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Re: [TowerTalk] radials

To: richard@karlquist.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] radials
From: Dan <n5ar@air-pipe.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:10:29 -0700
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
Rick: My first radial plow was attached to a lawn tractor. It had a 
manual lift lever which could be reached with your right hand to the 
rear of you while driving. It was just a formed bar which pivoted to 
lift a small single bottom plow head. I unbolted the plow head and 
bolted my blade to the lift arm. The good news is that it had no 
left-right play on the blade. It had no problem at all in digging into 
the ground in my lawn. Of course I planted the radials only about 3 or 4 
inches deep. I moved from Texas to Spokane and acquired a small farm 
tractor with a 3 point hitch. I bolted the blade to one of the prongs on 
the bottom of the box blade on the tractor. This had some left right 
play in the 3 point hitch and I bent the blade a bit due to that but 
still was able to put in 48 1/4 wave radials on my 2 el 80m array. The 
little tractor in Texas actually worked better.
  I made a small trench around each tower base and tied the end of the 
radial temporarily to the tower leg. I dropped the blade into the trench 
and drove away plowing the wire in. Of course the wire was on a spool 
mounted above t;he plow blade. The blade is made of 1/4 thick steel band 
sawed to shape.
  There is a picture of the blade plus a lot more stuff in a Power Point 
talk I gave to the club here called"Antenna Hints and Kinks" I posted 
info here on TT telling how to access that on the 13th.

73, Dan, N5AR

Rick Karlquist wrote:
> Ian White GM3SEK wrote:
>   
>>> I am planning a 160M vertical with radials.? I am looking for a device
>>> that will attach to my tractor's 3 point hitch and cut a narrow and
>>> shallow slit in the ground.?
>>>       
>> http://sm2cew.com/plow.htm
>> 73 from Ian GM3SEK
>>     
>
> This looks like it is basically made of "hardware store"
> angle iron.  However, I wonder about the blade.  It is necessary
> to use some special alloy of steel?  Should the blade be sharpened
> on the leading edge?  I saw some replacement blades made for
> plows at the farm store.  Is it worth trying to adapt one of these?
> Anyone used one of these on a "lawn tractor" as opposed to a real
> farm tractor?
>
> Rick N6RK
>
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