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Re: [TowerTalk] Fwd: Grounding of tower

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Fwd: Grounding of tower
From: Jim Brown <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com>
Reply-to: jim@audiosystemsgroup.com
Date: Sun, 12 May 2013 15:49:26 -0700
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
On 5/10/2013 11:55 PM, Jim Thomson wrote:
##  Interesting enough, you won’t find  3 prong plugs on any consumer stereo 
gear these days !
They are ALL 2 prong types, with a polarized plug.  Ditto with flat screen TV’s 
 etc.  If the
chassis’ ever ended up hot, you would not be aware of it.

Those appliances manufactured without the third grounding pin are Class II appliances. Class II appliances are those that cannot present a shock hazard, either because they have no exposed metal parts, or because any exposed metal parts are "double insulated" from mains power. Most power tools also carry Class II ratings.

##  Is anybody actually stupid enough to make pro-audio rack gear with pin 1 
problems?

When Neil Muncy published his classic paper on Pin One in 1994, virtually ALL pro audio and broadcast gear was built with Pin One Problems -- it was hard to find anything that was done right. Ten years later, a tour of the exhibit floor would turn up lots of Pin One Problems, but also a lot of gear that was good. Now, nearly 20 years later, MOST pro gear does NOT have Pin One Problems, but nearly all consumer gear, computer gear, lots of "semi-pro" stuff, and nearly all ham gear is still built with Pin One Problems. The Pin One Problem was addressed by the first AES Standard on EMC, AES48.

I have 2 full racks of pro audio gear, and none of it has pin 1 problems.   If 
it did,  I would
just send it back.

I suggest that you carefully examine it, and perhaps do the RF Pin 1 tests described in the AES paper on my website. It's pretty simple -- you drive between the shield and the chassis with an RF generator modulated by a 1 kHz tone and listen to the output of the DUT for 1 kHz as you sweep the generator from 100 kHz to 500 MHz (or whatever your frequency of interest). You repeat that test for every input and every output, and if you hear the tone, you've got a problem. It's also worth looking at the connection of the power system "Green wire," which is often insulated from the chassis by paint. That's a common problem with Astron power supplies.

##  On both my yaesu 1000MK-V’s and also the pair of 1000 –D’s,  I’m sure they 
both  have the
pin 1 problem.  On the mk-v, the rca  patch input on the rear apron is a right 
angle to the board.
No big deal, I just installed a new rca jack directly to the  AL rear 
apron....then wired the hot side of the rca directly to the analog BM 
input...problem solved.

That's the sort of thing that we have to do. OR put a common mode choke on the cable connected to the Pin One Problem. When I was using FT1000MPs, I had RF feedback through the mic jack on 75M and 15M. A sweep with the generator showed peaks just above 75M and at 15M;

73, Jim K9YC
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