Yeah grounding is the least favorite subject of mine because it is like discussing politics at a family gathering...LOL I think my solution is a great option and it works for me to this day. I really appreciate the sub!!! Thanks for the comment an for watching. 73!!!
Thank You Thank You. New Ham has been agonizing how to ground the shack perfectly. This is the most common talk on this subject I've seen. Just unplug the damn thing!
I highly recommend the book "Grounding and Bonding" available from ARRL. It will debunk things some hard core types believe, and ALSO debunk some of the erroneous information & logic presented here. Much of the info here is right on, but much of it isn't. Your set up is fine, except that you really should be using larger gauge wire. You are correct about wrapping wire around the house just to get to your service entrance ground. Would it be advisable to connect to the service entrance ground? Yes, but to do that properly, would entail pounding more 8-foot rods into the ground, spaced six feet apart, along the route around the house corner to the service entrance. Adding one or two segments a weekend would make that a tolerable task. But all I'd do for sure if I were you, would be to get some large gauge copper wire, and weld it to the ground rod. A problem with having separate grounds is that a significant potential difference (significant voltage) can develop between the two grounding rods, that can be dangerous to people standing in the gap between the two points. I wouldn't expect that to be problem in your situation. The goal is to shunt electrical surge - whether induced by a nearby hit, or a direct hit - to ground rather than it going through your equipment to get to ground. You need large gauge ground cable, not a wire that will melt in a nanosecond. And down the road you should install a polyphaser type shunt device on your coax line, attached to/grounded at the ground rod. Disconnecting the coax and unplugging the power supply is a good practice but it will not provide you with reliable protection. That's due to (1) any circumstance that prevents you from disconnecting/unplugging; (2) the fact that lightning will arc to a route to ground if it's a better route to ground. There have been many instances of arcs from disconnected coax in the shack, to ground paths. I was in a house in 1982 that on a bright sunny nearly cloudless day, was hit by ball lightning!. I had my hand and a screwdriver inside my Hallicrafters FPM-300 and it was plugged into a 2-wire circuit. A lamp was plugged into a 3 wire outlet. When the ball lightning hit, there was a big flash in my shack and the paint inside the lamp lightbulb had burned away, as did the filament. The light bulb acted like a lightning arrestor. The radio suffered only a popped diode. It sounded like a basketball rolling down the roof, as the ball lightning did so, falling to the ground and "splintering" into numerous "bolts" of lightning that shot away from the point where it landed. A strong odor of ozone abounded. My neighbor on the ground floor was washing dishes in a metal sink, standing at a window directly facing where the ball fell to the ground about 2 feet away. I got lucky, thanks to the energy taking its easiest path to ground. I've a good friend who has a 60' tower in his yard with a KT-34 HF triband yagi. He did proper earth grounding. Also, the yagi spreads out the charge that can develop, lessening the chance of being stuck. Anyway, a neighbor was always griping that one day lightning would hit that tower. My buddy explained about Earth grounding and the large horizontal surface area of the yagi providing protection, like a lightning rod. One day the neighbor overheard my pal working DX, and after burying the hatchet with my friend, got a shortwave receiver and put a dipole about 30' up, running between two trees. One day a big Thunder Boomer came through, and a bolt of lightning struck the neighbor's dipole. It blew out plumbing connections and fried every AC circuit and attached appliance. He couldn't understand why his dipole at 30 feet got hit, whereas my friend's 60' tower about 40 feet away, did not. My friend asked him, "Remember what I told you about grounds?" The neighbor recalled my friend's advice at that point. So, while it's not worth getting paranoid about for a casual operator, nonetheless it's clearly very foolish to have a crappy or absent station ground. Get that book! 73 de K7IWW
I am new to ham radio and your videos have helped me a lot. I just watched both of your videos on grounding. I just wanted to tell you something that happened to my sister-in-law some time ago. We live in south Florida. The soil here is mostly a form of sand. Lighting hit a tree outside her house. This caused two tv’s and a couple of other appliances to be damaged due to the lightning surge. It was determined that lightning entered the house through the ground rod. As you said, just disconnect your antenna and power for the best protection.
EXACTLY!!!! No matter how much grounding...if you have a direct strike, nothing is safe. Best of luck on studying and passing your exams and becoming a licensed ham! Let me know if I can help anytime! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Considering a lightning strike contains millions of volts and amps and has discharged over a distance of several miles, there is nothing that will protect your electronic equipment from that electromagnetic pulse. A fellow RUclipsr who produces and markets a well known series of HF wire antennas suffered a direct strike on an antenna in his home. There was not only gear that was still connected that was damaged BUT equipment that was put away in their factory boxes sitting on shelves in his radio room that were also damaged beyond repair from the pulse. Living in Central Ohio in the late 60’s we suffered a strike on a 200 foot tower in our back yard. The weather had cleared and this was a stroke out of the blue. This is quite common and why one should avoid going out into their yards at least for 45 minutes after the storm passes. Damages acquired by the strike are as follows, base station of a vhf business system was destroyed, less than four months old. The well pump ( which was a 200 foot deep well adjacent to where the tower was situated) and it’s controller destroyed ( blew the control box off of the wall). The anti collision lights were literally vaporized leaving only the brass bases in the lamp sockets (joys of living within five miles of an airport). A bunch of light bulbs that were not on burned, a clock radio toasted, and a SWL antenna with band traps was also destroyed, it was strung up between the tower and the gutter on the opposite end of the house, traps housings were blown off of the traps with coils and caps vaporized. The most expensive items to replace were the GE TPL base station which was practically new, and the well pump and controller. The primary item that needed repair were the collision avoidance lights on the tower. Ten dollars in "special tower lamps" and about $250 for the tower work to climb and replace lamps.
Lightning struck a tree about 35' from where my 'shack' is. It never hit any power lines, but the pulse (EMP) took out nine electronic devices along the back side of our house: TV, DVD player, HVAC thermostat, two weather radios, CO detector, hot tub control board, digital watch, and a satellite TV component. Yep, lightning will do what it will. I disconnect.
From what I understand, the more grounding you have helps keep the lightening from hitting your home. I was at a seminar on grounding and learned that initially lightening will go from the ground up to the sky in a tiny arc, then the major bolt will then come to earth. This is why you have rods extending from towers to lower the static build up. It's an interesting subject. My house has exterior lights and one hit back fed into my house and blew 4 duplexes out of the wall. It sounded like a bomb going off inside.
I do the same thing, Scott. Every time I'm done "playing radio", as you call it, I disconnect/unplug EVERYTHING. I'm not made of money and I invested a good chunk of change into this hobby. My memory isn't what it used to be, I'm 67, so I just made it a habit to protect my equipment as best I can. Keep up the good work, and good luck with everything.
Thank you do much! I agree the fear of losing out on the money you invested in radios and accessories is a major factor. Not like the price of radios is coming down any time soon and I don't know about you, but the money tree in my back yard isn't producing much these days...LOL. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
Thanks Scott. After several years of overthinking the problem I have finally installed my ground, and it is a lot like yours. I live in a land (Japan) where the norm is for houses to have 100V 60 Amp service entrances and two-pronged outlets. You can buy three-ponged outlets and electricians will install them but that's considered unusual for houses as grounded outlets are generally only used in commercial buildings here. When I had my house built two years ago I deliberately paid extra to have a few three pronged outlets installed in two rooms, the first floor motorcycle garage (my wood shop) and the 2nd floor bedroom that was to become my shack. The house ground, however, is under the wood shop on the far opposite corner of the house, waaaaay too far away from my shack for me to connect a bonding wire to it. After much hemming and hawing I decided to install a separate ground directly under my 2nd floor shack window. For that I first installed a window pass-through with a copper buss-bar mounted on the inner side of it and from there a 20 ft length of 1 inch copper braid goes out my window in some flexible PVC conduit to the ground below. The conduit is tie-wrapped a few inches away to the PVC down-spout for my 2nd floor rain gutter system. The braid then goes into a small PVC electrical box where I have installed two lightning arrestors. A few inches from the box is my first ground rod, a 5 ft long one (the longest I could find). It attaches to another 4 foot rod about 5 feet away via #6 stranded bare copper wire, and from there it goes to a third 5 foot rod about ten feet from the second rod. At that point I had about a foot of wire left so I terminated it at one of the support bolts for my metal garden shed. At this point I effectively had two grounds, a house ground and an RF ground for my shack. To bond them together I attached a short two foot length of 1/2" copper braid from the copper buss-bar to a three-pronged duplex outlet I installed directly underneath my window pass-through. That outlet has a separate ground lug that's normally tied to a heat-pump air-conditioner or other heavy appliance ground in Japanese houses. In my case it will serve as a tie-point for the bonding wire effectively tying my house and new "RF" grounds together. I should point out that the two grounds are already bonded together through the DC power supply feeding my IC-7300 as it has a three-pronged power cord and its DC ground is tied to its AC ground. However, the copper buss bar provides a nice way to tie all of my gear to a separate star-ground that I wouldn't have if I relied solely on the house ground. Also, this whole exercise was prompted by my very close-by neighbors all having large solar arrays on their roofs. I'm practically swimming in QRM from them and all the LED lighting fixtures in the neighborhood. Two separate grounds bonded together is the best I can do to keep all that QRM at a manageable level. So far it appears to be working, though I have only just installed the system and have not extensively tested it yet.
Thank you so much for sharing your situation! It seems like you found a good and viable solution that works for you. Don't even get me started about solar panels!! I have the same issue with a neighbor 8 houses down and they are emitting a ton of RFI that gives me a 9+ noise floor all day long. About all I can do around here is FT8 and occasionally hear a few strong signals on 20M. If I can get the neighbors to cooperate and resolve their RFI issues, I can then move on to the next source which is most likely going to be bad transformers in the neighborhood. It gets daunting, but if I ever want to enjoy radio without having to drive 35 miles away from civilization, this is my only option. Anyway, glad you have part of your issues resolved. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
@@HR4NT I have solar on my own roof and my panels are quiet compared to atmospheric noise. Apparently the people at Enphase are pretty good at building quiet arrays. I say this because my noise floor on the higher bands is nearly the same at night as during the day. Also I am revisiting my grounding of my rigs to go outside to the ground rod that the antennas are already connected to through a copper plate with bulkhead connectors that lead to the jumpers that go into the shack via 10 foot jumpers. I plan on a copper buss bar then copper braid out side to the ground. I know it isn't NEC standard, but I am in an area were lightening is very infrequent and if TSs threaten then I just unplug the gear. I also have chokes and ferrite beads everywhere on every cord in the immediate area of the rigs. I like my 240-31 toroids!
Very well said and yes, I too unplug everything. I've also learned that if all your gear is grounded and if lightning strikes near by, that electrical power from that strike may or can just travel in the ground " soil " and to your ground rod of your shack and back in to your equiptment even if all your coax is unplugged. Thank you and all the best sir.
I am one of the people who had “paralysis by analysis “ about the grounding situation for the past few years. It has kept me off the air for all that time, and I’m ready to get on after I pass my general next month. It is simply ASTOUNDING, the amount of poor/bad/misinformation on grounding, even from places like the ARRL that should know better. Gotta punch a hole through a concrete wall and put up an end fed half wave that was given to me, and me and (also gifted) 30 year old ICOM 737 are getting on the air! I at least want to try the old girl before springing for the 7300 right away…. I found your channel yesterday and am really enjoying it. Plan to check out your website too. Keep up the good work!
That is fantastic! Glad you are getting back up and running after a while. I agree the topic of grounding you would think would be a simple issue to explain and follow a plan, but it is so dependent upon each individuals situation that it can drive you a bit mad trying to figure it all out. I think the solution I came up with here is simple, it will work for ANYONE and it protects your gear every time. I am glad to have you aboard the channel. I hope you find more videos here that are useful or at least entertaining. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
The ARRL has no liability to you for misinformation or disinformation or just "advice." They are not a licensed electrician, professional engineer, licensed home improvement contractor, etc.
Actually, I found out the hard way that connecting your radio to a ground rod does not protect it from a lightning strike. I had my radio shack grounded and a storm was approaching so I unplugged everything and even turned off the breaker to the radio shack incase I missed unplugging a lamp or something. Lightning struck a tree in my yard and traveled down into the wet ground and up through my ground rod about 20 feet away from the tree and into my radio to blow it out and start a fire. Luckily the fire was able to be brought under control quickly so we did not lose the whole house, but the entire shack burned.
WOW! That sucks! I think the solution I came up with is a solid one and my gear is protected 100% of the time. I hope you were able to recover what you lost! Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Great vid with a great point. I'm with you - I unplug my gear when a storm approaches. And my antennas are in the attic. No station ground needed. Good to see you back in action!
Wow, thanks man, I am a brand new ham. Just got my tech this past Saturday. I had all kinds of concerns about grounding before setting up my shack. Between your video and the doc you shared I get it now. Keep up the great work. I am so new I don't know what I don't know.
First CONGRATULATIONS are in order for passing your exam!!! OUTSTANDING!!! As for your current knowledge level, research and ask questions. You are on the right track to becoming a fantastic radio operator! Again, congrats!!!! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Great to see you back on RUclips Scott!!! Fantastic Video!!!! I’ve had the same option on grounding & bonding. Lots of hassle for no benefit. We had a ham in our club where he got 2 direct strikes to his home. 1 to his antenna & 1 to main power line. Everything plugged in was fried! He lost around $60,000+ worth of gear. Grounding didn’t save anything! Keep up the great work!!!
Great to be back! I am glad you enjoyed the video. I think my solution makes the most sense as long as I stay on top of unplugging everything as described. That is a real bummer to lose that much gear! WOW! Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
You're a life saver!. I'm coming back to scanner-bank monitoring after a 23 year hiatus. Got my analog scanners; got my antennas assembled; got my (your) window pass materials; got antenna masts (wall mount brackets coming); got highest quality low loss coax and connectors at Ham Radio Outlet nearby. I'm external picking up where I left off mounting 2 UHF band antennas (to start) just like 23 years ago, ready for external mounting when EVERYTHING COMES TO A SCREECHING HALT OVER ...grounding. The house is circa 1952; my radio antennas appear to require nothing more than previous split-bolt/grounding clamp connections (telephone, old cable TV, two (2) old satellite dishes) to the electric panel ground wire going to the supply water pipe just like back in the 90's. In the 90's I didn't ground my coax...wasn't recommended by instructions then. Got the AARL book and everyone telling me I gotta do this copper treatise "cause the book says so". IMHO residential ground rod this-n-that came about as new housing migrated from metal supply pipe to plastic/PVC...so a replacement Earth connection was required...the ground rod. Same boat as you...shack coax grounding would require a wire around the house doorways, under sidewalks, (OH NO!!!) can't go through the UN-finished basement despite satellite and everyone else of the utilities doing just the same. You saved me HUGE heartache so I can easily and finally get back to scanner radio in the few years I have left.
Hey I am glad to hear it and glad that I was able to shine a bit of common sense light on a topic that enrages a lot of hams...applying the K.I.S.S. method sometimes is just the best way to operate AND this technique will 100% ensure that your gear is protected at ALL times. I was running myself ragged trying to figure out how to ground and follow the "rules". Turns out that this is a lot simpler and resolves most of my issues. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Thank you for such a great video! I am new to this hobby and still have mountains to learn, so this information is very helpful. If I had to ground to my fuse box ground, then it would have to be like yours, mighrt have been, around, over and through, etc. So I have been reading as much as I can about how to handle this. Your idea is very much in keeping with what I have read. A direct or close strike will fry everything that is plugged in, no matter the ground situation, or so I have read. The articles I have read say as you do... UNPLUG!!!. I used to live in Florida, had a direct lightning strike on an oak tree in the back yard. Bark was stripped off the tree and the neighbor behind me lost everything eclectrical that was plugged in. I was born in Fl, so everything I had was, yep, unplugged. Tks again!!!
