WCFJ Transmitter
Site
Chicago, IL
November, 1999
We performed the plowing at this site
for station engineer Mike McCarthy. Mike's crew completed the brazing
and actual site construction. This site is an 8 tower directional
rebuilt by MRE (Mike's business). Previous owners had allowed the
site to deteriorate to the point that Mike had to literally demolish all
of the old towers and buildings and start over. New Pirod towers
were installed and connected to Kintronics built phasing equipment.
AGS built the ground system using over 100,000 feet of wire.
If this picture makes you think that the day was miserable
and cold... It is accurate.
This image is looking basically west from a tower on the eastern edge
of the property. The section of radials that we were plowing here
ended at the
trench visible just in front of the tractor. Radials from a tower
to the right of the picture intersect at the trench.
The extra reels of wire tied across the back of the plow had to
be added due the the extreme hardness of the ground. The site had
been
graded and cut down into gray clay that was just short of limestone.
We had to locate a special vibrating plow to break through the soil
on one tower.
A large amount of site work had not been completed when we arrived
(as scheduled) to
start plowing. We suffered numerous delays and wasted a lot of time
working around tower crews, excavators and open ditches. Here is
an open wiring vault that I had just finished back filling around.
Back filling trenches left by other contractors.
Moving concrete vault extensions left by other contractors.
Moving a pile of dirt left by...
Finally back to plowing.
Me getting ready to start another days work... putting the headset and
radio on.
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