You're most likely to blow out the radio by grounding it. The power
grid produces all sorts of voltages between different grounds,
and any difference flows through your radio if you ground it without
some theoretical care. Not to mention what happens in a thunderstorm.
Your cold water pipes (if metal) are common to the house ground and
so least threatening but it's still tempting fate. All the radio needs
is a counterpoise to its whip; the wall wart supplies that already,
capacitively.

If you have a multimeter, measure the AC (not DC) voltage between
two ground stakes driven in say twenty feet apart. Usually it's
about a half a volt. The earth is alive out there.

If you have an outdoor antenna and a coax feed, grounding begins to
make sense in noise reduction, to prevent noise from the house from
making it into the antenna as much as possible.
--
Ron Hardin


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.