The topic of grounding in ham radio is almost as bad as talking politics at a family gathering! I decided to use a little common sense and keep it simple. Unplugging checks EVERY box in safety and protection of my investment. I am glad others are seeing the same thing. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Glad it was helpful! Grounding seems to be one of those topics that causes fights and thousands of opinions on the best way to do it. I think this solves that argument for 80% of the operators out there. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
I think your ground philosophy and method is perfectly acceptable and you’re doing the right thing by unplugging everything when storms are coming. I’m in Florida-in the summer months we often have late afternoon “pop up storms”, so my rig stays unplugged until I use it anyway - during these months. Good to see you up and walking around-hope your recovery is going well-KO4VBL
Thank You very much for such a great video on gounding your rig and shack Scott. I learned a lot. Also thank you for standing up to all those Mister Know-It-All's and putting in your own two cents pertaining to grounding. I agree with you and what you said. Yes, in many ways they are sort of right, and yes they mean well, but as you said, they go way overboard and get too carried away with the grounding process. No amount of grounding and lightning protection is going to protect against and thwart a direct lightning strike. I also remember back when I was a Pershing missile system technician, repairman and missile launch computer operator in the military and we were sent TDY from Ft. Sill, Oklahoma down to Orlando, Florida for six months to help the Martin Maretta Corporation develop and field test the new Pershing II Nuclear missile system. On the first day of training and work we were sitting in the orientation class during the usual afternoon summertime thunderstorm getting ready to go out to the equipment after the downpour of rain let up and the corporate safety director came into the classroom and told us that he was sending us back to the apartment complex as there would be no work for that day as a bolt of lighting had just taken out the brand new forty-four thousand dollar lightning protection system they had just had professionally installed by professionals the week before. It was 4 days before they got it repaired enough for us to go back to work and training.
Thank you so much for sharing that story! That was very interesting. Sometimes you just have to fall back on common sense and take the best course of action that will serve your needs. My solutions in this video has served me very well since I published it. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
I greatly appreciate this discussion because the grounding issue has held up completion of my radio installation, worrying about doing grounding the correct way and so on.
I would again recommend doing what is best for you and your situation, but don't let it drive you nuts. Ham radio is about playing radio not fussing with ground wires and other stuff...LOL Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Thank you for the update. Living in a 1940’s home in Portland, OR, the only ground I found on the house is tied from the panel to a cold water pipe. I have since added two grounds to be safe, one at the panel and another on the opposite side of the house at the AC unit. It may be overkill, but with all the unusual and unsafe work I’ve found, I feel better. As you have mentioned, I just unplug everything when not in use anyway. Thank you for the update.
I have to say it does work. The old way of grounding to water pipes seems dangerous to me aside from being very outdated. I think your solution is sound. Best of luck. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
You make some good, common sense points. My station is DC powered from a 400 ah, solar charged battery. The only ground I use is an RF ground at the lightning arrestors on the 4 coax leads coming into the house. In 10 years, I have never had as much as a static shock.
Great to see you back, Scott! Great video as always. I live in third floor condo. After I got my general and bought my 7300, I gave up pretty quickly on grounding because I saw no options on how to do it with my situation. Due to space limitations, I don't really have room for a permanent shack yet. I do mostly POTA, but I'm operating at home, I'll set it up to use it and tear it down when I'm done.
For your situation, you would probably be just fine with a safety ground like the one I showed a picture of towards the end of this video with that copper pipe mounted under my desk. It is more for just a static shock protection, but better than nothing. Unplugging gear during a storm is paramount and will ensure that your gear is always protected 100%. I hope this helps. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
When you plug anything into a modern 3-prong outlet, you are using the home ground through your distribution panel. When you then plug your radio into the wall and then ground it out through a strap connected to a separate ground rod, you are using 2 different grounds that can have a serious current differential between them. There is a reason why code wants you to bond the two rods together. And although your two rods seem to be far apart, one #6 copper ground wire run around the corner and attached to your home ground isn't that difficult. You may or may not have a problem, but safety is foremost. And grounding your radios isn't a duplication - RF energy can do strange things and your transciever needs to be well-grounded to prevent noise in the shack.
Voltage differential seems like the best argument for bonding your grounding rods back to the electrical panel to me. In my case, I have a Starlink dish at one end of a mobile home and the electrical panel at the other end; 80 feet away. However, if I were going to drive a separate grounding rod at the end where the Starlink dish is at, I'd bond it by connecting that grounding rod to the metal undercarriage of the mobile home. I tested continuity and verified the metal undercarriage was connected to the ground of the electrical panel.
Thank you for that info. My technique seems to have been working for some time now. I kept the safety ground, but that is about it aside from the three prong connection. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
@@markdavis5486 That would probably work, as long as you make sure the connections to the m/h frame are bare metal, to make a good electrical connection. You'd just be bonding the ground rods through the frame.
Thank you , Thank you, Thank you! I followed your instructions from your original grounding video because I was over thinking everything ( I'm a newbie ) and only taking my 7300 outside with my power source and my Buddipole antenna. I always wondered why the big deal with the same stuff inside and working on my patio.... anyway I appreciate your video and the article. Glad you are looking so much better since the accident. 73
Good stuff. I live in Florida, the lightening capital of the US. I unplug everything and then, when I want to use the ham station, I plug it in. But I always leave it unplugged when it's not in use.
I completely agree! Lots of us have tv's with an external antenna and I don't have any special grounding and somehow it all works just fine. I do my setup just like yours!!
Scott great to see you back making videos!!! My opinion and what I’ve done, I have an RF ground which has lowered my noise floor considerably. I originally ran the ground 35’ to the electrical panel ground rod which made my noise floor so high the radio was un-usable. I drove an isolated ground rod which solved that. My equipment is grounded through the mfg ground through the power cord of my power supply. I too disconnect coax and power when I’m not using the radio during the times of the year the we get lightning in NH. Best of luck with your recovery and don’t worry about what others say about your choices. 73!
Hi Joel! Thank you very much for sharing that info! I really appreciate it. I think that we all need to do what is best for our needs and situation. By using common sense, we can hopefully avoid any major pitfalls and at the same time learn more about our equipment and enjoy ham radio. Disconnecting everything seems to make the most sense. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
Welcome to my world! HI HI. I spent a lot of time studying and experimenting with grounding. Like you, it never fails that wherever I put my shack, the breaker box is on the farthest corner of the house from it. I would have had to cross two sidewalks and run a #4 wire over 80 feet just to comply with electrical code. You talked about the old days. I was there, I remember them. Radios were tube type, had high voltage and were made of steel. Grounding kept you from burning your lips on your microphone or getting a bit of RF burn on your hands. I measured 100v between a Hammerlund and a transmitter - case-to-case! I'd love to talk to you about grounding. Not to change your mind, but because you are real and practical. This hobby is made up of engineers who take math to far further precision than an astrophysicist. If something is off by 4 decimal spaces, it won't work. BS, in real life, it can be off by 20 points and still make contacts. Hi Hi. My station will be much like yours, except I'll have to run wires across a room. I'm now alone and just moved into a small apartment. I used a common breaker ground bar in my previous home. I was thinking of doing the same here, but I like your copper tube idea better. I call it "spoke" chaining since each piece goes to a common hub. Only, I prefer mine to be closer to the equipment. A copper table top would be my ground of choice, but that's expensive. The biggest safety tool you can give your shack is quick disconnect. All of my radio AC are on a single power strip. I can unplug everything in one pull. I did have quick-disconnect cb type connectors, but they seem to raise the SWR on some bands so I have to do it manually. I'd love to have what I used in the Navy, but they are way too expensive for me. But, I do have a patch panel on the drawing board that will give me one place to disconnect and move everything. The idea came from an old telephone operator's desk. I also learned over the years that direct lightning hits are only a small portion of what destroys radios. Lightning creates small EMP that are picked up by the antenna and sent to the radio. The wind on the antenna charges the antenna as well. I witnessed what I thought was mores code in lights coming from my shack. I had dropped the PL259 from a 150 foot dipole 100 feet in the air spark between the ground and center conductor of the connector. No, it was not legible, or maybe it was Chinese Hi Hi. The name of the game in a storm is disconnect everything and turn on the HT. You got it right. I'll check out more of your videos. 73s
Thanks for that comment! I think my solution is solid and follows the KISS method. By unplugging everything and disconnecting power seems to have been working for me for years now. You are right, the engineer types in ham radio take things to the Nth degree. I do not have time to have something like grounding occupy my time any more than it has. My solution in this video is solid and it works. Problem solved...LOL Thank you again for watching and for your comment. 73!
@@HR4NT After watching this, I watched an ARRL presentation on grounding. The instructor is one I had started to use to comply, but it was economically unreasonable, unpractical and impossible for a tenant to comply with. The biggest, and probably only, difference in how we think of grounding our shack is that I actually made a ham shack disconnected from the grid. That was cheaper and easier. Funny thing was, at the conclusion of this engineer's presentation, he said, when you leave the shack to disconnect everything.
I too have a grounding video that I have gotten "grief" from viewers in comments. I may do a follow-up as well. I do have my grounding bonded to my house electrical ground, but like you, it's at the opposite end of the house to where my shack is located. I downloaded the PDF you had and am going to read it. I also have some of the antennas you have such as the GP-9 and DX Commander Classic, and have as one of my HF radios, the 7300. Great stuff. Thanks for your video. '73, Steve (P.S. I too am in the I.T. field as you.) ALSO! I just pulled the article and discovered the author Steve Katz, WB2WIK, lives in the same town as I, Pensacola, Florida. I pulled his QRZ page and though he looks familiar, I don't know him. I'll have to look him up.
Yeah bringing up grounding around hams is like talking politics at a family dinner table...lol I say, use common sense and do what works for you! That's pretty cool that the guy who wrote that article lives nearby!!! Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!!
Thanks for this video, sir! I’m in the beginning stages of retrofitting my shed into a new shack. As part of the thought process, I’ve been researching grounding and bonding and remarkably, I’m coming to the same conclusion as you! Disconnecting your antennas and ground in advance of a storm is likely your best bet. Beyond that, I don’t know what more you can do… a really close lightning strike might nuke your gear in spite of your best efforts. As you said, it simply isn’t worth losing sleep over. Thank you for the peace of mind and 73, Tim, VE1XR
This is absolutely the best video I've ever watched concerning grounds. I do the same exact thing as you if I'm out of town or if it's a bad storm coming I just pull my coax out of the wall where it enters the room. I run off of batteries so I don't have to worry about the radios. You said it best yourself if you get a lightning strike close or direct Hit it's not going to matter anyway. Awesome video brother 73s
Great topic! I’m a fairly new ham. No electronic background. The grounding problem has troubled me to the point I just run portable at home. Everything comes down and gets stored away when I’m not on the air. At this point, my best antenna is a discontinued Chameleon quad Hamstick antenna that runs 2 pairs of Hamsticks as 2 dipoles. It is clamped to a Home Depot painter’s pole. Seems to work on 10M, not so much on 75M. It only takes a few minutes to deploy or tear down. Situations are different for everyone. I’m lucky the power lines in my neighborhood are underground. QRM is about S3. Northwest Oregon is cloudy 8 months out of the year so solar panels are not on every rooftop. Cheers, KK7HTK
Sounds like you have a system that works well for you. Congrats on that!!! Make ham radio your own. Learn what you can and always be experimenting. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
The type of grounding lightning protection we as hams are likely to do may help with a nearby, but not direct, lightning strike. On the other hand, commercial radio stations and tower systems use a level of protection such that they get struck several times per year and it does not blow them off the air. Mostly, we do grounding to protect from RF in the shack and so that our antennas that require it work properly. In that case, we want the wire to the ground to be as short as possible. Then, you could run a wire to connect all of your grounds together.
I get that and I figured that just disconnecting the gear from everything while it is not in use for a period of time seemed to make sense to me for maximum protection. Nothing will save you form a direct lightning strike unless you are completely disconnected from everything. The topic of grounding in the ham community seems to be a hot one and often causes arguments. This solution is simple and works 100% of the time. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
@@HR4NT I liked your video a lot. You have a very practical and pragmatic approach to grounding. Tim Duffy, K3LR, CEO of DX Engineering, gave a talk to my local ham radio club on the subject of grounding. I was struck by the fact that if I followed all of the recommendations I would spend more money on the grounding than all of the radio equipment and antennas put together. Of course, DX Engineering sells all of that stuff in their prices are not cheap.
Hello, I just discovered your channel and website! This is funny. When I built my small shack I did not really care about grounding. My reasoning was not based on science but just common sense and I thought to be wrong, but you and that article finally convinced me that I don't really need to try putting an 8ft rod into clay soil (in the summer I think it's harder than concrete). I too, disconnect everything in case of a storm and I would do it with grounding or not. Thank you man, you made my day (I just regretted reading tons of articles about grounding a Ham shack).
I am glad to have you on the channel! I am also glad you found the video helpful and validating. I think that we overthink the whole grounding thing. There are situations where that would be important to ground, but if you have a basic ham shack at home and don't mind unplugging to protect your expensive hobby investments, I think it is just fine. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Talk about stress, I was stressing big time trying to figure all this out. The only thing I actually learned from the dozens of RUclips videos I watched was: (a) if I don't do it right, everything will explode and electrocute me and my insurance won't cover the damage, and (b) nobody can agree on how to do it right. I've decided this video (and the pdf to which you linked) is the right way to do it. And even before listening to you, I figured out all by myself that the right thing to do was to unplug and disconnect when not in use - but that was because I assumed I didn't do it right. So good job, and thanks!
I think we sometimes over think these things and that stress is real!!! LOL If you follow this method, I think you will be OK. I sure wouldn't risk my equipment ono something that wasn't iron clad in its methods. I am glad you found a solution that works for you!! Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Thank you for this video Scott. I'm in your camp. In fact, I'm a new HAM and I'm building out my "shack" to run exclusively on Bioenno batteries and attic antennas. I'm in Louisiana. If I have to unplug every time there's a threat of weather, I may as well take up bowling. Hope to meet you in Huntsville next month. 73
I am glad to hear you found a solution that works for you! Not sure I will make it to Huntsville this year. I have a lot on my plate at the moment, but we will see. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Hey I am glad you enjoyed it. I hope it helps or at least sparks curiosity to look into it a bit. Either way we have to use common sense and make the best decision for our needs. As for me, I am doing better each day and still recovering. Still a long road ahead, but at least I am mobile now rather than being stuck in a recliner all day long. I am way too productive to just sit around and rot...LOL Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
Sorry but just watched this and wow that's exactly what I've been doing all my life unpluging, unplugging , it will drive you absolutely insane thinking about all the things people say about grounding, like you say and the way I've always looked at it, if lightnings in the air there's so many things it will hit, and if it gets that close then god help us who happens to live there, thanks for the great show and speech because you said exactly what I've been doing . God bless and see you soon Alan from ENGLAND 🇺🇲🇬🇧💯👍
Everyone makes the topic of grounding this huge issue and it doesn't have to be. Keep it simple, use common sense and protect your gear. It's just that simple. Glad you enjoyed the video! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Like your style. Definitely some food for thought here. I will read the PDF as I am going to be setting up my shack soon and I have some of the same issues regarding the path of the grounding wire to my house ground rod as you have. Thanks.
Hey I hope it helps. You must do your own homework and figure out what will work best for you, but I think this at least give food for thought. I wish you the best of luck and hope that I can help! Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
I agree with how you did your grounds. I also unplug everything during thunderstorms. Somewhere I read that if you disconnect your coax cable and drop the end into an empty glass jar, it will prevent a direct lightning flash coming through your coax into your house from arcing out to anything in the room? Your video is great, I follow the same procedure.
I am with you on this. I’ve seen a couple incidences where all this extra grounding makes for another path to equipment that it would otherwise be isolated during a lightning strike.
