Diana Satyr wrote:
For those few of us whose radio happens to be located just a few feet from the
main ground rod for the house, why don't we ground our radios by just pluging a
bit of thick wire into the grounding hole of a standard 3-wire AC sockek?
Looks like the house ground would be a decent RF ground when the run is just
about 5 feet from the socket in question to the ground rod.

Anyone know any drawbacks to this?

Anyone know what guage of wire would fit snugly into that hole?
(It's not #10. I tried that. I don't have any thicker wire to try.)

Moonman
1/01/07
--
Eponymous coverage
"""""''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' '''''''''
If I were that close to the actual ground rod I would run the ground
wire to that rather than rely on perfect connections through the main
panel. It would probably be ok but you should check the ground hole
with a ground fault indicator. I have seen sockets with the polarities
reversed and the ground wire not connected and I would not trust any
socket until I had checked it out. Perhaps some electrical person will
have further info.

On Jan 1, 2:05 pm, "ve3..." wrote:
Diana Satyr wrote:
For those few of us whose radio happens to be located just a few feet from the
main ground rod for the house, why don't we ground our radios by just pluging a
bit of thick wire into the grounding hole of a standard 3-wire AC sockek?
Looks like the house ground would be a decent RF ground when the run is just
about 5 feet from the socket in question to the ground rod.

Anyone know any drawbacks to this?

Anyone know what guage of wire would fit snugly into that hole?
(It's not #10. I tried that. I don't have any thicker wire to try.)

Moonman
1/01/07
--
Eponymous coverage"""""''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''*'''''''''''''''' ''''''''''''''''''

- If I were that close to the actual ground rod
- I would run the ground wire to that rather than
- rely on perfect connections through the main panel.

It would probably be ok but you should check the ground hole
with a ground fault indicator. I have seen sockets with the polarities
reversed and the ground wire not connected and I would not trust any
socket until I had checked it out. Perhaps some electrical person will
have further info.

VE3 - Yes -if- the distance is that short.
Run a New Wire and ensure that you have
a direct path and good connections to the
Electrical Ground Rod as the single point
of Ground. ~ RHF
.
.
.. .