Tower footer

The footer is dug and boy was that an all day job.  From picking up the backhoe, the digging, doing something will all the dirt, getting the gravel into the hole, leveling the first couple of sections of Rohn 45G and securing them so they won't move around.  Let us not forget about the forms...that may have been the easiest job.  After all of that, the backhoe had to cleaned before returning to Home Depot.  I got up at 6am that day got home, after returning the hoe, at about 5:30pm.  The following day, KF4ARC and I went to Durham to meet a guy who bought my TH-6DX tri-bander.  It was a very busy weekend and just exhausting keeping everything moving.  There were plenty of people here to help and it was GREAT seeing everyone.  Some I hadn't seen in two years.  However, it was a lot of work, very cold and then the caffeine crash.  We got it done though...that's what we do.

I choose Home Depot to rent the equipment from because the other places wanted to charge for a trailer to haul the equipment.  I guess it ended up costing about the same, but HD's trailers have surge brakes on them and that is very handy when hauling a heavy load.  It was also very easy and no hassle.  The downside is HD does not reserve any of their equipment. 

So now the I have a 5'x5'x5' hole behind my house with about 6"-8" of wash stone in the bottom, forms around the hole, 1 1/2 sections of tower bolted to 2x4s and secured in the ground to keep the tower from moving.  All photos are available at www.qsl.net/ae4vj/tower.html.  Now, we are ready for concrete and I found, what seems to be, a great small local company that mixes on site.  I'll have more details on them after we pour and I get to know them a little. 

Special thanks so far to John (K4YS), Robbie Dale (KT4TF), Ed Helms (N4ZVN), Buddy (N4BY), Aaron (KF4ARC), my Mom, Dad, and Brittany.