Hello,
Can anyone offer me a little advice on the grouding of my SW
receivers? I have a couple old Soviet SW radios, a Sony SW77, Sangean
ATS909 and a new Degen 1102. I want to make a ground that will work
well with any of these receivers. What material is best? Copper,
Iron, Steel etc? A rod or plate? What is the best type of cable to
use as a lead-in to the receiver? Is there an ideal length?
Depending on where the radio will be the lenght could be anything from
5ft to 30ft. Any advice is much appreciated.
Thanks,
Alan

Have you tried tying a wire to your COLD water line?

--
Gregg
*It's probably useful, even if it can't be SPICE'd*
http://geek.scorpiorising.ca

Alan J Giddings wrote:

Hello,
Can anyone offer me a little advice on the grouding of my SW
receivers? I have a couple old Soviet SW radios, a Sony SW77, Sangean
ATS909 and a new Degen 1102. I want to make a ground that will work
well with any of these receivers. What material is best? Copper,
Iron, Steel etc? A rod or plate? What is the best type of cable to
use as a lead-in to the receiver? Is there an ideal length?
Depending on where the radio will be the lenght could be anything from
5ft to 30ft. Any advice is much appreciated.
Thanks,
Alan

First, you need to understand the difference between a ground for
protecting against power surges or lightning and a ground intended for
lowering the noise level at the receiver. The first kind is easy to do.
You just run a fairly heavy wire (#12) from the receiver chassis to the
nearest earth ground, which can be a cold water pipe (if it's all metal
plumbing) or a ground rod outside the house. Also use a surge protector
for the receiver's power supply. Ground the protector to the same earth
ground for the receiver.
The second kind of ground is called an RF ground. This helps to reduce
noise on the antenna system from sources in your house like televisions,
computers and other applicances. This is harder to do well. I suggest
you look at the following website for more information on building a low
noise antenna system. Good luck.

http://www.anarc.org/naswa/badx/ante...e_antenna.html


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starman wrote in message ...
Alan J Giddings wrote:

Hello,
Can anyone offer me a little advice on the grouding of my SW
receivers? I have a couple old Soviet SW radios, a Sony SW77, Sangean
ATS909 and a new Degen 1102. I want to make a ground that will work
well with any of these receivers. What material is best? Copper,
Iron, Steel etc? A rod or plate? What is the best type of cable to
use as a lead-in to the receiver? Is there an ideal length?
Depending on where the radio will be the lenght could be anything from
5ft to 30ft. Any advice is much appreciated.
Thanks,
Alan


Myself, I hardly think it's worth the trouble with most portables. If
you see an improvement, it will probably be in the LW/MW spectrum. On
the higher HF bands, there is little help in adding a ground unless
you have some kind of wierd antenna issue, or little antenna at all. I
bet you will notice little difference in most cases, unless your
antenna is small and lame. A ground is not required for quiet radio
reception. In fact, ground is a noise source. I use no outside
grounding at all to my shack. I have outside grounds, but they are a
lightning return. Most of my antennas are complete, and require no rf
ground to properly function. The only one I have that does, is a 160m
inverted L. It requires an rf ground at the base of the antenna to
provide the "lower half". All my others are dipoles, yagi's, etc, that
are complete antennas in themselves and require no extra rf ground.
This is the preferred route to go if possible.


The second kind of ground is called an RF ground. This helps to reduce
noise on the antenna system from sources in your house like televisions,
computers and other applicances. This is harder to do well. I suggest
you look at the following website for more information on building a low
noise antenna system. Good luck.

Maybe semi-misleading...It's the improved decoupling of the feedline
from the antenna that reduces the noise level. "noise ingress" Not
the grounding itself, although the grounding helps in the decoupling
of the line. Ground is a noise source. An RF ground should be under an
antenna to provide it's "lower half" if it requires it. IE: 1/4 wave
vertical, etc.. So if you use a balanced antenna that requires no
"lower half", IE: 1/2 wave dipole, 1 wave loop, etc, you need no rf
ground at all. MK


http://www.anarc.org/naswa/badx/ante...e_antenna.html

Mark Keith wrote:

It's the improved decoupling of the feedline
from the antenna that reduces the noise level. "noise ingress" Not
the grounding itself, although the grounding helps in the decoupling
of the line.

I think we're talking semantics here, but how else could you decouple
the feedline of an inverted-L antenna other than using an effective
(short) earth ground connection?


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Counterpoise.

"starman" wrote in message
...
I think we're talking semantics here, but how else could you decouple
the feedline of an inverted-L antenna other than using an effective
(short) earth ground connection?

How would you build a counterpoise for an inverted-L?

CW wrote:

Counterpoise.

"starman" wrote in message
...
I think we're talking semantics here, but how else could you decouple
the feedline of an inverted-L antenna other than using an effective
(short) earth ground connection?



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starman wrote in message ...
Mark Keith wrote:

It's the improved decoupling of the feedline
from the antenna that reduces the noise level. "noise ingress" Not
the grounding itself, although the grounding helps in the decoupling
of the line.

I think we're talking semantics here, but how else could you decouple
the feedline of an inverted-L antenna other than using an effective
(short) earth ground connection?

As one mentioned, radials. Or you could use a choke,beads, etc. Lets
say you had a 1/4 wave ground plane that was elevated with a set of
radials. The radials will decouple the feedline pretty well. There is
no need to ground the radials, or the supporting mast, except as a
lightning concern. A choke will decouple the line fairly well. Noise
ingress has nothing to do with being grounded or not. It's an issue of
decoupling the feedline from the antenna. Using a ground connection
under an "L" will decouple it fairly well, but it's just one method
that can be used, and the "ground" is not a required element. It's not
just semantics, because an "rf ground" is not a requirement of good
decoupling. But saying that, I usually do ground the low end of inv
L's. MK

Mark Keith wrote:

starman wrote in message ...
Mark Keith wrote:

It's the improved decoupling of the feedline
from the antenna that reduces the noise level. "noise ingress" Not
the grounding itself, although the grounding helps in the decoupling
of the line.

I think we're talking semantics here, but how else could you decouple
the feedline of an inverted-L antenna other than using an effective
(short) earth ground connection?

As one mentioned, radials. Or you could use a choke,beads, etc. Lets
say you had a 1/4 wave ground plane that was elevated with a set of
radials. The radials will decouple the feedline pretty well. There is
no need to ground the radials, or the supporting mast, except as a
lightning concern. A choke will decouple the line fairly well. Noise
ingress has nothing to do with being grounded or not. It's an issue of
decoupling the feedline from the antenna. Using a ground connection
under an "L" will decouple it fairly well, but it's just one method
that can be used, and the "ground" is not a required element. It's not
just semantics, because an "rf ground" is not a requirement of good
decoupling. But saying that, I usually do ground the low end of inv
L's. MK

I agree that the feedline of an elevated ground plane can be effectively
decoupled using radials but it's not clear to me how you would use
radials with the typical inverted-L. Where would you locate the radials
in that case?


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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.