'as short as possible' it the important phrase. its not always possible to
keep it really short. another important part is keeping it as fat as
possible, meaning use heavy wire or, even better, something like copper
flashing, aluminum flashing or angle stock, or something like that. aluminum
angle stock that you find in 6-8' lengths in hardware stores makes excellent
ground busses, its easily drilled for connections to equipment, can be
easily bolted together at corners, and makes a nice neat installtion... use
the 1" or wider stuff if you can get it. do not use multiple ground rods
unless you also connect them all together outside... and if you do drive a
'station' ground rod be sure it is also connected outside with heavy
conductor to your existing power entrance ground. and while you are at it
make sure the power entrance is also connected to your water pipe coming in,
pool filter ground, outdoor light ground, and anything else grounded outside
the house.

"ku4yp" wrote in message
news:599_c.677$Va5.488@trnddc01...
i have a question.

in reference to station grounding, i have read keep the grounding
strap
as short as possible and not a multiple of a resonant length on the ham
bands. with that in mind, even if i ground pieces of equipment to
individual
ground rods, won't the complete grounding system be long? in my mind i am
looking around the room and seeing a grounding system being at least 12
feet
long, if i go along the perimeter of the desks (which are in a "U" shape
in
the room.

trying to grasp this in a practical sense. sorry if it is basic and i
am
just not understanding it.

not responsible for spelling. :-) any input on this would be most
appreciated.

--
73 de KU4YP "A clean ham shack is the
Mike Prevatt sign of a sick mind....."
Advanced Operator
Bartow, Florida Active HF/VHF/Digital

i thank you all for the comments.

to tie into the electirical service will be a pain as the electrical
gound is on the total oposite end of the house from the shack. i'll have to
work something out there. water pipe grounding will not be a problem.

i can see i have much more reading to do.

thanks agian, mike


--
73 de KU4YP "A clean ham shack is the
Mike Prevatt sign of a sick mind....."
Advanced Operator
Bartow, Florida Active HF/VHF/Digital
"Dave" wrote in message
...
'as short as possible' it the important phrase. its not always possible
to
keep it really short. another important part is keeping it as fat as
possible, meaning use heavy wire or, even better, something like copper
flashing, aluminum flashing or angle stock, or something like that.
aluminum
angle stock that you find in 6-8' lengths in hardware stores makes
excellent
ground busses, its easily drilled for connections to equipment, can be
easily bolted together at corners, and makes a nice neat installtion...
use
the 1" or wider stuff if you can get it. do not use multiple ground rods
unless you also connect them all together outside... and if you do drive a
'station' ground rod be sure it is also connected outside with heavy
conductor to your existing power entrance ground. and while you are at it
make sure the power entrance is also connected to your water pipe coming
in,
pool filter ground, outdoor light ground, and anything else grounded
outside
the house.

"ku4yp" wrote in message
news:599_c.677$Va5.488@trnddc01...
i have a question.

in reference to station grounding, i have read keep the grounding
strap
as short as possible and not a multiple of a resonant length on the ham
bands. with that in mind, even if i ground pieces of equipment to
individual
ground rods, won't the complete grounding system be long? in my mind i
am
looking around the room and seeing a grounding system being at least 12
feet
long, if i go along the perimeter of the desks (which are in a "U" shape
in
the room.

trying to grasp this in a practical sense. sorry if it is basic and
i
am
just not understanding it.

not responsible for spelling. :-) any input on this would be most
appreciated.

--
73 de KU4YP "A clean ham shack is the
Mike Prevatt sign of a sick mind....."
Advanced Operator
Bartow, Florida Active HF/VHF/Digital

On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 20:28:58 GMT, "ku4yp" wrote:

i thank you all for the comments.

to tie into the electirical service will be a pain as the electrical
gound is on the total oposite end of the house from the shack. i'll have to
work something out there. water pipe grounding will not be a problem.

i can see i have much more reading to do.

thanks agian, mike

When we had an electrician upgrade the incoming electrical service box
on my mother's house (circa 1960), he ran a large 8 gauge wire from
the box at the end of the garage, along the wall of the house all the
way to the incoming water line from the street near the other end of
the basement, where he tied it to ground next to the water meter.

The National Electrical Code has changed, and those in older houses
might consider upgrading to current code (no pun intended) even if not
actually required.

In industrial situations, I have had to deal with ground loop
problems, which are a PITA to find. Do your grounding correctly, and
you will be safer, and have an easier time of it.

Happy trails,
Gary (net.yogi.bear)
------------------------------------------------
at the 51st percentile of ursine intelligence

Gary D. Schwartz, Needham, MA, USA
Please reply to: garyDOTschwartzATpoboxDOTcom

On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 15:10:28 GMT, Gary S. Idontwantspam@net wrote:
[snip]
|In industrial situations, I have had to deal with ground loop
|problems, which are a PITA to find. Do your grounding correctly, and
|you will be safer, and have an easier time of it.

