RE: [TowerTalk] Station Ground

["Ward Silver" <hwardsil@centurytel.net>]

One thing has been overlooked in the discussion of grounding with respect to 
lightning and ac safety.  I don't disagree with anything W3LPL had to say, 
but I would like to point out that it is important to keep all of the 
equipment close to the same RF potential as possible.  This prevents RF 
feedback and circulating current between pieces of equipment.  Connecting 
all of the equipment together with a low-impedance strap is a good way to 
accomplish this.

Note that you probably can't make that RF potential equal to zero because of 
the length of the connection between the strap and earth.  That doesn't 
matter, you just want the radio, the tuner, the audio mixer, whatever, to be 
at the SAME potential to prevent current flow between their chassis.  This 
is a particular problem with "second story" shacks where a connection to 
true ground may be meters long.  At multi-position stations, it's also 
impossible to keep all the equipment at the same potential and so you have 
to settle for keeping the equipment at each position at the same potential, 
even though that may be many volts different than one of the other 
positions.

73, Ward N0AX 


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