Exactly...and you can drive yourself crazy thinking about it. This is simple and it works 100% of the time. Problem solved. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
LOL, I've been in the hobby for decades, but guess what, I'm s-t-i-l-l a "non-techie" in many ways (& this subject is one of them)! My shack is on a 2nd floor, somewhat inaccessible for easy grounding, so I've never done anything there; of course, I've grounded the obvious (telescopic masts outside to ground rods, etc), but I'm not losing sleep over any of this for one reason: when storms are approaching, I unplug everything, I mean EVERYTHING, like coax, power cords from wall outlets, etc; otherwise, I have fun & get on the air! Great channel, glad I found it & 73 de WA4ELW in TN 🇺🇸 dit dit 😃
Hi again. So, I sail. I mention that because on a sailboat (and mine is a steel sailboat) we have a big tall aluminum stick pointing at the sky and floating in flat salty water. I also do marine electricals and like you I had decades in the IT and telecom industry. So this is where I am coming from. You are absolutely right, if a lightning hit your antenna or my mast we're toast(ed). No wire is big enough to carry that current to the ground and allow it to dissipate. If you have a permanent antenna beside your house the tower IS in the ground from the get go. Now, there are many different kind of grounds and they have different purposes and that is where (I think) many people get confused. Your IT bracelet was for static electricity. The ground wire in your three prong wire is for a short in an appliance. The ground screw in the back of your amp, receiver etc are called case-ground, in case the case becomes charged (via induction for example). You also have RF ground. On a boat we do not have grounds (literally! LOL) so we call it source. You want any stray current to go back to its source. This is likely why the cities want you to connect any ground back to their "rod" so any stray current goes back to the grid. With ham (and other hobby where you amplify electricity) ground can become a serious issue. One issue in ham (or tube HiFi system etc), is noise. Noise is often due to electrical issues, some say cut the third pin (the ground) ahead of your gear and the noise goes away my question is, where did the electricity go? By cutting the ground you just cut the safety path for the electricity to go back to its source. You also want to avoid having any unwanted electrical current traveling through your gear while trying to go back to source, this is mostly what you are doing with your case ground arrangement, putting all your gear at the same electrical potential. You want any & all current to have a path back to source/grid/ground. Final thought, with your rod there, if a little bit of electricity leaks from your gear it goes into the soil 0k, (well technically it is not back to the same source). If lightning hits near your house that rod will conduct electricity from the lightning bolt right back up to your gear, this is where fuses and breakers get into the pictures. My TV blew-up and it is the ground wire's fault, suuuuuuure. My 2¢. Cheers, a.
I hear what you are saying and agree. My solution of disconnecting everythign at teh slightest sign of a storm or when it is not in use seems to be the best solution for me. The position of my shack and the design of the house as to where my official rod is located makes it a major pain in the butt to run a "proper" ground wire, so I came up with this solution instead of stressing abotu how I grounded. Is it ideal? no. Is it more work? Yes Does it work? Absolutely! But thank you again for sharing your knowledge. I really do appreciate it. 73!
I’m an appliance repair man and I’ve recently had an experience where somebody had the breakers off to a refrigerator over the summer, but it was still plugged in, essentially giving a ground to the refrigerator. They must’ve gotten hit by lightning over the summer they reference losing a couple other things in the home that weren’t working when they got back. The refrigerator was working perfectly the day they turned off the breaker before heading back north for the summer. They come back to Florida for the winter turn the breaker on in the refrigerator does nothing. I check it out and find the boards done. And found myself thinking of this video. I have also recently watched RUclipsr Dave Casler’s video on his lightning strike. He lost some equipment that wasn’t connected to the antenna, but was connected to the ground. I was like Yep. The ground gives another pathway to your equipment
I agree wholeheartedly. It is much simpler and efficient where if you are not using the equipment at the time or a storm is coming, just unmplug everything and eliminate the chance of having thigns get destroyed. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
A friend of mine spoke with the manufacturer of his radios and they also said to disconnect the earth ground during storms since he is almost positive that his shack had lightning damage from the ground connection since his antennas snd power were disconnected. He uses a very strong alligator clip now to bond his grounding bus to the pass through plate ground lug on his window and disconnects it when he leaves the shack along with power and antennas
I think that is a good idea. Better to be safe than standing in line with a credit card to buy your gear all over again!!!! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Thanks for the content Scott, I’m a new subscriber. Definitely appreciate the rant and this video covers a lot of questions I had about grounding. 73 for now
Thanks for the sub! I am glad you found value in the video. Hope you will explore some of my other vids as well. I have a lot of good content here for you! Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
This is a great video. Really interesting. I am in process of setting up my first radio and the grounding issue is the number one issue on my mind right now. I want to fully understand the issue before I setup the radio/antenna and such. So it's a show stopper till I understand it. But that's a good thing because I get to learn something new.
Glad it was helpful! We tend to run down rabbit holes and drive ourselves nuts about grounding instead of just having fun with radio which is the idea behind going through all the stuff to get licensed and so on. If you can keep your grounding basic and effective, that's it! I hope you find a solution soon. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Thank you thank you thank you was going through this this week second guessing myself overthinking thank you for the slapping the face I ain't grounding
Agree that for lighting protection nothing works better than unplugging. I’ve always worried about lightning hitting antenna and coming in through coax. So I unplug it all.
I was hoping you were going to do an update on your shack grounding. That’s what my conclusion came down to especially how I utilize my gear. The only radio that stays in my shack is my 2730 and that’s the only thing keeping have since I’m mostly driving. When I’m not home, it gets unplugged. When I’m home I plug it in and talk. Glad to see a new video from you Scott. Continue to get well. 73!
Thank you very much. I had requests over the past year about this topic and I had to find a way to approach it without being redundant. I think this definitely is something to think about. Unplugging your gear is THE best option for reasons I touched on in the video. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
I've been a ham for 45 years now. (Wow, I can't believe I'm that old.) This video is spot on. Unless you live on a mountain with a 1200 ft radio tower in your backyard, this grounding business has gotten out of hand. I mostly gave up on it years ago. I do have a copper rod pounded into the ground with lightning suppressors. That's only because I might forget to unplug my equipment and also maybe it will help if there's a lightning strike in the area. Obviously, if lightning hits your house, all bets are off. Also, I think some people have a problem with RF in their house, so they need some sort of grounding. Personally I've never had that problem. I was also trained by an extra class who had been a ham for 60 years, and he never grounded anything. Also, as the video says, things have changed. In the old days you didn't have grounded outlets and people played around with high voltage equipment, didn't take proper precautions, and I guess fried themselves. My philosophy is do the best you can, get on the air, and have fun. Thanks for a great video.
You nailed it! I agree that the topic gets heated way too often and made complicated where an easy solution is right in front of them. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!!!
Hey there Scott! I have been consumed with real life lately and was away from youtube. I was wondering about you lately and glad to see you are active. As far as grounding/bonding, I am an Electrical Engineer and I have a good friend who is also an Electrical Engineer and a Ham. We don’t agree on the principles. So it is no wonder that everyone is confused. I do agree with you that in a direct lightning strike, you will loose anything plugged in. I do like grounding for the near or almost hits, but that is just me. I do unplug when I see a storm coming and switch my feed lines to ground. Hey - you brought up some memories of my past with mentioning that grounding strap for your wrist. We did see a reduction in failures of semiconductor parts using this, but it is hard to prove. I am not going to loose friends over that. lol. All the best from north Texas. 73 de KI5HXM
Yeah that seems to be a touchy subject and I think the solution I came up with is a solid solution. My gear never has an issue so I think it is a solution for the time being. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
i used to do the same as your talking now. when thunderstorm on the way, - i unplug. i not using radio or thunderstorm season - i unplug. did this or years and years. then the area started having an occasional power fluctuations, so i started attaching a battery backup. battery backup can't really be unplugged or it chirps and chirps, and yes, i had unplugged electricl plugs from battery backup to computer and radio (and it's power supply). side note: only the PC was plugged into the battery backup, which included a/c and a control serial cable to the computer. storms come and go and the routine was in effect: radios unplugged, antennas unplugged from radio, which was always attached to ground rod. one thunderstorm took my unplugged computer, radio, and battery backup out - melted most of the items. it appears the power surge came up the a/c house power, not a strike that came up the station ground. the battery backup was broken and wouldn't even power on. all a/c power supplies, that were attached to the battery backup worked, except the computer; items attached to the station ground and the antenna (was grounded) worked without issue, even things that were attached to the station ground worked, unless it had a USB connection to something, i concluded the surge didn't come in via the station ground, but via a/c into the USB connection on the battery backup. anything, directly connected to the battery backup via usb was fried along with anything connected in the usb chain from battery backup to radio which also was attached to the station ground. the computer power supply was fine, but the motherboard around the USB connection was fried. the computer had 2 usb devices attached: usb to signalink usb and radio. the usb to serial device exploded, i didn't find much of it. from the usb to serial connector went to the signalink device, had lots of burning on its motherboard, mostly around the usb connection. the computer, had extensive damage around the serial device and had lots of melting around usb connections. the the radio, which was attached via usb to pc and radio also was attached to the station ground. ham radio was burnt and some melting all over the place. anything from the radio that was attached via coax or station ground, without a usb connecction, was fine. it appears the surge came via usb, and everythink that was connect to equipment via USB was fired/melted. i suspect the power surge entered the battery backup and was trying to get to earth ground, and the only path was through usb connections until it got to the radio which was attached to the station ground. i suggest, still use a station ground, but disconnect any connections between equipment. this could have been a VERY expensive lession, if it wasn't for APC's warranty/insurance. storms come and go and the routine was in effect: radios unplugged, antennas unplugged from radio, which was always attached to ground rod. one thunderstorm took my unplugged computer, radio, and battery backup out - melted most of the items. it appears the power surge came up the a/c house power, not a strike that came up the station ground. the battery backup was broken and wouldn't even power on. all a/c power supplies, that were attached to the battery backup worked, except the computer; therefore, i concluded the surge didn't come in via the station ground. however, anything, direct or indirect, connected via usb was fried. usb from battery backup to computer (computer fried, and not plugged into power, but usb connection still attached to battery backup). then computer had a usb to serial connector exploded and burned - didn't find most of the usb to serial device. then those usb to serial devices conneted to the ham radio (which also was attached to my antenna tuner and a signalink usb). the ham radio was fried, also the signalink usb also fried. the antenna tuner, connected via a cable between radio and tuner, and also had a station ground attachment - the tuner was fine.
Grounding is a touchyt subject, but I think we make it more difficult than it has to be. The setup I demonstraed ion teh video seems to work fine and in the end my gear is protected. Thank you for sharing yoru sotry! I appreciate that! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
I do the same thing. I unplug when storms are coming. Based on my research, the electrical ground at the outlet is all you need. I have a ground rod and window pass-through anyway, but I don't worry, since I unplug.
I think that is a good policy to adhere to. It has worked for me for over 2 years now and my gear is protected. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
I commented with my experience and opinion on another of your videos but I will add something here you mentioned in this video. I build a lot of homebrew equipment and run 5KV on vacuum tube amplifiers and I absolutely ground all my equipment and cabinets to each other and to electrical ground return for the additional, and very important reason that I do not want a HV short to a chassis or rack, etc. to find a path thru me to where ever it wants to go. I know the current is not looking to personally kill me but, you can never be absolutely sure that some portion of it, in the case of a HV short to the outer metal of equipment, might just find that little random path thru you to, as I said, where ever it wants to go. I do my best to give it some easy place to go rather than thru me... I don't stress about it and am not confused - I take care of it. Physical safety is very much an important part of why I use grounds. Always have, always will. Stay safe and thanks for your videos.
I think your setup for your situation is absolutely the smart thing to do! Keep it simple , but effective and you should never have an issue. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!!
A NO#1: I don't think it matters, however you may be hard pressed to find shielded copper wire in 6 or 8 gauge. A NO#2: Grounding "can" have an effect on noise under certain conditions. The only way to find out if it helps you in your situation is to give it a shot and see if you notice a difference. I hope this helps. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
I have worked on many radio sites and have seen all of the professional grounding procedures used and still it’s not all foolproof. I moved to the EU about 17 years ago and the area we live in is mainly rock with little soil. The most efficient device is the Static Dissipator otherwise known as Hedgehogs here. A stainless steel ball covered with stainless 0.1” diameter like antenna rods with sharp point ground on the free ends. They are designed to discharge static buildup before a strike can occur. There were also advertised in the Tessco supply catalog for communications equipment. Over here the electric company wants the ground system at the meter. The requirements are three eight foot ground rods spaced 2 meters apart and in a delta configuration. This worked out well for us since two of the rods are located in flower beds that are constantly watered. The phone line was another issue, I was hit with a surge which destroyed some telephone equipment connected to that line. The phone company told me that grounding takes place at the poles outside, NOT! Luckily I had an AT&T short 66 block with built in "heat coils" which were the newer solid state variety instead of the carbon block of old, never had any line issues after that. Got a lot of funny reactions and questions from techs who had to come out for other issues with ADSL and phone issues. As for grounding the hedgehogs I need to install a halo ground around the whole house because of the rocky terrain. Quite expensive but worth it. A word of caution to those who have installed a halo system around their home is to avoid walking anywhere near the halo during a storm. It can energize the ground at high levels if lightning should happen to strike the system.
Scott Glad you liked the article. As I mentioned I ground my antennas to prevent static build up. I unplug all my equipment when needed. I don’t have noise floor issues or RF in the shack so I don’t bother grounding my rig. Also my shack is on the 2nd floor of my house so a ground wire has the potential to radiate RF. The ARRL handbook even states that if your ground wire from your rig to the ground rod is too long then you should not ground. 73 Phil
@doc145 The article was very informative! I have heard similar that if a ground wire is too long it could affect performance. I think I should crack open my ARRL handbook and see if I can find more info on that. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
So, what I'm getting is that apply the KISS principle. Something most hams seem to not apply. I used what I commented on your 2 year video on it: the difference is I used an old bus bar instead of a copper bar (basically a bus bar in itself) so I can just put one wire out. Works fine. Like you mentioned: people tend to overthink and over-engineer everything.
I agree 100%. The technique I chose for my situation seems to have been working for almost three years and I alleviates the stress. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
good points there Scott , my grounding scenario is as follows :-, when i was digging the hole for my tower ,4x4x4 feet deep i made a rubic cube shape of rebar (186 feet total), this was placed over my tower ground socket that is 4 inch square that was banged into the ground 20 inches, the cage was welded to the ground socket plus a additional 3 rebar rods to the cage then the rods are @ 45 degrees into the side of the hole then filled with concrete,thats the tower grounding sorted, in shack i have the long double female bulkhead so239s fixed to a solid copper bar (8 of) this bar has a thick earth cable from there through my wall onto a 4 foot long earth rod into the ground, as for my radio/rotator and antenna control box they have individual earth wires to a single collection box from there to the aforementioned copper bar, for my pc no extra grounding except keyboard /mouse & my mointors leads have ferrites on them, 50k ft8/ft4 qsos later i have no rf interference or problems with any of my 4 mointors :) :), remember the old adage KISS Keep It Silly Simple :) :)
WOW! That sounds like a much more advanced setup than anything I ever conceived of!! Sounds like you planned it out and did your homework. Thank you very much for sharing that info. I really appreciate it. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
Great to see you back Scott!! Thank you for sharing the grounding light! BTW, I bought some ABR coax because of you. Great cable and it's lighting proof!😂😂😂
Thank you so much! Glad you liked the video and hope it is helpful. I LOVE that ABR coax. I just spoke with Sherry yesterday to check up on her over there. They really are a good company with great customer service. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
I usually just slap an 8 foot groundrod every 16 feet until I get to the main ground. If I can't do that I just pop one outside the window and hook all my gear to that. Most hams aren't running 1500 watts from a 100 foot tower so things just aren't as critical as a million dollar commercial radio station. I just unhook everything in storms and don't sweat it at all.
That was kinda my thought. This technique has worked very well so far with zero chance of trashing my gear. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
@@HR4NT My main concern is will the circuit breaker trip during a fault so I test it and if it works then we all set. Overcomplicating doesn't mean its right. 👍
I had a close lightning strike that had a static charge come thru a buried Ethernet cable that connected my shack to the house. It fried my WiFi router, fried a monitor port in my docking station, fried a monitor and fried my FT-450D. It won’t power up. Antenna was not connected to the radio. There was no surge that came thru the power. Inline fuses were intact. I think some kind of protection for the static charge would be good, because it jumped from the docking station to my radio. Good info and a lot to think about.
