VP6DX - A Clean Sweep

With the VP6DX DX'pedition to Ducie Island drawing to a close, it has now broken the record for the most QSO's worked by any previous DX'pedition. Many people have managed to work Ducie for a new one or for new Bands or Modes that they were not able to do in previous DX'peditions. Personally, I only had three Bands and two Modes confirmed from previous operations.

But, now that I have moved to the New QTH on the Top of the Hill, and have installed the Monster-L for 160-M, I decided to see if I could fill in some of those needed Bands and Modes. As you can see from the VP6DX "Leader Board" below, I managed to do that - in style!


I do not believe I have ever swept a DX'pedition on ALL Bands and Modes they were operating on before. And, this is especially pleasing since I only have two antennas - an 80-M Inverted-L and the Monster-L for 160-M. All other bands were worked by loading one or the other of those two antennas with a Drake MN-2000 tuner. Working 20 Band/Mode "slots" is the MOST that ANY operator has accomplished with this DX'pedition! But, I'd trade a lot of those "slots" for a single 6-M QSO - Hi!

The most difficult contact by far was the 30-M RTTY QSO - and it was the last one I made. I probably spent 5 hours on the air calling them on that Band/Mode. Being restricted to 200-watts on 30-M and not having a 30-M antenna was really a challenge. But, as the DX'pedition was drawing to a close, lots of folks had already made their QSO's and that left room for the "little pistols" to make it into the log.

Now that I have all the "Greenies" showing in the VP6DX log, I'll send for my QSL's using their on-line QSL request service. And, I'll include an extra contribution for the huge expenses incurred by this operation to take all their equipment to such a remote location and, at the bottom of the sunspot cycle, pull off one of (if not THE) best DX'peditions of all time! Thanks VP6DX!

Antennas Work Best if You Bleed on Them

Yesterday I was feeling a little "under the weather." I had a sinus headache for most of the day but it did not stop me from working CT3/OM3GI in Madeira Islands for Country No. 99 on 160-M. However, I did go to bed a bit early to try and shake the headache and general bad feeling.

About 11:00 a.m. today, Tim, KC8UHE, called and said he was not working and was coming over to help me find why the Famous W8TN 160-M Inverted-L antenna was not performing as well as it had at first. Tim knew the CQ 160-M CW Contest started tonight and he wanted to help me get up to speed with the antenna. I tried to beg off, telling him I'd just work on it later, but he would have nothing of that. When I told him it was just too cold to work on the antenna he said the cold didn't bother him and I could just stay inside and he would go over the hill and see what had happened to the antenna. Since I was not able to dissuade him from coming over, I agreed and struggled out of bed to take some more Tylenol.

By the time he showed up I had most of my gear together. Tim brought his spin-casting rod and some new 20 pound test line. He strung the new line on the Zebco reel and we were ready to go. Down over the hill we slid (lots of snow still there) but no one fell. At the antenna I could see that the top-hat portion of the antenna had pulled back out of the trees and the antenna was "drooping" in the vertical section as well. I had known something was wrong since the SWR had creeped up to where it was 1.43 : 1 at resonance and that resonant point had crept up to 1.850 MHz. At 1.830 and below it was well over 2 : 1 which is bad for working DX!

The tree I needed to put the line over was about 90 feet tall and we did not think we could cast the line from the ground. So, up the tower I went (boy that steel was cold!) At about the 65-foot level I belted on and got ready to cast. However, the line was fouled in the reel! So, for about 40 minutes I hung off the side of the tower, disassembled the Zebco spinning reel, and removed the tangled line. I had to cut off the tangled part then re-string the pole and re-tie the lead weight.

Finally, I was ready to make the cast. The line sang out and the yellow lead weight sailed right over the spot I wanted. Then, it suddenly stopped! I had run out of line! Rats! So, I thought I would just cut off the line and tie it to the end of the support line for the top-hat portion of the antenna and hope the weight would pull the line down to the ground (about 85 feet worth!) But, I could not pull the top of the antenna out of the trees. It had gotten fouled in there and no matter how hard I pulled, the tree just bent and the line stayed tight.

Now I had to think quick and formulate a Plan B. I decided that since the line was tight in the tree, I would just climb further up the tower and tie off the vertical portion of the Inverted-L a little higher up. That's what I did and it worked! The vertical portion was now about 15 feet higher and there was a little more of an angle for the top-hat but the antenna was firm. When we finally made it back to the house (only 1 fall - me!), the SWR was now 1.25 : 1 at resonance and the resonant point was at 1.838 MHz. much nicer! The Alpha was very happy and would put out 1,500 watts with only about 20 watts reflected.

