I'll relay mine after things get started. I like to do radials a different way: rather than cut a trench for each radial, I scrape the topsoil, lay out the radials and concentrics, bond them, and then cover the whole grid up again. Believe it or not, this is actually quicker, given proper preparation - for an 80 meter vertical with 64 radials, it can be done by four hams in one day - although it is definitely best done when the XYL is visiting her folks. ;-) After that, I put down lots of fertilizer and new grass seed, and blamed the operation on grubs. Worked like a charm. Bill W1AC P.S. This method assumes you are really good friends with an experienced bulldozer operator who has a job in the next block over, but not that you actually do have a grub problem. -- 73, Bill W1AC (Remove "73" and change top level domain for direct replies) |
Radial laying methods
On May 16, 7:45 pm, Steve Bonine wrote:
RDWeaver wrote: On May 16, 2:50 pm, Michael Coslo wrote: So I did what any other nut would have done, I bought a small electric chainsaw. for something like 39 dollars. It's what the pro's use, on a different scale. Friend of mine does fiber optic provisioning, and he's bringing on of these to my station to plant coax. See here -----http://www.ditchwitch.com/dwcom/Prod...ductView/10588 Well . . . there's a bit of difference between a ditch witch, which is made for digging ditches and offers the operator reasonable protection from flying debris, and using a chain saw that is designed for cutting wood. Some of the ideas presented represent some of the most labor intensive, dangerous methods I've run across. Cut some #12 or #14 galvanized steel wire into six or eight inch lengths. Fold them in half to form a hairpin. Lay out your radial wires along the surface of your yard. Use a steel hairpin every three or four feet to hold the wire to the earth. Within several weeks of the grass growing and cutting cycle, the radials will disappear beneath the surface of the grass, never to be seen again. I'm now up to over 6,000 feet of vinyl insulated #12 and #14 radials for my 160m inverted L using this method. There are no whirring metallic objects, no chain saws. There's no digging and very little effort. Dave K8MN |
Radial laying methods
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Radial laying methods
Steve Bonine wrote
When I read what Dave had written, it struck me that it's an illustration of a trait that I have observed often in our hobby: It has to be done *exactly* the right way. A 1.2:1 SWR isn't good enough. Radials have to be *buried* since obviously they won't be as effective if they're just laid on the ground. Yeah, several hours of back breaking work and possibly risking your life might gain you 1 db that no one will be able to detect . . . or maybe not even that. We need to be a bit more forgiving of non-optimum solutions and do a bit more cost/benefit analysis on the work it takes to convert them to optimum solutions. I've a different view on several points. I didn't see Dave's message as "has to be done *exactly* right", but simply a different way of securing the radials, WITHOUT "have to be *buried*. But given the amount of copper he's laid down, obviously he's intent on getting the best performance he can muster on 160. Nothing wrong with that, and that 1 db may be just the amount needed to snag that last Z for WAZ Top Band, or break through the east coast curtain to log a multiplier in the Stu Perry Challenge. Your anecdote about the Red Cross van is well taken, but I think it illustrates a point. There are times when we readily accept "get 'er done" as "good enough", such as during a disaster like Katrina, or for a temporary setup like Field Day, or a demonstration station at the local high school. But when we engineer our home station (especially if we're serious about DXing or contesting) we go to all reasonable (and yes, even sometimes unreasonable) lengths to get the best performance we can squeeze out. A couple db better front-to-back, another microvolt to the receiver, more KC between the 2:1 spots on the VSWR curve, an easier way to reduce ground losses under a Battle Creek Special, or a better ergonomic chair for those long contests. In that regard, many of us have no "forgiveness of non-optimum". 73, RDW |
Radial laying methods
On Wed, 16 May 2007 10:50:07 EDT, Michael Coslo wrote:
I found many of the suggested ways of laying radials either painful from crouching over the work, too mind numbingly slow, or unsatisfactory in general - such as laying the radials on the ground and not burying. The XYL particularly hated the last one. Even using green wire? -- 73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon e-mail: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net |
Radial laying methods
Phil Kane wrote:
On Wed, 16 May 2007 10:50:07 EDT, Michael Coslo wrote: I found many of the suggested ways of laying radials either painful from crouching over the work, too mind numbingly slow, or unsatisfactory in general - such as laying the radials on the ground and not burying. The XYL particularly hated the last one. Even using green wire? She gets very concerned that she will run over them when she mows the lawn. I used lawn staples, and they were never run over, but the fear was always there. Now everything including the coax gets buried. - 73 de Mike KB3EIA - |
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