My grounding setup: inside the shack, all devices are tied together and run to a common inside-the-house ground (this is mainly for rf noise). Outside is where my setup may differ. I have all my coax feed lines coming from antennas going to two sets of barrel connectors, mounted on two separate panels- hard to explain. One set of barrel connectors connect to my rig inside. The other is tied to a separate ground rod near this panels. When I want to play Ham I go outside and move the antenna feed line from the grounded barrel connector over to the appropriate connector tied to my rig (they’re labeled “wire”, “vertical”, and “2M”). It’s a little bit of a pain but I sleep well at night. If lightning strikes one of my antennas it’s got a path straight to a separate grounding rod -not the one at my panel. If lightning hits your antenna it’s got a path straight to that aluminum panel mounted on your window!
Good point, but I designed this pass through based on designs that are sole commercially. If a really bad storm is coming I unplug and capo everything with no connections to my house. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Do you disconnect the coax coming from your antenna to the outside of your window pass thru also or do you just disconnect the coax on the inside of the pass thru that goes to your radio?
I only disconnect the coax on the inside. In the event of a major storm where I think the house could get hit I would disconnect outside as well. Hope this helps. Thanks for the comment an for watching. 73!!
Wow! It is so refreshing to watch people on YT who can say what they really think, and not worry about what might be considered the gospel according to whoever. :-) You have saved me $$$. I'm going to download and read the pdf (thank you) and share all this with my son who is also a HAM. Great work! One quick question - would it make sense to plug everything into that surge protector / multiple outlet device so you could just pull one plug?
I am my own person. I am always glad to hear others opinions, but I will always formulate my own and report that on the channel. I am glad you like my style. Grounding being a touchy subject it is easy to get caught up in the minutia of it all, but I think my solution here is valid and sound. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!!!!
Hi 👋 the entire point of grounding all your radios is because in case you were not home at the time of a thunderstorm, or lightning strike that you have a better chance of it being protected. Which is why your breaker box is grounded to the house where it is grounded for the entire house in case of the lightning strike. The way you have your grounding situation now I totally agree with and which is why you should keep it like that just in case that same exact reason. ☺️☺️😊👌👌👌👌. Keep up the interesting videos. I also agree with what you were saying about having the ground wire, making all of them turns to wear your breaker boxes is not a good idea.
I get it. I just found that for absolute protection, unplugging guarantees no issues. I don't mind unplugging my gear and if I am away from the house I have it unplugged anyways. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Hey man, While I have not yet watched your entire video - but will - here are a couple points. Pardon the input if you already know this stuff. I'm old and have seen a lot in a 52 year career while wearing many proverbial hats - Industrial Electrician, Electronics Technician, Telemetry Technician, Theatre Lighting Designer and House Electrician, Missile Inspector, Radio Broadcast Engineer, dishwasher, and some other junk...in no particular order. While growing up in SW Arizona I cared little about lightning because we had none there. After living elsewhere I learned about 2" and 4" flat copper strap and thick copper plate entrances with Polyphasers on all coax/heliax. Lightning does not like round conductors or curves or sharp bends. It loves the easiest path which tends to be flat surfaces with gentle radiuses, partly due to manifesting as a plasma typically above 100MHz. Those frequencies create such dense fields lines inside a conductor that current flow wants to be by skin effect. But the most important idea to remember is based upon a simple principle of electricity. When there is a voltage differential across a conductor you have current flow. Conductors can be Copper, Silver(best), and earth. So think about what can happen when lightning strikes the ground near your house. Extremely high currents flow through the soil. If you have more than one ground rod driven, the resistance presented by the soil between them will allow for large differences of voltage at each rod. And what happens - CURRENT FLOW. Some of that current flow will travel up into your house on ground wires and smoke stuff, to include starting fires - potentially(pun intended). So, the only rule to follow is what? ONLY ONE GROUND ROD for the entire house!!!! Don't worry about running a long ground wire around your house exterior to reach the utility ground rod. Lightning will not follow it anyway. That long ground wire is only providing a safety ground. But, as I suspect you will cover in the remainder of the video, you do not need a outside ground! Your outlets already have grounds, bonded to the neutral buss and to the ONE ground rod outside. You are already covered, unless you are operating a old 'hot chassis' boat anchor receiver, or something else that can knock you across the shack. Even the great Motorola way over-thinks the issue with their "halo" grounding system - 80% waste of time and money. Just use your head, employ simple, sensible practices, and use the best suppressors you can find for utility line surges, as well as the basics of keeping lightning out of the shack. You are WAY smart about just disconnecting during a storm. For those of us radio and television engineers who cannot do that, there are other ways to keep transmitters on the air - but it takes money. That's my advice. You seem smart enough to find the best path. Go for it dude! 73s
Thank you very much for that info and the comment! I really appreicate any outsid advice othes have to offer that can help other viewers. I kept my setup simple and it works 100% of teh time to this day. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Hey Scott! Great to see you back. Excellent topic because I just happened to buy my first HF rig, a FT 710, and exploring how I'm going to set it up in my basement. I tend to overthink things, too. 73 brother. KD9WRP
I think the K.I.S.S. method applies here. My technique works and as long as you are diligent in remembering to unplug you should have no problems and no stress about grounding. Congrats on the new 710!! Let me know if I can help and be sure to check out my website for a ton of great references. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
You can make right hand turns with grouding electrode conductors. Not sure where that came from? Best thing to do in addition to what you have now is to tie the rods together. Running the conductor underground in the dirt, so you don't create a ground loop. Bare copper wire. You'd give your house a really good grounding system if you did that. It would help with common mode currents too on your equipment too, if you had any. Just makes for an over better station. You notice grouding issues usually when you start running amplifiers.
I appreciate that. I had read somewhere about the right angle thing, but my new setup seems to work fine with no issues. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Good video. I do not use a separate ground rod for my station. Like you I always disconnect coax cables when not operating. I also unplug from the wall. No need for an RF ground. This way the chassis of any equipment is connected to the power system ground through that third grounding wire. If your antenna was an end fed wire where half the antenna was the ground, such as a quarter wave vertical or inverted L or EFHF then there might be a ground connection at the base of the antenna. This could be a problem if not done right. The ground could be elevated radials or buried radials. With buried radials, disconnecting the coax would again solve the two ground rod problem. I am glad to see your good advice. By the way I am an Electrical Engineer for many many years and think I understand this stuff rather well.
Hey there! That is fantastic to hear this coming from an EE!!!! I got so frustrated because I feared that my equipment would not function or get damaged if I DIDN'T ground it to the point of night sweats...LOL I am not an expert on anything electrical, but I think the techniques I have employed are effective enough for my needs. I think everyone needs to make a decision based on their situation. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
I tend to agree, I have been hit by lightning on both of my antenna towers within micro seconds of each other. Beyond code Grounding. It came in in the house through the ground! It came in through plastic water lines. It wiped out radios that were disconnected. Coax was disconnected outside. I was so well grounded the lightning over loaded the ground and saturated everything. So much for up to "code" grounding.
WOW! Sorry to hear that. But you have just confirmed that my idea is sound. It's a bit inconvenient, but all we can do is our best to protect our equipment. That only needs to happen once to teach the lesson. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
If you get a direct hit, you are still screwed as the emf is massive and everything in the vicinity is charged and fried. I downloaded the document but I can't read it as there are no pictures or diagrams. Lol I can wire a house to electrical code but I think there are too many opinions on 'correct' RF code. I think you just do what you find that works for you with your gear, location and environment. So far I don't ground anything as I only have HT's.😂👍
Like an old guy once told me. "If you give lightning a perfect path it's going to take it" that's why they stopped putting lightning rods on top of barns. Well grounded it still burned the barn down.
I live in the Tampa bay area which has more lightning strikes per square kilometer than anywhere else in the US. I have a dipole on the roof of my assisted living facility. I plan to install a gas discharge tube lightning arrestor and ground rod on my coax before the summer thunderstorm season occurs. And yes, I do disconnect my Icom 7300 from its antenna anytime I am not using it in the summertime. I do have the ARRL insurance for my transceiver which does cover lightning damage. I figure I will be taking enough precautions to not have to worry about future lightning strikes.
All you can do is the best you can with what you have. As long as you are using common sense and have a plan, which it seems you do, then you should be OK. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
They can be. I would test your noise levels with and without and see if it is actually making a difference. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Just my 2 cents, feel free to toss it if you want. I would recommend setting up case ground to your antenna ground while operating for one reason only. There is a chance of the two ground rods being at a different potential. If that happens, you'll develop a current in the coax shield. You can make the case ground with a quick disconnect to keep with your current storm plan. I have shorting plugs that pass the antenna to ground when not in use. Prevents static arcing from center conductor to ground when lightning is near.
@@HR4NTYour video helped me overcome MY paralysis by analysis. 👍🏻 Curious, though, about the arrestors on your coax. I too unplug everything (power & coax), but how are your arrestors installed? If my mast takes a direct hit, will/can anything come inside the house via the disconnected coax? That’s the last hurdle for me. Your video helped me over one the others. 🙏🏻
Thank you for your video, I dont even keep an antenna up all the time, I just go out set it up and then when I'm done for the day I take everything back down and unplug and put all my stuff away. So is the grounding mainly for lightning protection and electrical surges?? If that is the case would I be ok with just having a good surge protector, and not have anything up and plugged in during a storm? Being more specific I don't have a shack yet I just set my stuff on the kitchen table and run my coax through the window. I just bought a Ft-991a that I spent good money on, so I was a little worried cause I just have it wired up to a DC 13.8 x 30a power converter that is plugged in to a 3 wire outlet. I don't have anything connected to a ground other then the ground from the 3 wire plug on the converter. I don't keep it plugged in all the time though, I pull it out set it up for a few hours, then when I'm done I unplug everything pack it up and go out and take my antenna back down. Part of that reason is I don't have a shack I'm working off the dining room table so I can't leave it out all the time. I was working off of cheap radios and an sdr before but now I'm worried cause I spent a lot on this new radio, I don't want to mess it up.
Keeping your gear unplugged is the best bet. You can go down a bunch of rabbit holes with grounding as it seems to be a subject that everyone has an opinion on. Keep in mind that no matter how well you ground nothing will survive a direct lightning strike. Common sense dictates that just keeping it unplugged when not in use or if a storm is approaching will be a more guaranteed method of protecting your gear. Grounding is to help protect from surges and I also have a quality surge protector in my shack that all my gear plugs into. I hope this helps. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
I have always worried about not having my station properly grounded. When I first set up my station and had my tower installed we dug a five foot deep hole for the concrete base. At the bottom of the hole I drove an 8 foot ground rod into the ground so it goes down about 13 feet. The ground here is actually not very good. But also storms here are extremely rare. Anyway, then I ran grounding cable from the ground rod underneath my mobile home to go up through the floor to my station. The cable from the grounding rod was too short to reach. Then I attached another grounding cable to it with a clamp. Now the first part of the cable is about 2 inches wide but the added part is only an inch or so wide. I don’t know if that makes a difference or not. Then that was attached to a copper piece to which all of my equipment was attached with short pieces of cable. Then I heard that the station ground must be connected to the main electrical ground. I live in a mobile home and the main ground is almost at the other end of the house which is nearly 70 feet away. So since grounding should be as short as possible that doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. In 2919 I had to temporarily move out of state because my mom was not doing well and was in her last years. My sister was her 24/7 caregiver at that time. After she passed away I returned home in 2022. Other people had lived in my house while I was gone. I came back to find my station completely disassembled and much of my equipment gone. Even my chair and desk set up. The copper piece to which everything was grounded is gone the grounding cable had disappeared beneath the floor as well as coax from the my two VHF/UHF antennas (one vertical and one horizontal). Several years ago my Explorer-14 was damaged in the wind so now that is no longer up on the tower and some of the pieces are missing too. My rotator cable that also used to come up through the floor is also hiding somewhere underneath the floor. My OmniVII is gone. My Yaesu 736-R is gone. I do still have my old Paragon but the display no longer works. The only HF antenna I have is an 80 meter dipole hanging off the tower in sort of an inverted vee form. My LDG auto tuner is also gone but I have a small manual tuner. About all I do now is listen to Net on 75 meters. One question I have about grounding is how does grounding or not grounding affect transmitted signal or not? 73 DE KL7CH.
Thank you for sharing your story. Sounds like you went through a lot! I fell for ya man and I hope that someday you are able to get more gear and enjoy radio once again. As to your question: I think in certain conditions grounding can affect signal a bit, but not enough in my experience to warrant overthinking of it and making sure everything is perfect. Radials on certain antennas, like the DX Commander antennas series, can absolutely affect signal, but I never ground my antennas or my gear. My solution I lay out in the video, works every time for safety of the gear and does not affect my transmissions or reception. I hope this helps. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
I ground my antennas with arrestors and masts and tower as well. Because I specifically run my gear during storms for ARES weather nets and the national weather service uses my echolink node for communication to the local repeater. But that's me and my situation. I also accept that in a direct strike that effort is not saving antennas and may not save my radios.
See, I get that. If you are using your radios for a situation like you describe, you take whatever precautions you can, but you know that there could be an incident in which case it could go South. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
The shortest path from your operating desk to a ground rod is the best. I would suggest using #10 AWG at a minimum, if not 1" tinned braid ground strapping. I also recommend a tapped buss bar at the desk so you can use screws to ground equipment with coax braid. A 4' long ground rod is the smallest I would use, 8' preferred. I understand you may not have the $ to spend on grounds at first, but over the years you can add to your ground system at a small cost. A good ground can only add to your Ham pleasure by eliminating static and RF interference.
If you saw my first grounding video, I did almost exactly that This was an update to that video because I got frustrated with the entire grounding of my shack. I appreciate the info though! Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73
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This video earned my sub. This grounding business is almost as dramatic as a soap opera. Love your approach.
Yeah grounding is the least favorite subject of mine because it is like discussing politics at a family gathering...LOL I think my solution is a great option and it works for me to this day. I really appreciate the sub!!! Thanks for the comment an for watching. 73!!!
Thank You Thank You. New Ham has been agonizing how to ground the shack perfectly. This is the most common talk on this subject I've seen. Just unplug the damn thing!
Seems to work 100% of the time and my gear is NEVER in danger. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!!
They have a form of OCD.
I highly recommend the book "Grounding and Bonding" available from ARRL. It will debunk things some hard core types believe, and ALSO debunk some of the erroneous information & logic presented here. Much of the info here is right on, but much of it isn't.
Your set up is fine, except that you really should be using larger gauge wire.
You are correct about wrapping wire around the house just to get to your service entrance ground. Would it be advisable to connect to the service entrance ground? Yes, but to do that properly, would entail pounding more 8-foot rods into the ground, spaced six feet apart, along the route around the house corner to the service entrance. Adding one or two segments a weekend would make that a tolerable task. But all I'd do for sure if I were you, would be to get some large gauge copper wire, and weld it to the ground rod. A problem with having separate grounds is that a significant potential difference (significant voltage) can develop between the two grounding rods, that can be dangerous to people standing in the gap between the two points. I wouldn't expect that to be problem in your situation.
The goal is to shunt electrical surge - whether induced by a nearby hit, or a direct hit - to ground rather than it going through your equipment to get to ground. You need large gauge ground cable, not a wire that will melt in a nanosecond. And down the road you should install a polyphaser type shunt device on your coax line, attached to/grounded at the ground rod. Disconnecting the coax and unplugging the power supply is a good practice but it will not provide you with reliable protection. That's due to (1) any circumstance that prevents you from disconnecting/unplugging; (2) the fact that lightning will arc to a route to ground if it's a better route to ground. There have been many instances of arcs from disconnected coax in the shack, to ground paths.
I was in a house in 1982 that on a bright sunny nearly cloudless day, was hit by ball lightning!. I had my hand and a screwdriver inside my Hallicrafters FPM-300 and it was plugged into a 2-wire circuit. A lamp was plugged into a 3 wire outlet. When the ball lightning hit, there was a big flash in my shack and the paint inside the lamp lightbulb had burned away, as did the filament. The light bulb acted like a lightning arrestor. The radio suffered only a popped diode. It sounded like a basketball rolling down the roof, as the ball lightning did so, falling to the ground and "splintering" into numerous "bolts" of lightning that shot away from the point where it landed. A strong odor of ozone abounded. My neighbor on the ground floor was washing dishes in a metal sink, standing at a window directly facing where the ball fell to the ground about 2 feet away. I got lucky, thanks to the energy taking its easiest path to ground.
