On Tue, 17 Jul 2007 04:48:48 -0700, Denny wrote:

I use 4 foot to 8 foot long, half inch dia., copper pipe put into the
ground with the use of a water hose clamped to the top of the pipe and
a pump - this hydraulically drills the pipe into the soil... They are
laid out in a grid around the towers and along the back side of the
shack with 16 feet separation... They are all interconnected with bare
copper #2 gauge, stranded ground wire (mostly) which is slit into the
ground an inch or so to keep it away from the mower blades... All of
this creates a large area of metal in contact with the soil..

All of this agonizing over contact of hydraulically driven pipe versus
pounded stakes, etc., etc., amounts to counting the number of angels
dancing on the head of a pin... Just get in as many ground pipes/
stakes as you can on 16 foot centers, interconnect them in a grid with
bare wire slit into the soil, run heavy gauge wire from the stake just
outside of wall of the house/shack to the buss bar behind the radio,
and be happy...

Like Denny I have a lot of ground rods (32 or 33) in a network
CadWelded (TM) to over 600 feet of bare #2 copper wire that ties into
the station forming a single point ground or as near to it as I can
get. The coax shields are grounded at the top and bottom of the tower
as well as to a ground plate where they enter the house.

I also competely isolate the radios and amps when they are not in
use...

Unlike him I rarely disconnect anything for several reasons. The
first is the stuff is just too difficult to get to. The second is, I'm
lazy and although I could disconcert the station when not in use it
takes a good 10 to 15 minutes to get things hooked back up. Typically
I want to turn it on, listen, and then operate if the bands are open
or shut down if not. In addition, nature threw me a curve a bit over 3
months ago making it very difficult for me to get into places like
behind the rigs to disconnect things although I hope to be able to get
back in there and up the tower again before long.
One other thing and it may be, and probably is due to luck, but with
an average of three verified direct hits on the tower per year I've
had no damage to any rig since finishing up the ground system.

Roger (K8RI)

denny / k8do