I'm sure most seasoned DX'ers are familiar with the old saw that an antenna does not work well unless you leave some blood or skin on them. Well, that's what I did. In cutting the excess line I managed to cut myself twice! Once on my thumb and once on my ring finger.


I can now attest that the old saw about bleeding on your antenna is TRUE! With the new antenna I managed to work SIX New Ones on 160-M in just my first 1-1/2 hours of the contest. Yee, Haw! And, those were worked with an A-Index of 11 and a K-Index of 2 which is not all that great.

I worked EI-Ireland, V3-Belize, YU-Serbia, UA2-Kalingrad, VP9-Bermuda and CT-Portugal. This brings me to 105 Countries Worked on Top Band. That's about 83 New Ones in the last 9 weeks since I put up the Famous W8TN 160-M Inverted-L. I think I'll hit the sack now and see if I can snag a ZL or a VK6 early Saturday morning.

Received EME Signals on 7 MHz.

The High Frequency Auroral Research Program (HAARP) ran some tests on the 40-M band this weekend. They transmitted a 2 second carrier from their station in Gakona, Alaska, then were silent for three seconds. Hams and SWL's were asked to see if they could hear the resultant echoes from the moon. It takes 2.7 seconds for a signal to reach the moon and return to the Earth. So, a little over 1/2 second after the HAARP transmitter went silent (if you could hear it directly), the echo from the moon would appear.

I did not try to hear the test on Friday night since I felt I had no chance with only an 80-M Inverted-V and the Famous 160-M Inverted-L for antennas. But based on the fact that many hams did hear the signal (see this YouTube video), I decided to give it a try on Saturday night. Last night Garie, K8KFJ, heard it on his Icom 706-MkIIG with a vertical and Don, W8DL, heard it using an Icom IC-746 and a 270-ft. longwire.

The first hour of the test was on 6.7925 MHz and I heard NOTHING. I was drowsy and about gave it up but decided to at least spend a few minutes on the second hour of the test on 7.4075 MHz just to see if it was any different. I peaked up the Yaesu FT-1000MP MkV for the weakest signal I could detect. The AGC was OFF, no attenuation, RF Gain at maximum, the VRF was ON and peaked and the 125 Hz crystal filter was switched in to give the maximum signal to noise ratio.

About 9 minutes into the test I began to hear a signal. So, I began recording the audio out of the radio on my computer. I noticed I was only hearing one signal. Was it the HAARP transmitter directly via the ionosphere or was it the signal reflected from the moon? I didn't know. However, I had very carefully adjusted my station clock to WWV just before the test. My digital seconds would click over to the next second exactly as WWV "clicked." Also, I began the audio recording as close to 0839 and 00 seconds GMT as possible.

After about 13 minutes of recording the signal was getting fairly strong. I carefully watched the digital clock and the signal began at 2-1/2 seconds, 7-1/2 seconds, 12-1/2 seconds, 17-1/2 seconds and so on. I was receiving the signal from the MOON!

Of course, this conclusion was based on the assumption that the HAARP signal was begun exactly on the minute and every 5 seconds thereafter. Later on in the test, after a period when I could hear no signal, I began to hear a signal again and this time I noticed that it began exactly at 00, 05, 10, 15 seconds. So, I was now hearing the HAARP transmitter. (There was a short period where I "think" I could hear both signals but the EME signal was so weak I could not be sure. I'll check the audio file later to see if both signals can be pulled out.)

Here is a spectrogram that was recorded in real-time as I was receiving the signal. The width of the graph is just about 15 seconds and you can see three of the 2-second long transmissions.


When I played back that portion of the audio I had recorded on the computer, I found that section 13 minutes and 17 seconds into the file. If you look closely at the timeline from the audio program below, you can see that each signal starts at 17-1/2 seconds, 22-1/2 seconds and 27-1/2 seconds. This shows it is the signal reflected from the moon!


You can listen to the 14-second MP3 file of this signal HERE. The file size is 227 K. The audio tone is at about 580 Hz.

This signal is a good deal stronger than a lot of EME signals I had QSO's with on 432 MHz. from Ravenswood. It was definitely good enough to make a contact, IF the HAARP station could have heard my 1,500 watts (unlikely since they were transmitting in the range of 3.2 MEGA WATTS!)