I've a good friend who has a 60' tower in his yard with a KT-34 HF triband yagi. He did proper earth grounding. Also, the yagi spreads out the charge that can develop, lessening the chance of being stuck. Anyway, a neighbor was always griping that one day lightning would hit that tower. My buddy explained about Earth grounding and the large horizontal surface area of the yagi providing protection, like a lightning rod. One day the neighbor overheard my pal working DX, and after burying the hatchet with my friend, got a shortwave receiver and put a dipole about 30' up, running between two trees. One day a big Thunder Boomer came through, and a bolt of lightning struck the neighbor's dipole. It blew out plumbing connections and fried every AC circuit and attached appliance. He couldn't understand why his dipole at 30 feet got hit, whereas my friend's 60' tower about 40 feet away, did not. My friend asked him, "Remember what I told you about grounds?" The neighbor recalled my friend's advice at that point.
So, while it's not worth getting paranoid about for a casual operator, nonetheless it's clearly very foolish to have a crappy or absent station ground. Get that book! 73 de K7IWW
I am new to ham radio and your videos have helped me a lot. I just watched both of your videos on grounding. I just wanted to tell you something that happened to my sister-in-law some time ago. We live in south Florida. The soil here is mostly a form of sand. Lighting hit a tree outside her house. This caused two tv’s and a couple of other appliances to be damaged due to the lightning surge. It was determined that lightning entered the house through the ground rod. As you said, just disconnect your antenna and power for the best protection.
EXACTLY!!!! No matter how much grounding...if you have a direct strike, nothing is safe. Best of luck on studying and passing your exams and becoming a licensed ham! Let me know if I can help anytime! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Considering a lightning strike contains millions of volts and amps and has discharged over a distance of several miles, there is nothing that will protect your electronic equipment from that electromagnetic pulse. A fellow RUclipsr who produces and markets a well known series of HF wire antennas suffered a direct strike on an antenna in his home. There was not only gear that was still connected that was damaged BUT equipment that was put away in their factory boxes sitting on shelves in his radio room that were also damaged beyond repair from the pulse.
Living in Central Ohio in the late 60’s we suffered a strike on a 200 foot tower in our back yard. The weather had cleared and this was a stroke out of the blue. This is quite common and why one should avoid going out into their yards at least for 45 minutes after the storm passes. Damages acquired by the strike are as follows, base station of a vhf business system was destroyed, less than four months old. The well pump ( which was a 200 foot deep well adjacent to where the tower was situated) and it’s controller destroyed ( blew the control box off of the wall). The anti collision lights were literally vaporized leaving only the brass bases in the lamp sockets (joys of living within five miles of an airport). A bunch of light bulbs that were not on burned, a clock radio toasted, and a SWL antenna with band traps was also destroyed, it was strung up between the tower and the gutter on the opposite end of the house, traps housings were blown off of the traps with coils and caps vaporized. The most expensive items to replace were the GE TPL base station which was practically new, and the well pump and controller. The primary item that needed repair were the collision avoidance lights on the tower. Ten dollars in "special tower lamps" and about $250 for the tower work to climb and replace lamps.
Lightning struck a tree about 35' from where my 'shack' is. It never hit any power lines, but the pulse (EMP) took out nine electronic devices along the back side of our house: TV, DVD player, HVAC thermostat, two weather radios, CO detector, hot tub control board, digital watch, and a satellite TV component. Yep, lightning will do what it will. I disconnect.
From what I understand, the more grounding you have helps keep the lightening from hitting your home. I was at a seminar on grounding and learned that initially lightening will go from the ground up to the sky in a tiny arc, then the major bolt will then come to earth.
This is why you have rods extending from towers to lower the static build up.
It's an interesting subject. My house has exterior lights and one hit back fed into my house and blew 4 duplexes out of the wall.
It sounded like a bomb going off inside.
I do the same thing, Scott. Every time I'm done "playing radio", as you call it, I disconnect/unplug EVERYTHING. I'm not made of money and I invested a good chunk of change into this hobby. My memory isn't what it used to be, I'm 67, so I just made it a habit to protect my equipment as best I can.
Keep up the good work, and good luck with everything.
Thank you do much! I agree the fear of losing out on the money you invested in radios and accessories is a major factor. Not like the price of radios is coming down any time soon and I don't know about you, but the money tree in my back yard isn't producing much these days...LOL. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
AND if I know I’m going to be away from my shack for 3 days or more, all the hardware goes in the Faraday garbage can and Mylar bags.
Thanks!
Wow! Thank you so much! I really appreciate that. Glad you liked the video. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
i unplug everything put back inside their original packaging and blindfold my dog whenever there’s a storm coming to be extra safe.
LOL...hey! Whatever works...as long as your gear (and dogs) are protected! Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!!
Sounds like a safe procedure to me. Does it work for cats??
Thanks Scott. After several years of overthinking the problem I have finally installed my ground, and it is a lot like yours. I live in a land (Japan) where the norm is for houses to have 100V 60 Amp service entrances and two-pronged outlets. You can buy three-ponged outlets and electricians will install them but that's considered unusual for houses as grounded outlets are generally only used in commercial buildings here. When I had my house built two years ago I deliberately paid extra to have a few three pronged outlets installed in two rooms, the first floor motorcycle garage (my wood shop) and the 2nd floor bedroom that was to become my shack. The house ground, however, is under the wood shop on the far opposite corner of the house, waaaaay too far away from my shack for me to connect a bonding wire to it.
After much hemming and hawing I decided to install a separate ground directly under my 2nd floor shack window. For that I first installed a window pass-through with a copper buss-bar mounted on the inner side of it and from there a 20 ft length of 1 inch copper braid goes out my window in some flexible PVC conduit to the ground below. The conduit is tie-wrapped a few inches away to the PVC down-spout for my 2nd floor rain gutter system. The braid then goes into a small PVC electrical box where I have installed two lightning arrestors. A few inches from the box is my first ground rod, a 5 ft long one (the longest I could find). It attaches to another 4 foot rod about 5 feet away via #6 stranded bare copper wire, and from there it goes to a third 5 foot rod about ten feet from the second rod. At that point I had about a foot of wire left so I terminated it at one of the support bolts for my metal garden shed.
At this point I effectively had two grounds, a house ground and an RF ground for my shack. To bond them together I attached a short two foot length of 1/2" copper braid from the copper buss-bar to a three-pronged duplex outlet I installed directly underneath my window pass-through. That outlet has a separate ground lug that's normally tied to a heat-pump air-conditioner or other heavy appliance ground in Japanese houses. In my case it will serve as a tie-point for the bonding wire effectively tying my house and new "RF" grounds together.
I should point out that the two grounds are already bonded together through the DC power supply feeding my IC-7300 as it has a three-pronged power cord and its DC ground is tied to its AC ground. However, the copper buss bar provides a nice way to tie all of my gear to a separate star-ground that I wouldn't have if I relied solely on the house ground.
Also, this whole exercise was prompted by my very close-by neighbors all having large solar arrays on their roofs. I'm practically swimming in QRM from them and all the LED lighting fixtures in the neighborhood. Two separate grounds bonded together is the best I can do to keep all that QRM at a manageable level. So far it appears to be working, though I have only just installed the system and have not extensively tested it yet.
Thank you so much for sharing your situation! It seems like you found a good and viable solution that works for you. Don't even get me started about solar panels!! I have the same issue with a neighbor 8 houses down and they are emitting a ton of RFI that gives me a 9+ noise floor all day long. About all I can do around here is FT8 and occasionally hear a few strong signals on 20M. If I can get the neighbors to cooperate and resolve their RFI issues, I can then move on to the next source which is most likely going to be bad transformers in the neighborhood. It gets daunting, but if I ever want to enjoy radio without having to drive 35 miles away from civilization, this is my only option. Anyway, glad you have part of your issues resolved. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
@@HR4NT I have solar on my own roof and my panels are quiet compared to atmospheric noise. Apparently the people at Enphase are pretty good at building quiet arrays. I say this because my noise floor on the higher bands is nearly the same at night as during the day. Also I am revisiting my grounding of my rigs to go outside to the ground rod that the antennas are already connected to through a copper plate with bulkhead connectors that lead to the jumpers that go into the shack via 10 foot jumpers. I plan on a copper buss bar then copper braid out side to the ground. I know it isn't NEC standard, but I am in an area were lightening is very infrequent and if TSs threaten then I just unplug the gear. I also have chokes and ferrite beads everywhere on every cord in the immediate area of the rigs. I like my 240-31 toroids!
Very well said and yes, I too unplug everything. I've also learned that if all your gear is grounded and if lightning strikes near by, that electrical power from that strike may or can just travel in the ground " soil " and to your ground rod of your shack and back in to your equiptment even if all your coax is unplugged. Thank you and all the best sir.
Exactly! Better to be safe than have a massive bill to replace gear! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
I am a retired lineman. The grounding setup you have is correct . Do not change one thing. Well done .
I appreciate that! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
I am one of the people who had “paralysis by analysis “ about the grounding situation for the past few years. It has kept me off the air for all that time, and I’m ready to get on after I pass my general next month. It is simply ASTOUNDING, the amount of poor/bad/misinformation on grounding, even from places like the ARRL that should know better. Gotta punch a hole through a concrete wall and put up an end fed half wave that was given to me, and me and (also gifted) 30 year old ICOM 737 are getting on the air! I at least want to try the old girl before springing for the 7300 right away…. I found your channel yesterday and am really enjoying it. Plan to check out your website too. Keep up the good work!
That is fantastic! Glad you are getting back up and running after a while. I agree the topic of grounding you would think would be a simple issue to explain and follow a plan, but it is so dependent upon each individuals situation that it can drive you a bit mad trying to figure it all out. I think the solution I came up with here is simple, it will work for ANYONE and it protects your gear every time. I am glad to have you aboard the channel. I hope you find more videos here that are useful or at least entertaining. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
The ARRL has no liability to you for misinformation or disinformation or just "advice." They are not a licensed electrician, professional engineer, licensed home improvement contractor, etc.
Actually, I found out the hard way that connecting your radio to a ground rod does not protect it from a lightning strike. I had my radio shack grounded and a storm was approaching so I unplugged everything and even turned off the breaker to the radio shack incase I missed unplugging a lamp or something. Lightning struck a tree in my yard and traveled down into the wet ground and up through my ground rod about 20 feet away from the tree and into my radio to blow it out and start a fire. Luckily the fire was able to be brought under control quickly so we did not lose the whole house, but the entire shack burned.
WOW! That sucks! I think the solution I came up with is a solid one and my gear is protected 100% of the time. I hope you were able to recover what you lost! Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
This exact thing happened to my ham buddy. He said he will never ground his station again. Only the antenna. Just unplug everything during a storm.
Great vid with a great point. I'm with you - I unplug my gear when a storm approaches. And my antennas are in the attic. No station ground needed. Good to see you back in action!
Hey glad you enjoyed the video. It seemed to make the most sense. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Wow, thanks man, I am a brand new ham. Just got my tech this past Saturday. I had all kinds of concerns about grounding before setting up my shack. Between your video and the doc you shared I get it now. Keep up the great work. I am so new I don't know what I don't know.
First CONGRATULATIONS are in order for passing your exam!!! OUTSTANDING!!! As for your current knowledge level, research and ask questions. You are on the right track to becoming a fantastic radio operator! Again, congrats!!!! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Great to see you back on RUclips Scott!!! Fantastic Video!!!! I’ve had the same option on grounding & bonding. Lots of hassle for no benefit. We had a ham in our club where he got 2 direct strikes to his home. 1 to his antenna & 1 to main power line. Everything plugged in was fried! He lost around $60,000+ worth of gear. Grounding didn’t save anything!
Keep up the great work!!!
Great to be back! I am glad you enjoyed the video. I think my solution makes the most sense as long as I stay on top of unplugging everything as described. That is a real bummer to lose that much gear! WOW! Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
I recently acquired my first HF Rig (IC-7300) and have delved deep into this subject. This video has been quite helpful to me. Thank you!
Glad it was helpful! The 7300 is a fantastic radio! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
My ols US navy pal has a 7300 and the online reviews seem great. Would u buy a yaesu?
You're a life saver!. I'm coming back to scanner-bank monitoring after a 23 year hiatus. Got my analog scanners; got my antennas assembled; got my (your) window pass materials; got antenna masts (wall mount brackets coming); got highest quality low loss coax and connectors at Ham Radio Outlet nearby. I'm external picking up where I left off mounting 2 UHF band antennas (to start) just like 23 years ago, ready for external mounting when EVERYTHING COMES TO A SCREECHING HALT OVER ...grounding. The house is circa 1952; my radio antennas appear to require nothing more than previous split-bolt/grounding clamp connections (telephone, old cable TV, two (2) old satellite dishes) to the electric panel ground wire going to the supply water pipe just like back in the 90's. In the 90's I didn't ground my coax...wasn't recommended by instructions then. Got the AARL book and everyone telling me I gotta do this copper treatise "cause the book says so". IMHO residential ground rod this-n-that came about as new housing migrated from metal supply pipe to plastic/PVC...so a replacement Earth connection was required...the ground rod. Same boat as you...shack coax grounding would require a wire around the house doorways, under sidewalks, (OH NO!!!) can't go through the UN-finished basement despite satellite and everyone else of the utilities doing just the same. You saved me HUGE heartache so I can easily and finally get back to scanner radio in the few years I have left.
Hey I am glad to hear it and glad that I was able to shine a bit of common sense light on a topic that enrages a lot of hams...applying the K.I.S.S. method sometimes is just the best way to operate AND this technique will 100% ensure that your gear is protected at ALL times. I was running myself ragged trying to figure out how to ground and follow the "rules". Turns out that this is a lot simpler and resolves most of my issues. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Thank you for such a great video! I am new to this hobby and still have mountains to learn, so this information is very helpful. If I had to ground to my fuse box ground, then it would have to be like yours, mighrt have been, around, over and through, etc. So I have been reading as much as I can about how to handle this. Your idea is very much in keeping with what I have read. A direct or close strike will fry everything that is plugged in, no matter the ground situation, or so I have read. The articles I have read say as you do... UNPLUG!!!. I used to live in Florida, had a direct lightning strike on an oak tree in the back yard. Bark was stripped off the tree and the neighbor behind me lost everything eclectrical that was plugged in. I was born in Fl, so everything I had was, yep, unplugged.
Tks again!!!
The topic of grounding in ham radio is almost as bad as talking politics at a family gathering! I decided to use a little common sense and keep it simple. Unplugging checks EVERY box in safety and protection of my investment. I am glad others are seeing the same thing. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Good to see you! Hope you’re feeling better buddy!
So far so good. Each day gets a bit better! Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
@@HR4NT anytime brother
Thank you for this video. I saw your first video and asked a question, this answers my question. Even better video and article. Thank you.
Glad it was helpful! Grounding seems to be one of those topics that causes fights and thousands of opinions on the best way to do it. I think this solves that argument for 80% of the operators out there. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
I think your ground philosophy and method is perfectly acceptable and you’re doing the right thing by unplugging everything when storms are coming. I’m in Florida-in the summer months we often have late afternoon “pop up storms”, so my rig stays unplugged until I use it anyway - during these months. Good to see you up and walking around-hope your recovery is going well-KO4VBL
I appreciate that! I think my method is sound and it seems to be working for quite a while now. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Thank You very much for such a great video on gounding your rig and shack Scott. I learned a lot. Also thank you for standing up to all those Mister Know-It-All's and putting in your own two cents pertaining to grounding. I agree with you and what you said. Yes, in many ways they are sort of right, and yes they mean well, but as you said, they go way overboard and get too carried away with the grounding process. No amount of grounding and lightning protection is going to protect against and thwart a direct lightning strike.
I also remember back when I was a Pershing missile system technician, repairman and missile launch computer operator in the military and we were sent TDY from Ft. Sill, Oklahoma down to Orlando, Florida for six months to help the Martin Maretta Corporation develop and field test the new Pershing II Nuclear missile system.
