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Old May 4th 09, 04:05 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.antenna
Jim Lux Jim Lux is offline
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Mar 2007
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Default Station With Center-Fed Dipole - Best Grounding Technique?

d

Do you have metal water pipes upstairs with continuity to a spot near
the ground rods downstairs? If so you can run a strap to your shack
upstairs, and another from the water pipe to the ground rods downstairs.



bad plan.

1) Water pipes may or may not have good electrical conductivity.
2) You're asking for leakage current to flow in the pipes: corrosion is
one possibility, shocks to people touching the pipes or plumbing is another.
3) If you also have the third wire ground to chassis, good chance you've
now created a big receiving loop consisting of the pipes and your house
electrical systems. Not good.

4) Using plumbing systems for electrical safety bonding/grounding is not
recommended in any of the recent editions of the electrical code, and is
certainly not a good idea for RF currents.



You need an RF ground (as the safety ground is the 3 prong Edison.) MFJ
makes an artificial ground.


If it's a coax fed antenna, there should be no need for any sort of RF
ground in the shack.


Do you use a balun at the antenna
feedpoint? How do you tune the inverted-V?


Good RF chokes on the coax at the feedpoint and at the point of entry
would go a long way to eliminating any "RF in the shack" problems. A
couple 2.4" 31 mix cores with half a dozen turns on them, for instance.

Whether the V is tuned or not won't have any effect on RFI or grounding.