All in all, I had hoped to do a little better. But, conditions tonight may not have been as good as last night. The A-Index was 9 and the K-Index was 3. But, it was still a hoot to have heard an EME signal on 40-M. Not something you run across just any day.

New W8TN QSLs Going Out

I recently received my QSL's from the printer and I am starting to send them out. It has been a long time since I had nice QSL's and these are FINE. I had them printed by UX5UO in the Ukraine and they were delivered to my door just TWENTY-TWO DAYS after I approved the proof he emailed me. That's just astounding! It normally takes three times that long for me to get them from a U.S. printer. And, the cost was just $65 per thousand - DELIVERED - for 4-color PHOTO cards! Un-real!

You can see my new QSL on QRZ.com CLICK HERE.

The cards I've started sending out are already yielding a result! I have now received a QSL from a Top of the Honor Roll DX'er for an 80-M QSO I had with him earlier this week.


Thanks, Bob. I'll be putting this QSL in a place of honor in my shack.

Learning to Use the FT-1000MP MkV

Click HERE to listen to a brief MP3 audio file I recorded tonight. It will give you some idea of what my radio is able to hear. I picked a weak signal on 160-M to better demonstrate the dramatic ability to improve on what might be considered a very difficult signal to copy.

I have recorded a CQ being sent by SM5EDX at about 0550 GMT. This is 1 hour and 45 minutes before his sunrise.

The first 7 seconds of the CQ are with my 400 Hz filter in line. Then, I switch in the 125 Hz filter. I think you will hear a marked decrease in the QRN and a resultant improvement in the signal-to-noise of the received signal. Then, at 12 seconds into the file I switch on the VRF (Variable RF Front-end Filter). This is a narrow band-pass "preselector" filter in the RF circuit path. As you can see, it turns the signal into nearly arm-chair copy when it would have been very difficult (if not impossible) to copy it otherwise.

Below is a graphic showing the resultant waveform of this audio file. The improvement in noise reduction added by the 125 Hz. filter is obvious. And, you can see a further noise reduction when the VRF is engaged.


I am still learning about all the controls on this radio but the more I use it, the better I like it. I expect the receiver (and the filters) are part of why I am able to hear so much on the Inverted-L, don't you think?

KC8UHE's Inverted "L" for Top Band

Today, Steve, KC8FVE, and I helped Tim, KC8UHE, erect a clone of my 160-M Inverted "L" antenna. Shortly after I left he worked a station on SSB in Iowa and later he was in the pile-up for NP4A but was beaten out by Phil, W8UV, with his new "Killer" antenna. Of course, we don't know how much power Phil was running (Tim was running 200 watts.) And, after Phil completed his QSO, Tim broke the pileup next. Not bad I'd say.

Here are a couple of photos of the antenna. The first shows the feedpoint. The unmarked lines are just support ropes. The second photo shows the elevated radial being supported by 5-foot lengths of PVC.

Tim used a 30-year old Zebco Model 33 spinning reel (with rotten line!) to cast a lead weight over two of his neighbor's trees. (The neighbor is very friendly in letting Tim use her trees as antenna supports.) A support rope over the first tree held a pulley that the center of the Inverted-L was threaded through and pulled horizontal by a rope that was cast over the other tree. The first iteration had the antenna about 6-feet too long. So, we let down the end of the center conductor, cut off 6-feet and pulled it back up. The process could not have been simpler. The new length had the SWR 1.0:1 at 1.840 MHz. The photo below shows the tree which supports the end of the "hot" side of the antenna after it transitions from vertical through the pulley on a similar tree.


Now that Tim has joined the ranks of those using the infamous "W8TN - Inverted-L" 160-M antenna. We will both be in competition with Phil in the pileups. It will be interesting to see which antenna wins out.

I Posted these two photos without commenting on them so here is what you are seeing. This is the back and then the front of a sweatshirt I saw at the Charleston Department Store. This, of course, relates to the win by the WVU football team over Oklahoma in the 2008 Fiesta Bowl. Since WVU's coach bolted and went to Michigan, WVU was given "No Chance" to win this game. Oklahoma even petitioned the BCS committee for a "more worthy" opponent. I guess WVU pushed those words right down their throats!

