tgstewart@pepco.com wrote:
>Other considerations:
>
>-Wear gloves!
>-You need at least 2 people to unroll it. Do this by rolling the coil
>along the ground, being very careful to keep the coil under control and
>together. You must do this on grass or other soft surface to prevent
>scraping the rod. Again, it's a very soft material, so it will abraid very
>easily. DANGER! DO NOT try to uncoil this material while it's laying flat
>on the ground! Fiberglass rod has tremendous spring energy and it WILL
>hurt you if you lose control of it. We had a local ham chip a tooth when
>the end whipped around and hit him in the mouth.
There is an easy way for one person to uncoil this stuff if you plan
on cutting it up immediately into measured lengths.
Lay the coil flat on the ground 15' or 20' from a tower. Take a 18"
or 24" piece of PVC tubing, (3" or 4" diam.), and insert it horizontally
through the tower at about 12' off the ground - tape it securely in the
tower.
Then simply thread the end of the rod through the PVC tube and pull
it out from the tower - you will feel the rod twist in your hand as the
loops come off the roll, but you can easily walk 300' or 400' of rod
out at a time. Have some stakes in the ground at measured distances,
and snip it up into your precalculated lengths right off the bat.
I re-guyed all my towers with the 3/8" white polygon stuff a couple
of years ago, and am quite pleased with the way it all turned out.
--
Steve K8LX
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