On the first day of training and work we were sitting in the orientation class during the usual afternoon summertime thunderstorm getting ready to go out to the equipment after the downpour of rain let up and the corporate safety director came into the classroom and told us that he was sending us back to the apartment complex as there would be no work for that day as a bolt of lighting had just taken out the brand new forty-four thousand dollar lightning protection system they had just had professionally installed by professionals the week before.
It was 4 days before they got it repaired enough for us to go back to work and training.
Thank you so much for sharing that story! That was very interesting. Sometimes you just have to fall back on common sense and take the best course of action that will serve your needs. My solutions in this video has served me very well since I published it. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
I greatly appreciate this discussion because the grounding issue has held up completion of my radio installation, worrying about doing grounding the correct way and so on.
I would again recommend doing what is best for you and your situation, but don't let it drive you nuts. Ham radio is about playing radio not fussing with ground wires and other stuff...LOL Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Thank you for the update. Living in a 1940’s home in Portland, OR, the only ground I found on the house is tied from the panel to a cold water pipe. I have since added two grounds to be safe, one at the panel and another on the opposite side of the house at the AC unit. It may be overkill, but with all the unusual and unsafe work I’ve found, I feel better. As you have mentioned, I just unplug everything when not in use anyway. Thank you for the update.
I have to say it does work. The old way of grounding to water pipes seems dangerous to me aside from being very outdated. I think your solution is sound. Best of luck. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
I think it was relevant prior to the use of PVC or plastic pipe. Keep up the great work and excellent
Videos
You make some good, common sense points. My station is DC powered from a 400 ah, solar charged battery. The only ground I use is an RF ground at the lightning arrestors on the 4 coax leads coming into the house. In 10 years, I have never had as much as a static shock.
Sounds to me like you nailed it and it is working out perfectly for you! Simple is sometimes the best. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!!
Great to see you back, Scott! Great video as always.
I live in third floor condo. After I got my general and bought my 7300, I gave up pretty quickly on grounding because I saw no options on how to do it with my situation. Due to space limitations, I don't really have room for a permanent shack yet. I do mostly POTA, but I'm operating at home, I'll set it up to use it and tear it down when I'm done.
For your situation, you would probably be just fine with a safety ground like the one I showed a picture of towards the end of this video with that copper pipe mounted under my desk. It is more for just a static shock protection, but better than nothing. Unplugging gear during a storm is paramount and will ensure that your gear is always protected 100%. I hope this helps. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
When you plug anything into a modern 3-prong outlet, you are using the home ground through your distribution panel. When you then plug your radio into the wall and then ground it out through a strap connected to a separate ground rod, you are using 2 different grounds that can have a serious current differential between them. There is a reason why code wants you to bond the two rods together. And although your two rods seem to be far apart, one #6 copper ground wire run around the corner and attached to your home ground isn't that difficult. You may or may not have a problem, but safety is foremost.
And grounding your radios isn't a duplication - RF energy can do strange things and your transciever needs to be well-grounded to prevent noise in the shack.
Voltage differential seems like the best argument for bonding your grounding rods back to the electrical panel to me.
In my case, I have a Starlink dish at one end of a mobile home and the electrical panel at the other end; 80 feet away. However, if I were going to drive a separate grounding rod at the end where the Starlink dish is at, I'd bond it by connecting that grounding rod to the metal undercarriage of the mobile home. I tested continuity and verified the metal undercarriage was connected to the ground of the electrical panel.
Thank you for that info. My technique seems to have been working for some time now. I kept the safety ground, but that is about it aside from the three prong connection. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
@@markdavis5486 That would probably work, as long as you make sure the connections to the m/h frame are bare metal, to make a good electrical connection. You'd just be bonding the ground rods through the frame.
@@gpbarth yeah I'd drill into it and make sure I got a good contact.
Thank you , Thank you, Thank you! I followed your instructions from your original grounding video because I was over thinking everything ( I'm a newbie ) and only taking my 7300 outside with my power source and my Buddipole antenna. I always wondered why the big deal with the same stuff inside and working on my patio.... anyway I appreciate your video and the article. Glad you are looking so much better since the accident. 73
Good stuff. I live in Florida, the lightening capital of the US. I unplug everything and then, when I want to use the ham station, I plug it in. But I always leave it unplugged when it's not in use.
THAT is the best policy! I do the same and it works 110% of the time!!! Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!!
Hi from the UK, i am into CB and monitor HAM and AT LAST your talking sense, well done.
Glad to hear it! I hope you enjoy my other videos as well! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
I completely agree! Lots of us have tv's with an external antenna and I don't have any special grounding and somehow it all works just fine. I do my setup just like yours!!
Exactly! I think it is the best bet. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Scott great to see you back making videos!!! My opinion and what I’ve done, I have an RF ground which has lowered my noise floor considerably. I originally ran the ground 35’ to the electrical panel ground rod which made my noise floor so high the radio was un-usable. I drove an isolated ground rod which solved that. My equipment is grounded through the mfg ground through the power cord of my power supply. I too disconnect coax and power when I’m not using the radio during the times of the year the we get lightning in NH. Best of luck with your recovery and don’t worry about what others say about your choices. 73!
Hi Joel! Thank you very much for sharing that info! I really appreciate it. I think that we all need to do what is best for our needs and situation. By using common sense, we can hopefully avoid any major pitfalls and at the same time learn more about our equipment and enjoy ham radio. Disconnecting everything seems to make the most sense. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
Glad to have you back!
Glad to be back! Hopefully I can get some good vids up and provide some great information. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
Scott great video man. I understand what you're saying. Love your passion for ham radio in your videos. I will keep watching
Awesome! Thank you! I try to do my best to bring you great info and accurate info at that. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Welcome to my world! HI HI. I spent a lot of time studying and experimenting with grounding. Like you, it never fails that wherever I put my shack, the breaker box is on the farthest corner of the house from it. I would have had to cross two sidewalks and run a #4 wire over 80 feet just to comply with electrical code.
You talked about the old days. I was there, I remember them. Radios were tube type, had high voltage and were made of steel. Grounding kept you from burning your lips on your microphone or getting a bit of RF burn on your hands. I measured 100v between a Hammerlund and a transmitter - case-to-case!
I'd love to talk to you about grounding. Not to change your mind, but because you are real and practical. This hobby is made up of engineers who take math to far further precision than an astrophysicist. If something is off by 4 decimal spaces, it won't work. BS, in real life, it can be off by 20 points and still make contacts. Hi Hi.
My station will be much like yours, except I'll have to run wires across a room. I'm now alone and just moved into a small apartment.
I used a common breaker ground bar in my previous home. I was thinking of doing the same here, but I like your copper tube idea better. I call it "spoke" chaining since each piece goes to a common hub. Only, I prefer mine to be closer to the equipment. A copper table top would be my ground of choice, but that's expensive.
The biggest safety tool you can give your shack is quick disconnect. All of my radio AC are on a single power strip. I can unplug everything in one pull. I did have quick-disconnect cb type connectors, but they seem to raise the SWR on some bands so I have to do it manually. I'd love to have what I used in the Navy, but they are way too expensive for me. But, I do have a patch panel on the drawing board that will give me one place to disconnect and move everything. The idea came from an old telephone operator's desk.
I also learned over the years that direct lightning hits are only a small portion of what destroys radios. Lightning creates small EMP that are picked up by the antenna and sent to the radio. The wind on the antenna charges the antenna as well. I witnessed what I thought was mores code in lights coming from my shack. I had dropped the PL259 from a 150 foot dipole 100 feet in the air spark between the ground and center conductor of the connector. No, it was not legible, or maybe it was Chinese Hi Hi.
The name of the game in a storm is disconnect everything and turn on the HT.
You got it right. I'll check out more of your videos. 73s
Thanks for that comment! I think my solution is solid and follows the KISS method. By unplugging everything and disconnecting power seems to have been working for me for years now. You are right, the engineer types in ham radio take things to the Nth degree. I do not have time to have something like grounding occupy my time any more than it has. My solution in this video is solid and it works. Problem solved...LOL Thank you again for watching and for your comment. 73!
@@HR4NT After watching this, I watched an ARRL presentation on grounding. The instructor is one I had started to use to comply, but it was economically unreasonable, unpractical and impossible for a tenant to comply with.
The biggest, and probably only, difference in how we think of grounding our shack is that I actually made a ham shack disconnected from the grid. That was cheaper and easier.
Funny thing was, at the conclusion of this engineer's presentation, he said, when you leave the shack to disconnect everything.
I too have a grounding video that I have gotten "grief" from viewers in comments. I may do a follow-up as well. I do have my grounding bonded to my house electrical ground, but like you, it's at the opposite end of the house to where my shack is located. I downloaded the PDF you had and am going to read it. I also have some of the antennas you have such as the GP-9 and DX Commander Classic, and have as one of my HF radios, the 7300. Great stuff. Thanks for your video. '73, Steve (P.S. I too am in the I.T. field as you.) ALSO! I just pulled the article and discovered the author Steve Katz, WB2WIK, lives in the same town as I, Pensacola, Florida. I pulled his QRZ page and though he looks familiar, I don't know him. I'll have to look him up.
Yeah bringing up grounding around hams is like talking politics at a family dinner table...lol I say, use common sense and do what works for you! That's pretty cool that the guy who wrote that article lives nearby!!! Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!!
Thanks for this video, sir! I’m in the beginning stages of retrofitting my shed into a new shack. As part of the thought process, I’ve been researching grounding and bonding and remarkably, I’m coming to the same conclusion as you! Disconnecting your antennas and ground in advance of a storm is likely your best bet. Beyond that, I don’t know what more you can do… a really close lightning strike might nuke your gear in spite of your best efforts. As you said, it simply isn’t worth losing sleep over. Thank you for the peace of mind and 73,
Tim, VE1XR
Agreed 100% ! Keep it simple. I still stand by what I said in this video! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
This is absolutely the best video I've ever watched concerning grounds. I do the same exact thing as you if I'm out of town or if it's a bad storm coming I just pull my coax out of the wall where it enters the room. I run off of batteries so I don't have to worry about the radios. You said it best yourself if you get a lightning strike close or direct Hit it's not going to matter anyway. Awesome video brother 73s
Glad you enjoyed it and that it was helpful. I try to be practical in my thinking. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
I have watched a couple of your videos. Very informative! Thank you for taking the time to put these together! 73’s N4SLC
Glad you like them! I thank you for taking the time to watch them. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Great topic! I’m a fairly new ham. No electronic background. The grounding problem has troubled me to the point I just run portable at home. Everything comes down and gets stored away when I’m not on the air.
At this point, my best antenna is a discontinued Chameleon quad Hamstick antenna that runs 2 pairs of Hamsticks as 2 dipoles. It is clamped to a Home Depot painter’s pole. Seems to work on 10M, not so much on 75M. It only takes a few minutes to deploy or tear down.
Situations are different for everyone. I’m lucky the power lines in my neighborhood are underground. QRM is about S3. Northwest Oregon is cloudy 8 months out of the year so solar panels are not on every rooftop.
Cheers, KK7HTK
Sounds like you have a system that works well for you. Congrats on that!!! Make ham radio your own. Learn what you can and always be experimenting. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
The type of grounding lightning protection we as hams are likely to do may help with a nearby, but not direct, lightning strike. On the other hand, commercial radio stations and tower systems use a level of protection such that they get struck several times per year and it does not blow them off the air. Mostly, we do grounding to protect from RF in the shack and so that our antennas that require it work properly. In that case, we want the wire to the ground to be as short as possible. Then, you could run a wire to connect all of your grounds together.
I get that and I figured that just disconnecting the gear from everything while it is not in use for a period of time seemed to make sense to me for maximum protection. Nothing will save you form a direct lightning strike unless you are completely disconnected from everything. The topic of grounding in the ham community seems to be a hot one and often causes arguments. This solution is simple and works 100% of the time. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
@@HR4NT I liked your video a lot. You have a very practical and pragmatic approach to grounding. Tim Duffy, K3LR, CEO of DX Engineering, gave a talk to my local ham radio club on the subject of grounding. I was struck by the fact that if I followed all of the recommendations I would spend more money on the grounding than all of the radio equipment and antennas put together. Of course, DX Engineering sells all of that stuff in their prices are not cheap.
Hello, I just discovered your channel and website! This is funny. When I built my small shack I did not really care about grounding. My reasoning was not based on science but just common sense and I thought to be wrong, but you and that article finally convinced me that I don't really need to try putting an 8ft rod into clay soil (in the summer I think it's harder than concrete). I too, disconnect everything in case of a storm and I would do it with grounding or not. Thank you man, you made my day (I just regretted reading tons of articles about grounding a Ham shack).
I am glad to have you on the channel! I am also glad you found the video helpful and validating. I think that we overthink the whole grounding thing. There are situations where that would be important to ground, but if you have a basic ham shack at home and don't mind unplugging to protect your expensive hobby investments, I think it is just fine. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
@@HR4NT i found your videos very helpful and i thank you for that.
Talk about stress, I was stressing big time trying to figure all this out. The only thing I actually learned from the dozens of RUclips videos I watched was:
(a) if I don't do it right, everything will explode and electrocute me and my insurance won't cover the damage, and
(b) nobody can agree on how to do it right.
I've decided this video (and the pdf to which you linked) is the right way to do it. And even before listening to you, I figured out all by myself that the right thing to do was to unplug and disconnect when not in use - but that was because I assumed I didn't do it right.
So good job, and thanks!
I think we sometimes over think these things and that stress is real!!! LOL If you follow this method, I think you will be OK. I sure wouldn't risk my equipment ono something that wasn't iron clad in its methods. I am glad you found a solution that works for you!!
Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
LOL 😂 ur so right, great comments! 73😃🇺🇸
Thank you for this video Scott. I'm in your camp. In fact, I'm a new HAM and I'm building out my "shack" to run exclusively on Bioenno batteries and attic antennas. I'm in Louisiana. If I have to unplug every time there's a threat of weather, I may as well take up bowling. Hope to meet you in Huntsville next month. 73
I am glad to hear you found a solution that works for you! Not sure I will make it to Huntsville this year. I have a lot on my plate at the moment, but we will see. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Great video Scott. I took a grounding and bonding class on the internet. It helped me a lot with how to set up the grounding of my shack.
Glad to see you back Scott, you look and sound a lot better from you last video! Great article, thanks for posting the link.
Hey I am glad you enjoyed it. I hope it helps or at least sparks curiosity to look into it a bit. Either way we have to use common sense and make the best decision for our needs. As for me, I am doing better each day and still recovering. Still a long road ahead, but at least I am mobile now rather than being stuck in a recliner all day long. I am way too productive to just sit around and rot...LOL Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
thanks for sharing, man. Keep up the great videos, man. Be safe, EVERYONE . ( DESPERADO 56 north of Tampa FL. ) 73's
Glad you enjoyed the video! Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Sorry but just watched this and wow that's exactly what I've been doing all my life unpluging, unplugging , it will drive you absolutely insane thinking about all the things people say about grounding, like you say and the way I've always looked at it, if lightnings in the air there's so many things it will hit, and if it gets that close then god help us who happens to live there, thanks for the great show and speech because you said exactly what I've been doing . God bless and see you soon Alan from ENGLAND 🇺🇲🇬🇧💯👍
Everyone makes the topic of grounding this huge issue and it doesn't have to be. Keep it simple, use common sense and protect your gear. It's just that simple. Glad you enjoyed the video! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Like your style. Definitely some food for thought here. I will read the PDF as I am going to be setting up my shack soon and I have some of the same issues regarding the path of the grounding wire to my house ground rod as you have. Thanks.
Hey I hope it helps. You must do your own homework and figure out what will work best for you, but I think this at least give food for thought. I wish you the best of luck and hope that I can help! Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
I agree with how you did your grounds. I also unplug everything during thunderstorms.
Somewhere I read that if you disconnect your coax cable and drop the end into an empty glass jar, it will prevent a direct lightning flash coming through your coax into your house from arcing out to anything in the room?
Your video is great, I follow the same procedure.
Fantastic! Sometimes the simplest solution is the best! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
I am with you on this.
I’ve seen a couple incidences where all this extra grounding makes for another path to equipment that it would otherwise be isolated during a lightning strike.
