I am so confused about how to properly ground a system. I will have a
two meter and a 440 on the roof of my house. I will run the coax down
to my sofit vents or whatever they are called and run the coax inside
the vents to my shack. Behind the wall where my rquipment will be is a
storage space that I can acess. (This is a finished attic). I will be
using a mobile radio that has two antenna outputs, one for 2 meter and
one for 440.

How do I ground the radio and does it need it? Should the coax itself
be grounded and how? Do I have to purchase one of those surge things
that screws into the coax?

Any advice is appreciated!

my dads a ham
he grounds coax to a separate grounding rod (copper water pipe he jetted
down - 10' I think) which is tied with a #6 or maybe even a 4 to the tower
and loops to the same water pipe ground the elect service is grounded to.
Seems he can't get enough ground But we do have lots of lightning here
on the gulf coast of Florida that still blows up things.


wrote in message
oups.com...
I am so confused about how to properly ground a system. I will have a
two meter and a 440 on the roof of my house. I will run the coax down
to my sofit vents or whatever they are called and run the coax inside
the vents to my shack. Behind the wall where my rquipment will be is a
storage space that I can acess. (This is a finished attic). I will be
using a mobile radio that has two antenna outputs, one for 2 meter and
one for 440.

How do I ground the radio and does it need it? Should the coax itself
be grounded and how? Do I have to purchase one of those surge things
that screws into the coax?

Any advice is appreciated!

wrote:
I am so confused about how to properly ground a system.

Good on you for at least knowing you should ground it. There are countless
resources on the web with this info, a simple one is
http://www.wshu.org/engineer/lightning2.asp

Google it.

Check out the rfi and towertalk mailing lists at www.contesting.com.
Wiring and grounding of stations are frequent topics of discussion, and
the archives should be searchable even without registration.

Perce


On 01/25/05 08:31 am tossed the following
ingredients into the ever-growing pot of cybersoup:

I am so confused about how to properly ground a system. I will have a
two meter and a 440 on the roof of my house. I will run the coax down
to my sofit vents or whatever they are called and run the coax inside
the vents to my shack. Behind the wall where my rquipment will be is a
storage space that I can acess. (This is a finished attic). I will be
using a mobile radio that has two antenna outputs, one for 2 meter and
one for 440.

How do I ground the radio and does it need it? Should the coax itself
be grounded and how? Do I have to purchase one of those surge things
that screws into the coax?

Any advice is appreciated!

On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 15:07:49 GMT, "bumtracks"
wrote:

my dads a ham
he grounds coax to a separate grounding rod (copper water pipe he jetted
down - 10' I think) which is tied with a #6 or maybe even a 4 to the tower
and loops to the same water pipe ground the elect service is grounded to.
Seems he can't get enough ground But we do have lots of lightning here
on the gulf coast of Florida that still blows up things.

Not flaming, just notice how when someone grounds a metal object for
lightning, they use wire like 6 awg, or 4 awg. But when someone
grounds lighting rods, they used monster cables.
http://www.chopurl.com?552 Does this mean even the 4 awg is too
small?

later,

tom




wrote in message
roups.com...
I am so confused about how to properly ground a system. I will have a
two meter and a 440 on the roof of my house. I will run the coax down
to my sofit vents or whatever they are called and run the coax inside
the vents to my shack. Behind the wall where my rquipment will be is a
storage space that I can acess. (This is a finished attic). I will be
using a mobile radio that has two antenna outputs, one for 2 meter and
one for 440.

How do I ground the radio and does it need it? Should the coax itself
be grounded and how? Do I have to purchase one of those surge things
that screws into the coax?

Any advice is appreciated!

Ground the coax before it comes into your house.

Also run a ground wire from the mast directly down to ground and put a
ground rod there.

Also run a wire from the ground rod to the ground of your electrical
panel.

The lightning WILL get to ground, one way or another. The idea is to
give it another path that does not involve your house or radios.
Also ask on rec.radio.amateur.antenna


73's
Mark

wrote:
I am so confused about how to properly ground a system. I will have a
two meter and a 440 on the roof of my house. I will run the coax down
to my sofit vents or whatever they are called and run the coax inside
the vents to my shack. Behind the wall where my rquipment will be is a
storage space that I can acess. (This is a finished attic). I will be
using a mobile radio that has two antenna outputs, one for 2 meter and
one for 440.

How do I ground the radio and does it need it? Should the coax itself
be grounded and how? Do I have to purchase one of those surge things
that screws into the coax?

Any advice is appreciated!

An amateur radio operator who's a bit confused over grounding antennas?

Are you sure you're not operating on the 11-meter band?

Additional information for this and other similar posts.