You should have seen the problems I had when I had the house
electricians wiring up an r-f shielded room. Trying to convince them
that they had to run just *one* ground wire from a single point on the
room to a building ground and not the service entrance ground *and*
that the wire couldn't be bare and laying on the sprinkler system
piping, the A/C ducts and electrical conduit in the overhead.

Then fighting off the fire department guys that insisted that they
were going to run a pipe into the room for sprinklers.

On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 08:41:17 -0700, Wes Stewart
wrote:

On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 15:10:28 GMT, Gary S. Idontwantspam@net wrote:
[snip]
|In industrial situations, I have had to deal with ground loop
|problems, which are a PITA to find. Do your grounding correctly, and
|you will be safer, and have an easier time of it.

You should have seen the problems I had when I had the house
electricians wiring up an r-f shielded room. Trying to convince them
that they had to run just *one* ground wire from a single point on the
room to a building ground and not the service entrance ground *and*
that the wire couldn't be bare and laying on the sprinkler system
piping, the A/C ducts and electrical conduit in the overhead.

Then fighting off the fire department guys that insisted that they
were going to run a pipe into the room for sprinklers.

Most licensed electricians (in theory all of them, but I'll leave
that) have a good understanding of issues related to DC and 60 Hz AC,
voltages up to 480, currents up to 100 A.

Once you get to higher frequencies, including RF, or to serious
voltages or currents, the number of people who really understand drops
off rather quickly, unfortunately as the potential problems and
dangers increase.

Happy trails,
Gary (net.yogi.bear)
------------------------------------------------
at the 51st percentile of ursine intelligence

Gary D. Schwartz, Needham, MA, USA
Please reply to: garyDOTschwartzATpoboxDOTcom

On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 08:41:17 -0700, Wes Stewart wrote:

On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 15:10:28 GMT, Gary S. Idontwantspam@net wrote:
[snip]
|In industrial situations, I have had to deal with ground loop
|problems, which are a PITA to find. Do your grounding correctly, and
|you will be safer, and have an easier time of it.

You should have seen the problems I had when I had the house
electricians wiring up an r-f shielded room. Trying to convince them
that they had to run just *one* ground wire from a single point on the
room to a building ground and not the service entrance ground *and*
that the wire couldn't be bare and laying on the sprinkler system
piping, the A/C ducts and electrical conduit in the overhead.

Then fighting off the fire department guys that insisted that they
were going to run a pipe into the room for sprinklers.

Apparently the electricians only knowledge of 'loop' was in 'loophole'.

On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 17:04:08 GMT, Walter Maxwell wrote:

|On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 08:41:17 -0700, Wes Stewart wrote:
|
|On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 15:10:28 GMT, Gary S. Idontwantspam@net wrote:
|[snip]
||In industrial situations, I have had to deal with ground loop
||problems, which are a PITA to find. Do your grounding correctly, and
||you will be safer, and have an easier time of it.
|
|You should have seen the problems I had when I had the house
|electricians wiring up an r-f shielded room. Trying to convince them
|that they had to run just *one* ground wire from a single point on the
|room to a building ground and not the service entrance ground *and*
|that the wire couldn't be bare and laying on the sprinkler system
|piping, the A/C ducts and electrical conduit in the overhead.
|
|Then fighting off the fire department guys that insisted that they
|were going to run a pipe into the room for sprinklers.
|
|Apparently the electricians only knowledge of 'loop' was in 'loophole'.

Yep. To elaborate. The building (100,000 sq ft) was constructed of
tip-up concrete exterior walls and steel columns and roof trusses. A
few of the columns, were dedicated ground points, complete with copper
plates for wire attachement. They were bonded to the steel rebar grid
in the concrete slab-on-grade floor.

All of the A/C conductors into the room, neutral included, ran through
some real hefty line filters that were on the outside of the room with
feedthrus into a distribution box inside. On top of the room was a
single copper stud for ground connection.

As I said earlier, the electricians wanted to ground the room with the
usual A/C distribution safety ground wire. When I said no, they
needed to go to the nearest column ground, they ran a 6 AWG bare
copper wire to the grounding plate. Of course the wire was in contact
with everything it contacted.

So when I saw this I said no, you have to run an insulated wire. So
the next iteration was a single green wire. I said no, some bozo
plumber (I shouldn't say this, my brother's a plumber) or HVAC guy
will be up there working and the wire will be in the way and they'll
cut it and my room with be a 100 or so V above ground due to all of
the capacitors in the filters. I finally got my insulated wire in
conduit.

Then the HVAC guys wanted to run a steel duct to the room. Noooo, use
an insulated collar and give me a pneumatic thermostat.

Then as mentioned earlier, it was the fire department. They saw all
of the handy pipes running through my feedthru panel (actually
waveguide below cutoff feedthrus) and said we can just plumb in the
water through one of these. Nooo, can't have a metallic connection.
So they say, they can use a dielectric union. Nooo, the water in
those pipes hasn't moved in 20 years and is primarily rust.

When they started talking about halon I said that my widow was going
to have a real good time with the millions she would get from the
lawsuit. They decided that the regular sprinkler system above the
shielded room was okay afterall.