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[TowerTalk] Soil Composition and Tower Bases

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] Soil Composition and Tower Bases
From: garyejones@cmaaccess.com
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 05:46:30 -0800
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
The new Qth that I just bought has soil which differs from the dense
common clay usually found in the soil here in NorthWestern Louisiana.
This soil has a noticeable percentage of sand mixed in with  the soil
producing a somewhat more porous soil. There is a pit not far from the
house where this soil was carved out because I was told it makes
excellent foundation soil under slab houses, etc. 

I have checked in the documentation for the crank up towers that I
have
and I don't see any information on the soil composition factoring into
the tower base dimensions. The base is spec'd to be 3 x 3 x 7. Does
the
soil composition enter into this picture at all?  The tower is a 70'
unguyed crank up. 

The hole will be underdisturbed except for the hole specifically.
Logic
seems like I should make the base bigger, but I really don't have a
clue what I should do, or if I should just ignore that factor. If it
is
an important issue, it would seem that it would be factored in in the
standard base recommendation from tower manufacturers, but I have
never
seen it even in fixed tower footings such as Rohn catalog engineering
specifications. So, that tells me it is probably not important. So, I
go back and forth. If soil composition is important, how do I figure
out what to do?

I certainly don't want to weaken the wind ratings of the tower and
antenna by whatever I do. 

Any help or experience on how to deal with this issue would be greatly
appreciated. 

                      Gary      W5FI 

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Stations", and lot's more.  Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions 
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