Recording My Own QSO's on the Computer

I'm improving the ham station capabilities and now find that I am able to record QSO's on my computer. So, as a "first attempt", I recorded my QSO with CE1/K7CA on 160-M tonight. Quite a pile-up on him and he was very "wordy" with his QSO's so the pile sometimes got a bit unruly. I noticed I copied him sending "DN" after he had worked several stations "UP." So, I listened to him make three or four QSO's about a kc BELOW his frequency including a VERY long winded one with a buddy where they talked about a lot of things. But, stations were continuing to call him ON his frequency and a big pile were still calling UP 1 kc. Can I really hear that much better than a lot of other folks?

Anyway, I was pretty shocked when he came right back to me (on about my fourth or fifth try at calling him.) I quickly hit the button to record the QSO on the computer. Then, I edited out the extra stuff and you are left with his last exchange to me. Here is a link to an MP3 file of that audio:

http://www.wvinter.net/~w8tn/CE1-K7CA.mp3

He did seem to have quite a strong signal from Chile on Top Band. At times the S-meter at times was hitting over S-9.

This QSO was country number 77 for me on Top Band. And, it was a NEW Zone as well. I now have 77 countries worked on 160-M (39 confirmed) and 23 Zones worked.

Anyway, this is my first try at recording a QSO. I'll be looking into doing this more in the future. That way I'll be able to capture those exciting radio moments and share them with others along with reliving the excitement myself!

160-M Worked All Continents Completed!

By staying up all night on Saturday night, I managed to snag an Asia contact to complete my 160-M W.A.C. in just NINE days on the band. Outstanding!

Just after sunrise here I started hearing RWØCWA rather well. At 15 minutes AFTER my sunrise I managed to complete a QSO with him for my last continent for W.A.C., plus my first contact with Asiatic Russia and Zone 19. WOW!

I added 9A - Croatia, KP4 - Puerto Rico, GM - Scotland and KL7 - Alaska to bring my countries worked to 66 and my Zones worked to 20. Not too bad for a piece of wire, huh?

The 160-M Inverted "L" Continues to WORK!

The 160-M Inverted "L" antenna has now been up for almost a week and it continues to PLAY! In the six days since the CQWWDX CW Contest where I added 30 NEW Countries to my 160-M totals, I have worked another ELEVEN (11) NEW Countries! WOOF! My 160-M guru, KØCS tells me I have NOT seen a good band opening yet so this is nothing short of phenomenal to me.

This week I have added the following 11 NEW Countries to my 160-M totals: E51NNN - So. Cook Islands, HKØ/NØAT - San Andres Island, PA3GCV - Netherlands, OH2BO - Finland, URØMC - Ukraine, OZ1CTK - Denmark, RA4LW - European Russia, OE3GCU - Austria, DF2PY - Fed. Rep. of Germany, S59A - Slovenia, and I4EWH - Italy.

Plus the URØMC contact in the Ukraine was Zone 16 and that was a NEW Zone. I now have 61 Countries and 18 Zones worked on 160-M. The new antenna has added FORTY (40) NEW Countries in just one week. OUTSTANDING!

And, this weekend is the ARRL 160-M Contest so there might be even more new ones added then.

The Further Antenna Adventures of W8TN

The week of November 19th, 2007, I busted my tail to try and get up a 160-M Inverted "L" antenna for the CQ Contest on the coming weekend. I spent the CQWWDX Phone contest on 80-M but with only the 80-M antenna currently up, I thought I'd like to give 160-M a try during the CW weekend.

Pictures describing the antenna construction can be found HERE on the W8TN "New Tower" Photo Gallery. If the photos have been moved to the Archives, check there. The 160-M photos begin with the photo which has the text "19 November I gathered the materials . . ."

IMPORTANT!!! The length of the antenna as described in the ARRL Antenna Book DID NOT WORK for me. Please READ the text to see that I had to MODIFY the dimensions from the ARRL Antenna Book. The dimensions shown in this diagram DID NOT work!


What is NOT shown there is the PAIN I suffered. It took three trips up the tower, staying on the tower one night till 45 minutes after sundown, and an uncounted number of trips through the woods behind my house. Working by myself caused me to have to come up with some inventive ways to do the project. All this resulted in many bruises, scrapes, abrasions, and a pulled muscle in my side which has caused me the biggest problem. Why is it that little projects like this cause so much trouble when you are nearly 60 years old?

