My creative installation of the ROHN BX-64 at my home QTH.

I received this tower from a friend, K6SWS, it was used at our NC Airport location for LMR use and taken down in the mid-to-late 90's.

There was little corrosion, it came with a triangular bracket consisting of a pulley.

I had many odd n' ends, but no complete base hardware.  I went ahead and ordered the Hinged Concrete Base (BX HC). 

After reading the installation blueprint from Rohn, I figured I should just do the normal method.

However, considering after digging a hole with my back hoe that was too big for 5 yard pour, having to deal with rebar, and the forming etc... 

I decided to be alternative and called my well drilling friend and asked him about my dilemma.  He said we have some extra drill rods that are 4" dia. and 20' long!  He said he could put them in for me for $600.

I figured the gain a great ground system with 60' worth 4" steel in the ground would be a good thing.

The picture to the left here shows the more than adequate strength of these drill rods that are made with mild steel.

The drill rig made three 8" holes in a triangular pattern and set the rods for me.  I then poured concrete straight from the bag with a hose running down the hole (I wish I added some salt for better ground conductivity) and randomly placed the rods.  I should have had a little more forethought and struck the tower section into the rods, but I was thinking of using steel plate welded across the rods.  Well, I got cheap again.

As you can see from the picture on the right, the rods need to be cut flush/level with each other, I made a video of my friend Chris cutting the tallest one you see in the picture.

The one already cut in the picture was done cleanly with a cutting wheel.

Here was after the torch:

Like I said, I was going to use a plate, but that was going to be expensive to get a 3'x3' 1/2" or so thick.

Instead,  I just stuck the thing there and said good enough:

Remember I mentioned not aligning the rods, well,  I don't know if you can tell, they do squat out, and so much I can't get the rods any father down!

I figured I would just make some bracing if I have too, I need a grounding buss.  So I welded a ground rod around in a triangular circumference.

I hooked my off-grid power system with a couple of ground rods on the property to the tower rod ground buss not shown in the picture and there was a BIG difference in potential! I was getting bit from the existing ground system! so, yes, awesome ground.

So does the thing stand? Well, here is a picture >

I climbed up it with my 220.lbs of Hamness... and found that when I shook it back back and forth the hardest I dared, the base did not move and would be more force than any big antenna.  So it works, but for how long?

I mounted at the top the provided triangular pulley frame with Andrew clamp sets that can hold multiple mast's.

After a full year of doing nothing with the tower at all really, I had a company called Digitalpath out of Chico, CA install their own repeater Access Point which runs 5 GHz.  They put 8 antennas I count, three sectors pointing SWest, West, and NWest.

The parabolic is on 10 GHz I "think" pointed at Oregon Peak near Dobbins, CA.

They used some serious stainless steel guy wires, looks like 3/8" or so, however, I let them Mickey mouse them with eyelet lag bolts to trees and my shed.

There isn't much tension on them.

That's it,  any questions, feel free to email me.

My callsign at Yahoo.com