Exactly...and you can drive yourself crazy thinking about it. This is simple and it works 100% of the time. Problem solved. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
LOL, I've been in the hobby for decades, but guess what, I'm s-t-i-l-l a "non-techie" in many ways (& this subject is one of them)! My shack is on a 2nd floor, somewhat inaccessible for easy grounding, so I've never done anything there; of course, I've grounded the obvious (telescopic masts outside to ground rods, etc), but I'm not losing sleep over any of this for one reason: when storms are approaching, I unplug everything, I mean EVERYTHING, like coax, power cords from wall outlets, etc; otherwise, I have fun & get on the air! Great channel, glad I found it & 73 de WA4ELW in TN 🇺🇸 dit dit 😃
I think that is the best solution to what is made out to be a complicated problem! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Hi again.
So, I sail. I mention that because on a sailboat (and mine is a steel sailboat) we have a big tall aluminum stick pointing at the sky and floating in flat salty water.
I also do marine electricals and like you I had decades in the IT and telecom industry.
So this is where I am coming from.
You are absolutely right, if a lightning hit your antenna or my mast we're toast(ed). No wire is big enough to carry that current to the ground and allow it to dissipate. If you have a permanent antenna beside your house the tower IS in the ground from the get go.
Now, there are many different kind of grounds and they have different purposes and that is where (I think) many people get confused.
Your IT bracelet was for static electricity. The ground wire in your three prong wire is for a short in an appliance. The ground screw in the back of your amp, receiver etc are called case-ground, in case the case becomes charged (via induction for example). You also have RF ground.
On a boat we do not have grounds (literally! LOL) so we call it source.
You want any stray current to go back to its source.
This is likely why the cities want you to connect any ground back to their "rod" so any stray current goes back to the grid.
With ham (and other hobby where you amplify electricity) ground can become a serious issue. One issue in ham (or tube HiFi system etc), is noise. Noise is often due to electrical issues, some say cut the third pin (the ground) ahead of your gear and the noise goes away my question is, where did the electricity go? By cutting the ground you just cut the safety path for the electricity to go back to its source. You also want to avoid having any unwanted electrical current traveling through your gear while trying to go back to source, this is mostly what you are doing with your case ground arrangement, putting all your gear at the same electrical potential. You want any & all current to have a path back to source/grid/ground. Final thought, with your rod there, if a little bit of electricity leaks from your gear it goes into the soil 0k, (well technically it is not back to the same source). If lightning hits near your house that rod will conduct electricity from the lightning bolt right back up to your gear, this is where fuses and breakers get into the pictures.
My TV blew-up and it is the ground wire's fault, suuuuuuure.
My 2¢.
Cheers,
a.
I hear what you are saying and agree. My solution of disconnecting everythign at teh slightest sign of a storm or when it is not in use seems to be the best solution for me. The position of my shack and the design of the house as to where my official rod is located makes it a major pain in the butt to run a "proper" ground wire, so I came up with this solution instead of stressing abotu how I grounded. Is it ideal? no. Is it more work? Yes Does it work? Absolutely! But thank you again for sharing your knowledge. I really do appreciate it. 73!
I’m an appliance repair man and I’ve recently had an experience where somebody had the breakers off to a refrigerator over the summer, but it was still plugged in, essentially giving a ground to the refrigerator.
They must’ve gotten hit by lightning over the summer they reference losing a couple other things in the home that weren’t working when they got back. The refrigerator was working perfectly the day they turned off the breaker before heading back north for the summer.
They come back to Florida for the winter turn the breaker on in the refrigerator does nothing. I check it out and find the boards done.
And found myself thinking of this video.
I have also recently watched RUclipsr Dave Casler’s video on his lightning strike. He lost some equipment that wasn’t connected to the antenna, but was connected to the ground. I was like Yep. The ground gives another pathway to your equipment
I agree wholeheartedly. It is much simpler and efficient where if you are not using the equipment at the time or a storm is coming, just unmplug everything and eliminate the chance of having thigns get destroyed. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
A friend of mine spoke with the manufacturer of his radios and they also said to disconnect the earth ground during storms since he is almost positive that his shack had lightning damage from the ground connection since his antennas snd power were disconnected. He uses a very strong alligator clip now to bond his grounding bus to the pass through plate ground lug on his window and disconnects it when he leaves the shack along with power and antennas
I think that is a good idea. Better to be safe than standing in line with a credit card to buy your gear all over again!!!! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Good video…..I’m with ya
I am glad you enjoyed the video. 73!
Thanks for the content Scott, I’m a new subscriber. Definitely appreciate the rant and this video covers a lot of questions I had about grounding. 73 for now
Thanks for the sub! I am glad you found value in the video. Hope you will explore some of my other vids as well. I have a lot of good content here for you! Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
This is a great video. Really interesting. I am in process of setting up my first radio and the grounding issue is the number one issue on my mind right now. I want to fully understand the issue before I setup the radio/antenna and such. So it's a show stopper till I understand it. But that's a good thing because I get to learn something new.
Glad it was helpful! We tend to run down rabbit holes and drive ourselves nuts about grounding instead of just having fun with radio which is the idea behind going through all the stuff to get licensed and so on. If you can keep your grounding basic and effective, that's it! I hope you find a solution soon. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Thank you thank you thank you was going through this this week second guessing myself overthinking thank you for the slapping the face I ain't grounding
I'm glad you found the video helpful! It's a simple setup, but it works! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Agree that for lighting protection nothing works better than unplugging.
I’ve always worried about lightning hitting antenna and coming in through coax. So I unplug it all.
The proof is in the results right? Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
I was hoping you were going to do an update on your shack grounding. That’s what my conclusion came down to especially how I utilize my gear. The only radio that stays in my shack is my 2730 and that’s the only thing keeping have since I’m mostly driving. When I’m not home, it gets unplugged. When I’m home I plug it in and talk. Glad to see a new video from you Scott. Continue to get well. 73!
Thank you very much. I had requests over the past year about this topic and I had to find a way to approach it without being redundant. I think this definitely is something to think about. Unplugging your gear is THE best option for reasons I touched on in the video. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
I've been a ham for 45 years now. (Wow, I can't believe I'm that old.) This video is spot on. Unless you live on a mountain with a 1200 ft radio tower in your backyard, this grounding business has gotten out of hand. I mostly gave up on it years ago. I do have a copper rod pounded into the ground with lightning suppressors. That's only because I might forget to unplug my equipment and also maybe it will help if there's a lightning strike in the area. Obviously, if lightning hits your house, all bets are off. Also, I think some people have a problem with RF in their house, so they need some sort of grounding. Personally I've never had that problem. I was also trained by an extra class who had been a ham for 60 years, and he never grounded anything. Also, as the video says, things have changed. In the old days you didn't have grounded outlets and people played around with high voltage equipment, didn't take proper precautions, and I guess fried themselves. My philosophy is do the best you can, get on the air, and have fun. Thanks for a great video.
You nailed it! I agree that the topic gets heated way too often and made complicated where an easy solution is right in front of them. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!!!
Hey there Scott! I have been consumed with real life lately and was away from youtube. I was wondering about you lately and glad to see you are active. As far as grounding/bonding, I am an Electrical Engineer and I have a good friend who is also an Electrical Engineer and a Ham. We don’t agree on the principles. So it is no wonder that everyone is confused. I do agree with you that in a direct lightning strike, you will loose anything plugged in. I do like grounding for the near or almost hits, but that is just me. I do unplug when I see a storm coming and switch my feed lines to ground. Hey - you brought up some memories of my past with mentioning that grounding strap for your wrist. We did see a reduction in failures of semiconductor parts using this, but it is hard to prove. I am not going to loose friends over that. lol. All the best from north Texas. 73 de KI5HXM
Yeah that seems to be a touchy subject and I think the solution I came up with is a solid solution. My gear never has an issue so I think it is a solution for the time being. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
i used to do the same as your talking now. when thunderstorm on the way, - i unplug. i not using radio or thunderstorm season - i unplug. did this or years and years. then the area started having an occasional power fluctuations, so i started attaching a battery backup. battery backup can't really be unplugged or it chirps and chirps, and yes, i had unplugged electricl plugs from battery backup to computer and radio (and it's power supply). side note: only the PC was plugged into the battery backup, which included a/c and a control serial cable to the computer.
storms come and go and the routine was in effect: radios unplugged, antennas unplugged from radio, which was always attached to ground rod. one thunderstorm took my unplugged computer, radio, and battery backup out - melted most of the items. it appears the power surge came up the a/c house power, not a strike that came up the station ground. the battery backup was broken and wouldn't even power on. all a/c power supplies, that were attached to the battery backup worked, except the computer; items attached to the station ground and the antenna (was grounded) worked without issue, even things that were attached to the station ground worked, unless it had a USB connection to something, i concluded the surge didn't come in via the station ground, but via a/c into the USB connection on the battery backup. anything, directly connected to the battery backup via usb was fried along with anything connected in the usb chain from battery backup to radio which also was attached to the station ground. the computer power supply was fine, but the motherboard around the USB connection was fried. the computer had 2 usb devices attached: usb to signalink usb and radio. the usb to serial device exploded, i didn't find much of it. from the usb to serial connector went to the signalink device, had lots of burning on its motherboard, mostly around the usb connection. the computer, had extensive damage around the serial device and had lots of melting around usb connections. the the radio, which was attached via usb to pc and radio also was attached to the station ground. ham radio was burnt and some melting all over the place. anything from the radio that was attached via coax or station ground, without a usb connecction, was fine.
it appears the surge came via usb, and everythink that was connect to equipment via USB was fired/melted. i suspect the power surge entered the battery backup and was trying to get to earth ground, and the only path was through usb connections until it got to the radio which was attached to the station ground. i suggest, still use a station ground, but disconnect any connections between equipment. this could have been a VERY expensive lession, if it wasn't for APC's warranty/insurance. storms come and go and the routine was in effect: radios unplugged, antennas unplugged from radio, which was always attached to ground rod. one thunderstorm took my unplugged computer, radio, and battery backup out - melted most of the items. it appears the power surge came up the a/c house power, not a strike that came up the station ground. the battery backup was broken and wouldn't even power on. all a/c power supplies, that were attached to the battery backup worked, except the computer; therefore, i concluded the surge didn't come in via the station ground. however, anything, direct or indirect, connected via usb was fried. usb from battery backup to computer (computer fried, and not plugged into power, but usb connection still attached to battery backup). then computer had a usb to serial connector exploded and burned - didn't find most of the usb to serial device. then those usb to serial devices conneted to the ham radio (which also was attached to my antenna tuner and a signalink usb). the ham radio was fried, also the signalink usb also fried. the antenna tuner, connected via a cable between radio and tuner, and also had a station ground attachment - the tuner was fine.
Grounding is a touchyt subject, but I think we make it more difficult than it has to be. The setup I demonstraed ion teh video seems to work fine and in the end my gear is protected. Thank you for sharing yoru sotry! I appreciate that! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
I do the same thing. I unplug when storms are coming. Based on my research, the electrical ground at the outlet is all you need. I have a ground rod and window pass-through anyway, but I don't worry, since I unplug.
I think that is a good policy to adhere to. It has worked for me for over 2 years now and my gear is protected. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
Great video as always thanks for posting 👍
No problem 👍 Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!!
This is helpful. I disconnect everything too.
It seems to make sense and so far it works for me without fail 100% of the time. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
I commented with my experience and opinion on another of your videos but I will add something here you mentioned in this video. I build a lot of homebrew equipment and run 5KV on vacuum tube amplifiers and I absolutely ground all my equipment and cabinets to each other and to electrical ground return for the additional, and very important reason that I do not want a HV short to a chassis or rack, etc. to find a path thru me to where ever it wants to go. I know the current is not looking to personally kill me but, you can never be absolutely sure that some portion of it, in the case of a HV short to the outer metal of equipment, might just find that little random path thru you to, as I said, where ever it wants to go. I do my best to give it some easy place to go rather than thru me... I don't stress about it and am not confused - I take care of it. Physical safety is very much an important part of why I use grounds. Always have, always will. Stay safe and thanks for your videos.
I think your setup for your situation is absolutely the smart thing to do! Keep it simple , but effective and you should never have an issue. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!!
Q" NO#1 Bare copper vs Insulated copper wire or it don't matter at all. No#2 Does having a ground rod keep the noise floor down in your radio ? KQ4FIT
A NO#1: I don't think it matters, however you may be hard pressed to find shielded copper wire in 6 or 8 gauge. A NO#2: Grounding "can" have an effect on noise under certain conditions. The only way to find out if it helps you in your situation is to give it a shot and see if you notice a difference. I hope this helps. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
I have worked on many radio sites and have seen all of the professional grounding procedures used and still it’s not all foolproof. I moved to the EU about 17 years ago and the area we live in is mainly rock with little soil. The most efficient device is the Static Dissipator otherwise known as Hedgehogs here. A stainless steel ball covered with stainless 0.1” diameter like antenna rods with sharp point ground on the free ends. They are designed to discharge static buildup before a strike can occur. There were also advertised in the Tessco supply catalog for communications equipment. Over here the electric company wants the ground system at the meter. The requirements are three eight foot ground rods spaced 2 meters apart and in a delta configuration. This worked out well for us since two of the rods are located in flower beds that are constantly watered. The phone line was another issue, I was hit with a surge which destroyed some telephone equipment connected to that line. The phone company told me that grounding takes place at the poles outside, NOT! Luckily I had an AT&T short 66 block with built in "heat coils" which were the newer solid state variety instead of the carbon block of old, never had any line issues after that. Got a lot of funny reactions and questions from techs who had to come out for other issues with ADSL and phone issues.
As for grounding the hedgehogs I need to install a halo ground around the whole house because of the rocky terrain. Quite expensive but worth it. A word of caution to those who have installed a halo system around their home is to avoid walking anywhere near the halo during a storm. It can energize the ground at high levels if lightning should happen to strike the system.
Thank yo so much for sharing that! I really appreciate it! Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Scott
Glad you liked the article. As I mentioned I ground my antennas to prevent static build up. I unplug all my equipment when needed. I don’t have noise floor issues or RF in the shack so I don’t bother grounding my rig. Also my shack is on the 2nd floor of my house so a ground wire has the potential to radiate RF. The ARRL handbook even states that if your ground wire from your rig to the ground rod is too long then you should not ground.
73
Phil
Where is that stated in the ARRL handbook?
@doc145 The article was very informative! I have heard similar that if a ground wire is too long it could affect performance. I think I should crack open my ARRL handbook and see if I can find more info on that. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
@markdavis5486 I will see if I can find that section where it talks about that. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
So, what I'm getting is that apply the KISS principle. Something most hams seem to not apply. I used what I commented on your 2 year video on it: the difference is I used an old bus bar instead of a copper bar (basically a bus bar in itself) so I can just put one wire out. Works fine. Like you mentioned: people tend to overthink and over-engineer everything.
I agree 100%. The technique I chose for my situation seems to have been working for almost three years and I alleviates the stress. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
good points there Scott , my grounding scenario is as follows :-, when i was digging the hole for my tower ,4x4x4 feet deep i made a rubic cube shape of rebar (186 feet total), this was placed over my tower ground socket that is 4 inch square that was banged into the ground 20 inches, the cage was welded to the ground socket plus a additional 3 rebar rods to the cage then the rods are @ 45 degrees into the side of the hole then filled with concrete,thats the tower grounding sorted, in shack i have the long double female bulkhead so239s fixed to a solid copper bar (8 of) this bar has a thick earth cable from there through my wall onto a 4 foot long earth rod into the ground, as for my radio/rotator and antenna control box they have individual earth wires to a single collection box from there to the aforementioned copper bar, for my pc no extra grounding except keyboard /mouse & my mointors leads have ferrites on them, 50k ft8/ft4 qsos later i have no rf interference or problems with any of my 4 mointors :) :), remember the old adage KISS Keep It Silly Simple :) :)
WOW! That sounds like a much more advanced setup than anything I ever conceived of!! Sounds like you planned it out and did your homework. Thank you very much for sharing that info. I really appreciate it. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
Great to see you back Scott!! Thank you for sharing the grounding light! BTW, I bought some ABR coax because of you. Great cable and it's lighting proof!😂😂😂
Thank you so much! Glad you liked the video and hope it is helpful. I LOVE that ABR coax. I just spoke with Sherry yesterday to check up on her over there. They really are a good company with great customer service. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
I usually just slap an 8 foot groundrod every 16 feet until I get to the main ground. If I can't do that I just pop one outside the window and hook all my gear to that. Most hams aren't running 1500 watts from a 100 foot tower so things just aren't as critical as a million dollar commercial radio station. I just unhook everything in storms and don't sweat it at all.