First I had to gather the materials. This involved a trip to Home Depot and then the Water Company. I needed to construct an RF choke (several turns of coax) and I found a description in the ARRL Antenna Book of one using 30 turns of RG-213 on an 8-inch diameter piece of PVC. Turns out Home Depot doesn't have anything that large but the Water Company graciously gave me a 6-foot piece. So if anyone needs some 8-inch PVC, I have almost 5-feet left.

To get the antenna to come off the tower horizontally at 60-feet above ground requires putting a line over a tall tree or two to support the antenna wire. The EZ Hang slingshot with spinning reel which I have used several times in the past, failed me. I had installed a new set of elastic tubing bands and a new roll of fishing line but, for some reason, I could not keep from snagging the line in the elastic bands when trying to launch it from the ground. So, after 6 or 7 failures to launch the line, I had to climb the tower and hang off the side to launch the line over a couple of trees. This time it worked! So, I climbed down, trekked through the woods and tied the fishing line to some Dacron antenna support line (note the Boy Scout method I used to let the line unroll freely in one of the pictures linked above.) Back at the tower I reeled in the line and attached it to the antenna. Then, off through the woods to pull the antenna up and check the SWR with an MFJ-259B Antenna Analyzer.

Imagine my disappointment when the antenna showed an infinite SWR! I was crushed. Three days of difficult work seemed lost. So, I checked everything I could then I called W8DL. Don was shocked that it did not work as my dimensions were nearly the same as his. However, his antenna played against a conventional ground radial system and I was trying the "quick and dirty" single elevated radial for my installation. He suggested either removing the RF Choke or modifying the radial system. But, I was short on time and did not feel I could get a good enough ground installed before the contest.

I then called my 160-M guru, KØCS, and he was stumped as well. However, he did comment that the dimensions I was using (straight out of the ARRL Antenna Book) seemed a bit too long for him. He suggested that I cut 30-feet off the radial and see what happened. Then, I could lower the vertical radiator and cut some off it until a match was found..

So, on Friday (the day the contest started) I braved the 30-degree temperatures and climbed down the hill with my tools. As I was going over the hill Evelyn yelled down that KØCS had called and said to try moving the antenna further away from the tower. So, I tried that and found a bit of an improvement but only a negligible amount. Then I hiked out to the end of the radial and cut off 30-feet. Back at the tower the MFJ-259 Analyzer said I had made a nice change in the resonant frequency but not enough by far. So, back through the woods to attach the roll of Dacron to the end of the vertical radiator. NOTE: Here is where I made a crucial mistake! It was cold, snowing, and windy and my brain failed to realize that when I pulled the antenna back up, the end I was tying the line to now would be up in the air. I mistakenly thought I would only need a temporary knot on the Dacron. WRONG!

Then, back to the tower and up I went. At the 60-foot level I carefully pulled in the 110-feet of the radiator tophat and, while hanging on the tower in the wind, measured and cut off 30-feet. I then carefully arraigned the wire so it would not snag and went down the tower and out through the woods. I then proceeded to pull up the antenna. When I thought I almost had it to the end, it seemed to snag and I gave a little more pressure to the Dacron line and suddenly it went slack. Yep, the "temporary" knot had untied and the end of the antenna support line was 20-feet in the air! RATS! All this work and now the antenna was at the mercy of the wind and roosting birds. The slightest thing would cause it to fall. And, I had snagged the fishing line and could not use the slingshot (if it would even work again!) Needless to say, I was bummed out!

But, I carefully wound the Dacron back on the reel and trudged dejectedly back to the tower. I put the MFJ on the antenna and VOILA! It was now resonant at 1.75 MHz. Close enough to 160-M that it just might work.

To try and salvage some of this work I climbed back up to the house and quickly installed a vacuum variable capacitor in a plastic can and took it back over the hill. Tuning the capacitor to the end stop resulted in an SWR of 1.7:1 from 1.800 to 1.820 MHz, 1.8:1 at 1.825 MHz and 2.0:1 at 1.835 MHz. Maybe, just maybe, this could work.

So, I wearily pulled my aching body back up the hill and fired up the amp. Yep, it would put out 1,000 watts up to 1.835 Mhz. with no difficulty. So, I fired up the laptop computer for logging and got ready to start the contest in just 45 minutes! That's cutting it close.

