This has sat here a while and risks getting out of date. Will briefly titivate and send. This started off as a quick response to one suggestion but has grown into a general comment on a subset of suggestions so far. Most suggestions so far have been variants on my original list of known possibles BUT the details, experiences and general comments have certainly been useful and welcome. Keep them coming .... Modified requirement: (see original post for fuller description). : Note - this is for te\\short term temporary supports for prototype systems. Some ideas may spawn solutions for more "real" systems but for now "Heath Robinson Rules" are acceptable. Summary: Creative ideas wanted for cheap, quick, robustish [choose any 3] in/on ground mounts for "very tall fenceposts". I wish to build a number o= f short term "towers", 2 to 3 metres high. Robust enough that a strong man couldn't easily push one over. I'm looking for "lightbulb" ideas for anchoring these in unprepared ground (dirt) with minimum effort and cost, good rigidity and ideally ease of removal. Use is for temporary mounting of prototype wind-turbines with up to about 1 square meter area and survival i= n moderate winds only required. Low footprint and site impact is useful (eg can be installed in Petunia patch and removed with minimal damage). __________ > Guy wires A recurrent theme :-). I mentioned guy wires in my original list of commonsense/everyday solutions= , and they certainly have some advantages - notably of reducing the required force in a force x distance moment arm. I've had about 15 replies and about 1/3 of them mentioned guy wires as the or part of a solution. Certainly worth using in some cases. Ideas welcome for cheap guy anchors that can be inserted and removed with ease. Cost asymptoting to zero in modest volume always welcome. Various screw and stamp in anchors exist. Some quite real galvanised ones available but unit cost such that they would not tend to be stocked liberally. "Warratahs" - solid metal 3 blade fence posts made to be rammed into the ground and with total lengths of up to several metres, are available locall= y at OKish prices even new. I may be able to find a pile of these second hand or old and rusty for eve= n less and, for my purposes, condition is not too important. Cutting these into shorter lengths would provide enough retention force for guy anchors - he softer the soil the longer the segment needed. These are removable with a lever type puller with an N:1 mechanical advantage. N should be large in good soil. One could make a hydraulic jack extractor but time taken would b= e annoying. Use of car springs mentioned in just prior email. These could be used for guy or prop anchors or, as I see done with a spiral anchor by one company , with a platform fixed to the top end that is screwe= d down against the ground and with brackets for a post fixed directly to the platform. probably not enough moment resistance as described but a minor mo= d may help. A single central spiral anchor that provides vertical resistant force combined with a smallish radial platform at ground level that provided resistance against overturning moment might work together quite effectively. Noting that this is for experimental & temporary structures, and that the actual WT devices may have very low capital cost and, depending what happens, maybe even have extraordinarily low labour content, the ideal (ignoring "what's practical") would be a single post that is easily inserted, easily removed, "stiff enough" and ideally low cost OR a ground sitting braced structure that wasn't too out of place in many locations. Approximjately zero cost wouldn't hurt. There are various portable basketball hoop supports around that can be water or sand filled. Water filling makes relocation easier than sand in this application at the cost of less stability. There are quite a few on Trademe, (NZ auction site) with condition and prices very variable (and not tightly correlated). Footprint is not good for flower garden type use but OK for concrete or lawn. Punchbag support using the same method have been suggested. Gus suggested multiple 20 litre water or soil filled containers (say 4 in a quad), and that is probably a very suitable solution in many cases. Even tight clusted 4 such would provide a reasonable moment arm and with some spacing at the end of "feet" this can be arbitrarily large. I have a proof of concept rubbish-rescued deck umbrella support that uses a tube-and-pressed-metal four limb foot base with "quite long" feet that seems OKish. I have a bucket (literally) WT on about a 3 metre pole on a circular shop display large circular "foot". Stability in high winds will have "negative margin". I have a cheap plastic circular outdoor table which has 4 legs joining to a cross structure foot underneath an umbrella support hole in the middle wit= h a reinforced guide tube running from table top to a hole in the middle of the cross structure. The umbrella hole and guide tube is a good fit for a 500 PVC pipe (sections of which trickle in from various sources) and stability with the bucket WT was fine. Turning this upside w\down and weighting the table top would provide more support than the plastic strengt= h would allow, the main drawback probably being the large footprint. A bit gross visually but useful for experiment. If the car spring spiral anchor can be made to work well it may be an ideal quick cheap temporary support system component - either for a single foot system or for a 3 guy system - far more "normal" but less minimalist and higher visual impact. Keep em coming ... Russell --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .