Next Tri-City Amateur Radio Club meeting
7:00pm Monday, July 7, 2025
Confluent Makerspace
285 Williams Blvd
Richland, WA





One of three rebar cages for guy stations. Each guy station consists of a reinforced block of concrete 6ft x 4ft x 2ft high buried 4 ft below grade. That long 3/4 in rod is what the guy lines are tied to, and is buried in the concrete block. Each rod will sustain at least 8000 lbs of pull, which is about 4X overkill, since the worst case forces with an 88 mph wind is calculated to be 1000 lbs. Building code in Benton Co. requires survival of 88 mph winds.
Benton County exemption from Benton County Code (BCC) 11.65 Communications Facilities that is really aimed at commercial installations such as TV/Radio stations or cell towers. However, this exemption did not remove the requirement for a building permit, structural analysis and original drawings with original (not copy) signature/stamp of Wash. State licensed Professional Engineer. Tower manufacturer's analysis and drawings were not acceptable (not original or Wash. licensed).
Also, county building dept. wanted to impose most of the requirements of BCC 11.65 anyway "for your and neighbor's protection". We battled several issues.
The engineered specs call for #7 rebar (7/8"). Are we holding up a 2000 ft TV station antenna?
Tower base hole as specificed will be 4ft x 4ft x 5ft deep. 1st 6 inches is gravel and sand for moisture drainage, followed by 4 cement blocks that hold the bottom rebar grid up into the poured concrete. Tower base legs stick down into the gravel/sand (below the concrete so as to drain any water that may form in the tower legs. Another rebar grid will be embedded in the poured concrete 42 inches above the bottom grid seen in the picture.
Linda WB7CNV cut about 450 tie wires for the tower base and 3 guy station rebar cages.
Diagonal rebar wires are used to keep the grid square.
Rebar grid construction for tower base.
Prior to tower project, 44 ft fiberglass poles hold up a G5RV non-resonant dipole at the WB7CNV/WA7DUH residence.