As they say, the proof is in the pudding (or the QSO's.) In my 43 years of ham radio, I had dabbled at 160-M a time or two but never had a decent antenna. My country total for that entire 43 years stood at just 20 countries confirmed (plus one deleted country, Y - German Democratic Republic.) However, this weekend, I added (30) THIRTY (30) NEW Countries and 7 NEW Zones to my totals! WOW! Am I excited now? Yep!

Here is my contest score:

Band QSOs Pts Cty ZN
1.8 71 162 38 15

Final Score: 8,586

Bear in mind I was not trying for a contest "score" but only seeing if I could work some new countries. Well, I sure did. I even stayed up that first night until 7:30 a.m. and tried for over 1/2 hour to work a JA. I heard him really quite well but he never got a peep from me. I did manage 5 continents and only missed Asia for a WAC my first night on the band from the new QTH. And, that was with no receiving antennas and not very good conditions.

New countries worked (that I had never worked before on 160-M were: CN, CM, PJ5, VE (Yep, never worked Canada before), HR, J3, KV4, EA, SV (Zone 20 !), FJ/FS, 3X, G, SM, OM, ZF, SP, OK, XE, V4, HC8, YN, GW, FM, OA, 6Y, YS, VP2M, EA6, V2, and, LX. NEW Zones were: 33, 20, 02, 35, 15, 06, and 10.

If the birds and the wind will just leave the wire alone for a few months I'll have some more fun on the band. If not, it looks like more work to get the antenna tuned better and then back up over the trees. But, at least I proved the concept.

Directions to W8TN's QTH

W8TN's QTH is located at 8007 Southridge Way in Hurricane, WV. To get there from the East, take I-64 West to the Winfield-Scott Depot-Teays Valley exit (No. 39) then turn LEFT onto Route 34-S toward Hurricane. Go about 3 miles and turn RIGHT at the traffic light onto "Cow Creek/Springdale Road."

Coming from the West take I-64 East to the Hurricane exit (No. 34) then turn RIGHT onto Hurricane Creek Road for 1/4 mile to the first light, then turn LEFT on Route 34 toward Winfield/Scott Depot, go about 2 miles, and then turn LEFT at the traffic light onto "Cow Creek/Springdale Road."

Once on Cow Creek, go 1 mile until you pass under I-64 then make the first RIGHT into Woodridge Estates. Follow the "crack" in the center of the concrete street (making no turns away from the "crack") to the 4-way stop. Turn RIGHT onto Southridge Way and W8TN's QTH will be the 4th house on the Left - 8007. Park either on the street or up at the top of the driveway.


Here are two maps. You can click on either map and it will open in another window. Then, you can see it better and print it if you like.





Finally, here is a photo of the front of the house to help you recognize it easier:





If you need any help finding the location, call 304-562-5913 for the house or 304-610-2941 for W8TN's cell phone. We will also have a radio on 146.52 MHz. for Talk-In.

Google News Feed on This Site

I just looked at my blog this morning and the first item on the Google News Feed in the sidebar was of local interest. Here is what it looked like:That's pretty interesting. I put the Newsfeed in the blog just to see if it worked and it has now proved it is useful as well.

CADWELD Ground Connections

This Blog has already turned out to be useful. After reading my Post below on the Ground Rod Tool, K4OM advised that the method of attaching the 2-inch copper strap to the ground rod by a hose clamp is not a good thing to do. Pete said that all mechanical connections loosen over time and the actual path to ground is from several to many ohms. Pete recommended CADWELD One-Shot connections. This is an exothermic welding process that leaves the connection current carrying (fusing) capacity equal to that of the conductor itself. So, I'm on the search now to determine which CADWELD product is the one I should use. I'll post my results here later.

Ground Rod Tool

Got an email Friday night from my good friend Rick, W8ZT. A couple of weeks ago I had asked him for his advice regarding a tool to help with the installation of ground rods which I had read about in QST. Rick jumped right on the project and his email to me tonight told me he had completed the fabrication of the tool. I'll pick it up this weekend and post a photo of it here. But, first, here is a photo of Rick in case you don't know who he is:I plan to put in three 8' rods around my new tower and join them with 2" copper strap. I think if I wrap the strap about 3/4 of the way around the rod and put a couple of slits in the strap, then I can tighten the strap to the rod with a hose clamp. Then, I'll put a ground rod clamp above that and run a No.4 wire to each tower leg. That should provide a pretty descent ground for the new tower.
Of course, if anyone locally wants to borrow this tool, just ask.