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[TowerTalk] Grounding Standards

To: "towertalk reflector" <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: [TowerTalk] Grounding Standards
From: "Jim Brown" <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com>
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 08:32:27 -0700
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
On Fri, 27 Jul 2007 11:04:26 -0400, Alan NV8A wrote:

>My understanding is that the NEC sets a minimum standard.

The NEC is a guideline document writen by a collection of very 
smart guys (and revised every three years). By itself, it carries 
no authority at all. It carries the force of law when it is 
adopted by an "authority having jurisdiction" -- that is, your 
local building department, which is a part of your local 
government. 

Most local building departments adopt it without modification. A 
few cities have written their own -- Los Angeles and Chicago come 
to mind. The Chicago code is unrelated to NEC, and probably 
predates it. Last I looked, it was pretty archaic, and some 
elements of it were clearly designed to generate work for union 
electricians. :) 

The grounding requirements of NEC are not terribly demanding, so 
the stuff I'm seeing quoted here re: tower grounding seems a bit 
suspect. I'd like to see citations of the numbered paragraphs that 
call for the large conductors being discussed before I take it as 
gospel.   

The NEC is a pretty good document. I don't know of anything in it 
that requires anything that is bad for radio, audio, or video. I 
know of a lot of dumb things that are done by people designing 
radio, audio, and video equipment that causes hum and buzz 
problems that they then BLAME on power system grounding. But it is 
the designers of that equipment that are wrong, NOT NEC. 

73,

Jim Brown K9YC


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