That was kinda my thought. This technique has worked very well so far with zero chance of trashing my gear. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
@@HR4NT My main concern is will the circuit breaker trip during a fault so I test it and if it works then we all set. Overcomplicating doesn't mean its right. 👍
Great to see you back in front of the camera, Brother!
Hey, thanks! I am trying to get back to normal again...LOL Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
WELCOME BACK BUDDY!!! 🤜🤛
Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
AA4BD, Bill, I came to the very same conclusion as you have, years ago.
Good common sense video.
I figure this is the easiest way to solve the issue hands down. Common sense for the win! Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Looking great brother nice to see you back
Much appreciated. Thank you very much. Glad to be back! Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
Thanks for the video.
You are welcome! Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
I had a close lightning strike that had a static charge come thru a buried Ethernet cable that connected my shack to the house. It fried my WiFi router, fried a monitor port in my docking station, fried a monitor and fried my FT-450D. It won’t power up. Antenna was not connected to the radio. There was no surge that came thru the power. Inline fuses were intact. I think some kind of protection for the static charge would be good, because it jumped from the docking station to my radio. Good info and a lot to think about.
Glad it was helpful. Sorry you had those issues. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
My grounding setup: inside the shack, all devices are tied together and run to a common inside-the-house ground (this is mainly for rf noise). Outside is where my setup may differ. I have all my coax feed lines coming from antennas going to two sets of barrel connectors, mounted on two separate panels- hard to explain. One set of barrel connectors connect to my rig inside. The other is tied to a separate ground rod near this panels. When I want to play Ham I go outside and move the antenna feed line from the grounded barrel connector over to the appropriate connector tied to my rig (they’re labeled “wire”, “vertical”, and “2M”). It’s a little bit of a pain but I sleep well at night. If lightning strikes one of my antennas it’s got a path straight to a separate grounding rod -not the one at my panel. If lightning hits your antenna it’s got a path straight to that aluminum panel mounted on your window!
Good point, but I designed this pass through based on designs that are sole commercially. If a really bad storm is coming I unplug and capo everything with no connections to my house. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Do you disconnect the coax coming from your antenna to the outside of your window pass thru also or do you just disconnect the coax on the inside of the pass thru that goes to your radio?
I only disconnect the coax on the inside. In the event of a major storm where I think the house could get hit I would disconnect outside as well. Hope this helps. Thanks for the comment an for watching. 73!!
Wow! It is so refreshing to watch people on YT who can say what they really think, and not worry about what might be considered the gospel according to whoever. :-) You have saved me $$$. I'm going to download and read the pdf (thank you) and share all this with my son who is also a HAM. Great work! One quick question - would it make sense to plug everything into that surge protector / multiple outlet device so you could just pull one plug?
I am my own person. I am always glad to hear others opinions, but I will always formulate my own and report that on the channel. I am glad you like my style. Grounding being a touchy subject it is easy to get caught up in the minutia of it all, but I think my solution here is valid and sound. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!!!!
Hi 👋 the entire point of grounding all your radios is because in case you were not home at the time of a thunderstorm, or lightning strike that you have a better chance of it being protected. Which is why your breaker box is grounded to the house where it is grounded for the entire house in case of the lightning strike. The way you have your grounding situation now I totally agree with and which is why you should keep it like that just in case that same exact reason. ☺️☺️😊👌👌👌👌.
Keep up the interesting videos.
I also agree with what you were saying about having the ground wire, making all of them turns to wear your breaker boxes is not a good idea.
I get it. I just found that for absolute protection, unplugging guarantees no issues. I don't mind unplugging my gear and if I am away from the house I have it unplugged anyways. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Hey man,
While I have not yet watched your entire video - but will - here are a couple points. Pardon the input if you already know this stuff.
I'm old and have seen a lot in a 52 year career while wearing many proverbial hats - Industrial Electrician, Electronics Technician, Telemetry Technician, Theatre Lighting Designer and House Electrician, Missile Inspector, Radio Broadcast Engineer, dishwasher, and some other junk...in no particular order.
While growing up in SW Arizona I cared little about lightning because we had none there. After living elsewhere I learned about 2" and 4" flat copper strap and thick copper plate entrances with Polyphasers on all coax/heliax. Lightning does not like round conductors or curves or sharp bends. It loves the easiest path which tends to be flat surfaces with gentle radiuses, partly due to manifesting as a plasma typically above 100MHz. Those frequencies create such dense fields lines inside a conductor that current flow wants to be by skin effect.
But the most important idea to remember is based upon a simple principle of electricity. When there is a voltage differential across a conductor you have current flow. Conductors can be Copper, Silver(best), and earth. So think about what can happen when lightning strikes the ground near your house. Extremely high currents flow through the soil. If you have more than one ground rod driven, the resistance presented by the soil between them will allow for large differences of voltage at each rod. And what happens - CURRENT FLOW. Some of that current flow will travel up into your house on ground wires and smoke stuff, to include starting fires - potentially(pun intended). So, the only rule to follow is what? ONLY ONE GROUND ROD for the entire house!!!! Don't worry about running a long ground wire around your house exterior to reach the utility ground rod. Lightning will not follow it anyway. That long ground wire is only providing a safety ground. But, as I suspect you will cover in the remainder of the video, you do not need a outside ground! Your outlets already have grounds, bonded to the neutral buss and to the ONE ground rod outside. You are already covered, unless you are operating a old 'hot chassis' boat anchor receiver, or something else that can knock you across the shack.
Even the great Motorola way over-thinks the issue with their "halo" grounding system - 80% waste of time and money. Just use your head, employ simple, sensible practices, and use the best suppressors you can find for utility line surges, as well as the basics of keeping lightning out of the shack.
You are WAY smart about just disconnecting during a storm. For those of us radio and television engineers who cannot do that, there are other ways to keep transmitters on the air - but it takes money.
That's my advice. You seem smart enough to find the best path. Go for it dude!
73s
Thank you very much for that info and the comment! I really appreicate any outsid advice othes have to offer that can help other viewers. I kept my setup simple and it works 100% of teh time to this day. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Hey Scott! Great to see you back. Excellent topic because I just happened to buy my first HF rig, a FT 710, and exploring how I'm going to set it up in my basement. I tend to overthink things, too. 73 brother. KD9WRP
I think the K.I.S.S. method applies here. My technique works and as long as you are diligent in remembering to unplug you should have no problems and no stress about grounding. Congrats on the new 710!! Let me know if I can help and be sure to check out my website for a ton of great references. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
Very well said
Overthinking the grounding issue was the issue...LOL. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
You can make right hand turns with grouding electrode conductors. Not sure where that came from? Best thing to do in addition to what you have now is to tie the rods together. Running the conductor underground in the dirt, so you don't create a ground loop. Bare copper wire. You'd give your house a really good grounding system if you did that. It would help with common mode currents too on your equipment too, if you had any. Just makes for an over better station. You notice grouding issues usually when you start running amplifiers.
I appreciate that. I had read somewhere about the right angle thing, but my new setup seems to work fine with no issues. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Good video. I do not use a separate ground rod for my station. Like you I always disconnect coax cables when not operating. I also unplug from the wall. No need for an RF ground. This way the chassis of any equipment is connected to the power system ground through that third grounding wire.
If your antenna was an end fed wire where half the antenna was the ground, such as a quarter wave vertical or inverted L or EFHF then there might be a ground connection at the base of the antenna. This could be a problem if not done right. The ground could be elevated radials or buried radials. With buried radials, disconnecting the coax would again solve the two ground rod problem.
I am glad to see your good advice. By the way I am an Electrical Engineer for many many years and think I understand this stuff rather well.
Hey there! That is fantastic to hear this coming from an EE!!!! I got so frustrated because I feared that my equipment would not function or get damaged if I DIDN'T ground it to the point of night sweats...LOL I am not an expert on anything electrical, but I think the techniques I have employed are effective enough for my needs. I think everyone needs to make a decision based on their situation. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
I tend to agree, I have been hit by lightning on both of my antenna towers within micro seconds of each other. Beyond code Grounding. It came in in the house through the ground! It came in through plastic water lines. It wiped out radios that were disconnected. Coax was disconnected outside. I was so well grounded the lightning over loaded the ground and saturated everything. So much for up to "code" grounding.
WOW! Sorry to hear that. But you have just confirmed that my idea is sound. It's a bit inconvenient, but all we can do is our best to protect our equipment. That only needs to happen once to teach the lesson. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
If you get a direct hit, you are still screwed as the emf is massive and everything in the vicinity is charged and fried.
I downloaded the document but I can't read it as there are no pictures or diagrams. Lol
I can wire a house to electrical code but I think there are too many opinions on 'correct' RF code. I think you just do what you find that works for you with your gear, location and environment.
So far I don't ground anything as I only have HT's.😂👍
Like an old guy once told me. "If you give lightning a perfect path it's going to take it" that's why they stopped putting lightning rods on top of barns. Well grounded it still burned the barn down.
Agreed! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
I live in the Tampa bay area which has more lightning strikes per square kilometer than anywhere else in the US. I have a dipole on the roof of my assisted living facility. I plan to install a gas discharge tube lightning arrestor and ground rod on my coax before the summer thunderstorm season occurs. And yes, I do disconnect my Icom 7300 from its antenna anytime I am not using it in the summertime. I do have the ARRL insurance for my transceiver which does cover lightning damage. I figure I will be taking enough precautions to not have to worry about future lightning strikes.
All you can do is the best you can with what you have. As long as you are using common sense and have a plan, which it seems you do, then you should be OK. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
I’m going to ground mainly for RF noise considerations. I run off of battery, but grounds are important for noise
They can be. I would test your noise levels with and without and see if it is actually making a difference. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Great video and spot on
I hope it helped! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Just my 2 cents, feel free to toss it if you want. I would recommend setting up case ground to your antenna ground while operating for one reason only. There is a chance of the two ground rods being at a different potential. If that happens, you'll develop a current in the coax shield. You can make the case ground with a quick disconnect to keep with your current storm plan. I have shorting plugs that pass the antenna to ground when not in use. Prevents static arcing from center conductor to ground when lightning is near.
I actually have lightning arrestors on all my coax going from the antennas to my shack. Great tip! Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
@@HR4NTYour video helped me overcome MY paralysis by analysis. 👍🏻 Curious, though, about the arrestors on your coax. I too unplug everything (power & coax), but how are your arrestors installed? If my mast takes a direct hit, will/can anything come inside the house via the disconnected coax? That’s the last hurdle for me. Your video helped me over one the others. 🙏🏻
Thank you for your video, I dont even keep an antenna up all the time, I just go out set it up and then when I'm done for the day I take everything back down and unplug and put all my stuff away. So is the grounding mainly for lightning protection and electrical surges?? If that is the case would I be ok with just having a good surge protector, and not have anything up and plugged in during a storm? Being more specific I don't have a shack yet I just set my stuff on the kitchen table and run my coax through the window. I just bought a Ft-991a that I spent good money on, so I was a little worried cause I just have it wired up to a DC 13.8 x 30a power converter that is plugged in to a 3 wire outlet. I don't have anything connected to a ground other then the ground from the 3 wire plug on the converter. I don't keep it plugged in all the time though, I pull it out set it up for a few hours, then when I'm done I unplug everything pack it up and go out and take my antenna back down. Part of that reason is I don't have a shack I'm working off the dining room table so I can't leave it out all the time. I was working off of cheap radios and an sdr before but now I'm worried cause I spent a lot on this new radio, I don't want to mess it up.
Keeping your gear unplugged is the best bet. You can go down a bunch of rabbit holes with grounding as it seems to be a subject that everyone has an opinion on. Keep in mind that no matter how well you ground nothing will survive a direct lightning strike. Common sense dictates that just keeping it unplugged when not in use or if a storm is approaching will be a more guaranteed method of protecting your gear. Grounding is to help protect from surges and I also have a quality surge protector in my shack that all my gear plugs into. I hope this helps. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
@@HR4NT Thank you, yea I bought a 4500 joule surge protector, and will just disconnect/unplug when not in use. Thanks for your video 👍👍
Most lightning damage comes in threw the ground
Agreed. Radios are too expensive to take chances! Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
It come thru an improper grounding system
I have always worried about not having my station properly grounded. When I first set up my station and had my tower installed we dug a five foot deep hole for the concrete base. At the bottom of the hole I drove an 8 foot ground rod into the ground so it goes down about 13 feet. The ground here is actually not very good. But also storms here are extremely rare. Anyway, then I ran grounding cable from the ground rod underneath my mobile home to go up through the floor to my station. The cable from the grounding rod was too short to reach. Then I attached another grounding cable to it with a clamp. Now the first part of the cable is about 2 inches wide but the added part is only an inch or so wide. I don’t know if that makes a difference or not. Then that was attached to a copper piece to which all of my equipment was attached with short pieces of cable. Then I heard that the station ground must be connected to the main electrical ground. I live in a mobile home and the main ground is almost at the other end of the house which is nearly 70 feet away. So since grounding should be as short as possible that doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. In 2919 I had to temporarily move out of state because my mom was not doing well and was in her last years. My sister was her 24/7 caregiver at that time. After she passed away I returned home in 2022. Other people had lived in my house while I was gone. I came back to find my station completely disassembled and much of my equipment gone. Even my chair and desk set up. The copper piece to which everything was grounded is gone the grounding cable had disappeared beneath the floor as well as coax from the my two VHF/UHF antennas (one vertical and one horizontal). Several years ago my Explorer-14 was damaged in the wind so now that is no longer up on the tower and some of the pieces are missing too. My rotator cable that also used to come up through the floor is also hiding somewhere underneath the floor. My OmniVII is gone. My Yaesu 736-R is gone. I do still have my old Paragon but the display no longer works. The only HF antenna I have is an 80 meter dipole hanging off the tower in sort of an inverted vee form. My LDG auto tuner is also gone but I have a small manual tuner. About all I do now is listen to Net on 75 meters. One question I have about grounding is how does grounding or not grounding affect transmitted signal or not? 73 DE KL7CH.
Thank you for sharing your story. Sounds like you went through a lot! I fell for ya man and I hope that someday you are able to get more gear and enjoy radio once again. As to your question: I think in certain conditions grounding can affect signal a bit, but not enough in my experience to warrant overthinking of it and making sure everything is perfect. Radials on certain antennas, like the DX Commander antennas series, can absolutely affect signal, but I never ground my antennas or my gear. My solution I lay out in the video, works every time for safety of the gear and does not affect my transmissions or reception. I hope this helps. Thanks for the comment and for watching. 73!
Excellent video
Thank you very much! I think it makes perfect sense. Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73!
I ground my antennas with arrestors and masts and tower as well. Because I specifically run my gear during storms for ARES weather nets and the national weather service uses my echolink node for communication to the local repeater. But that's me and my situation. I also accept that in a direct strike that effort is not saving antennas and may not save my radios.
See, I get that. If you are using your radios for a situation like you describe, you take whatever precautions you can, but you know that there could be an incident in which case it could go South. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for the comment and for watching. 73!
The shortest path from your operating desk to a ground rod is the best. I would suggest using #10 AWG at a minimum, if not 1" tinned braid ground strapping. I also recommend a tapped buss bar at the desk so you can use screws to ground equipment with coax braid. A 4' long ground rod is the smallest I would use, 8' preferred. I understand you may not have the $ to spend on grounds at first, but over the years you can add to your ground system at a small cost. A good ground can only add to your Ham pleasure by eliminating static and RF interference.
If you saw my first grounding video, I did almost exactly that This was an update to that video because I got frustrated with the entire grounding of my shack. I appreciate the info though! Thanks for watching and for the comment. 73