Jack Painter wrote:
"Single Point ground"...this means *not* daisy-chaining to a bus bar
behind equipment tables if possible, and connecting each piece of
equipment to one (1) point that becomes the station's single point
ground. *Not* several ground rods from "individual" equipment. After
you collect all the station bonding straps at a single point, then you
run to a very close ground rod. After you hit that first single ground
rod with the bus from all station equipment,

OK, I follow all that; but it doesn't fully address the original
poster's question about ground routing inside the operating room.

The question really is: what's the best *practical* way to route the
grounding from that single exit point to all the individual pieces of
equipment on the operating desks?

Even a small amateur station can be spread over several feet of desk;
L-shaped corner layouts are very common; and the OP is talking about an
even larger U-shaped layout. This means the distances from individual
items of equipment to the common the ground exit point can range from a
few feet up to even a few tens of feet (in terms of the minimum
practical distance around the rear of the desks). Also, modern amateur
stations are heavily cross-connected by signal/data/control cables,
which provide additional paths for damaging current surges to get inside
the equipment.

Everyone agrees (I hope) that the objective is to keep all the equipment
at the same potential, even when the local ground potential "bounces"
due to a nearby strike. Above all, the objective is to avoid current
surges going through the insides of individual items - those are what do
the damage.

For all the practical reasons outlined above, I don't believe there is a
completely "right" answer to the grounding problem inside the operating
room. Every practical method seems to have some drawbacks.

Based on your experience, what are your views about that specific
problem, Jack?



--
73 from Ian G3SEK 'In Practice' columnist for RadCom (RSGB)
http://www.ifwtech.co.uk/g3sek