Application note demonstrates the concept:

http://www.erico.com/public/library/...es/tncr002.pdf
Examples of how earthing is installed or enhanced:
http://www.psihq.com/iread/strpgrnd.htm
http://www.cinergy.com/surge/ttip08.htm
http://scott-inc.com/html/ufer.htm
Failure to install single point grounding can cause damage:
http://www.epri-peac.com/tutorials/sol01tut.html
Above is earthing for secondary protection. This is
inspection for the primary protection:
http://www.tvtower.com/fpl.html

One discussion in a ham radio group:

http://lists.contesting.com/_towerta...il/004413.html
The basic scenario is to install a Single Point Ground System
that is installed at the building entry. It shunts everything
to ground before it goes in the building. If you can keep it
outside, then you don't really have to do much inside. IMO
disconnecting the cables is more psychological than preventive.

Another's experience:
http://www.harvardrepeater.org/news/lightning.html
Well I assert, from personal and broadcast experience spanning
30 years, that you can design a system that will handle
*direct lightning strikes* on a routine basis. It takes
some planning and careful layout, but it's not hard, nor is
it overly expensive. At WXIA-TV, my other job, we take direct
lightning strikes nearly every time there's a thunderstorm.
Our downtime from such strikes is almost non-existant. The
last time we went down from a strike, it was due to a strike
on the power company's lines knocking *them* out, ...
Since my disasterous strike, I've been campaigning vigorously
to educate amateurs that you *can* avoid damage from direct
strikes. The belief that there's no protection from direct
strike damage is *myth*. ...
The keys to effective lightning protection are surprisingly
simple, and surprisingly less than obvious. Of course you
*must* have a single point ground system that eliminates all
ground loops. And you must present a low *impedance* path for
the energy to go. That's most generally a low *inductance*
path rather than just a low ohm DC path.

Lastly, what many consider a benchmark in the art of earthing:
http://www.polyphaser.com/ppc_technical.asp
http://www.polyphaser.com/ppc_pen_home.asp

Sam O'Nella wrote:
wrote:
I am so confused about how to properly ground a system.

Good on you for at least knowing you should ground it. There
are countless resources on the web with this info, a simple
one is
http://www.wshu.org/engineer/lightning2.asp

Google it.

"JerryMouse" wrote in message
...
wrote:
I am so confused about how to properly ground a system. I will have a
two meter and a 440 on the roof of my house. I will run the coax down
to my sofit vents or whatever they are called and run the coax inside
the vents to my shack. Behind the wall where my rquipment will be is a
storage space that I can acess. (This is a finished attic). I will be
using a mobile radio that has two antenna outputs, one for 2 meter and
one for 440.

How do I ground the radio and does it need it? Should the coax itself
be grounded and how? Do I have to purchase one of those surge things
that screws into the coax?

Any advice is appreciated!

An amateur radio operator who's a bit confused over grounding antennas?

Are you sure you're not operating on the 11-meter band?

Get off your high horse.

There are a lot of newly licensed radio amateurs (hams) that could use this
advise.
Not everyone is born an expert.

Doug
(Amateur Radio op for 30 years)

On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 22:50:56 -0600, "JerryMouse"
wrote:

wrote:
I am so confused about how to properly ground a system. I will have a
two meter and a 440 on the roof of my house. I will run the coax down
to my sofit vents or whatever they are called and run the coax inside
the vents to my shack. Behind the wall where my rquipment will be is a
storage space that I can acess. (This is a finished attic). I will be
using a mobile radio that has two antenna outputs, one for 2 meter and
one for 440.

How do I ground the radio and does it need it? Should the coax itself
be grounded and how? Do I have to purchase one of those surge things
that screws into the coax?

Any advice is appreciated!

An amateur radio operator who's a bit confused over grounding antennas?

Are you sure you're not operating on the 11-meter band?

In "The Doctor" printed in the March 2005 QST, even the ARRL got it
WRONG by saying not to bond to the electrical service. That is in
violation of NEC, and is very wrong. Sorry, but most hams are
clueless when it comes to grounding. I sure was at first, but after
many years of working on tall towers in the communications and
broadcasting industries I've learned a lot about proper grounding.

Ground the coax shield before it enters the house. Use as large a
wire as is practical. No smaller than #6, I try to use at least #2,
or 3" copper strap when I can. Make sure ALL grounds are bonded, Ham
antenna, TV antenna, Cable TV, Power, Telephone, etc. Extra ground
rods are a good idea, as long as they are all bonded together and to
all the utilities listed above. Space them 16' apart if possible, if
you put them to close together it limits the effectiveness during a
lightning strike. Spacing them farther than 16' is not really
necessary.

Visit www.polyphaser.com for lots of good info on Grounding.