Wednesday, November 09, 2016

Work at Area 57 AKA 125 Contest lane begins on the holes for the Two Towers

Follow up 4 December 2016

Rented a very large CAT Backhoe with supposedly rock teeth
got a bit deeper on all the holes but the north Guy anchor needs to go Four more feet
yup I am in solid rock at only two feet down

Ordered a large SDS MAX Hammer Drill and a couple of bags of some stuff called DexPan
which is supposed to go in the drilled holes in the rock and twenty four hours later will have expanded enough to break the rock

We shall see if this works, at this point I have my doubts
and may need to move my Northern Guy anchor out fusrther and pary I don't hit another Vein of the same rock !

I guess this is my real welcome to North Texas :)

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Rented a small back hoe got most of the holes dug for the front tower Then at the front Guy anchor point I hit shale rock while only down 2 feet So now I am on hold to find a much bigger track hoe and or a jack hammer !!!                                       

Mean while I now have started on wiring for the
new Ham Shack building














I also received delivery of 8 utility poles that are
begging for my attention I plan on using these for
a large Rhombic antenna on the back 24 acres















All nine elements of the YCCC low band Receive
array are now up however the electronics are not
mounted as of now as they were getting destroyed
by lightning.
So I am building some rather large RF chokes to
go in parallel with some inexpensive lightning
arrestors I bought from Mouser Electronics











This image taken before I had all the elements up
wife like to call this one the Wagon Wheel

Cheers!
Steve
KG5VK

1 comment:

Steve said...

The Rock Crushing is painfully slow....

The really large backhoe barely scratched the rock
So I had to buy a Rotary Hammer and some stuff called DexaPan
Tried this with some small success, but it is still going inches by inches instead of feet
I am currently at 3 feet deep on this Northern most Guy Anchor
and have 3 more feet to go !

Meanwhile still hearing the DX on the bands and with the ETO 91b amp
pushing a tad under the legal limit They are able to hear me if the pile up is not to insane :)

I hope to have at least one of the 140 foot towers up and the large 40m and 20m mono banders in place for the ARRL DX Phone contest in March

Mean while work continues inside the new shack and on the routine care of the new 57 acres of land

Cheers!
Steve
KG5VK