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Jeff N6RVZ

>From Pete Soper <psoper at encore.com>  Fri Apr 26 16:21:38 1996
From: Pete Soper <psoper at encore.com> (Pete Soper)
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 11:21:38 EDT
Subject: Ground Rods Made Easy
Message-ID: <4880.9604261521 at earl.encore.com>


Jim, N9JF writes:

> Yes, it works in IL.  Don't need a hose, either.  About a gallon of 
> water properly applied will let you sink an 8 foot rod.  Not only that, you 
> can actually pull the sucker a day or two later if you've sunk it for a 
> Field Day installation.

I do this too and if it weren't for the cost of ground rods and the pain of
bonding them together I'd have A LOT in place by now. The difference in effort 
is dramatic.

But is the connection to ground really effective? Could the ground rod
be sitting in a nice, stable but narrow hole rather than snuggly touching
the surrounding soil? In your FD example it wouldn't take much soil contact
as the dirt dries out to make it very very hard to pull the rod back out.

I have hard clay and when I'm putting a rod in it appears that there is 
very thick, viscous liquid clay/water mixture around the rod as it's going
down. I want to believe this hardens into a layer around the rod that
is effective, but you know how wishful thinking goes.

Anybody have real objective data about this? 

Regards,
Pete
KS4XG

>From Ward Silver <hwardsil at wolfenet.com>  Fri Apr 26 17:05:37 1996
From: Ward Silver <hwardsil at wolfenet.com> (Ward Silver)
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 09:05:37 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Rain Static
Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.93.960426085406.28116A-100000 at gonzo.wolfenet.com>


I was thinking (uh, oh) about rain static...

Rain static is caused by a charged particle (i.e., raindrop, snowflake,
ice pellet...) contacting our antenna element.  This is "in-band" noise,
too, and can't be filtered out.  It would seem that preventing galvanic
contact with said particle could prevent the noise, as well.  Not so!

The mere proximity of charge delivered onto the antenna element will cause
capacitively coupled current to flow in the element.  Maybe thick
insulation, like on insulated wire, would help to reduce noise because the
charge is kept farther away from the conductor.  Paint or varnish, on the
other hand, would only help a little.

So, if the raindrop goes "splat" on your element, painted or not, the
sudden presence of charge will cause a wideband noise current in the
antenna element.  It's more practical to have thick insulation on wire
antennas.

A good experiment would be to have three identical dipoles; one bare wire,
one hookup wire, and one made from high-voltage lead wire for really thick
insulation.  A good substitute for the high-voltage wire would be a length
of RG-58 with the jacket and braid stripped off.  Then measure the
noise-level during the next rainstorm.  Measure it on 80, 40, and
20-meters.  Those harmonically-related bands would give an indication of
the effictivity of insulation both with insulation thickness and
frequency.

Seattle has a lot of rain, but it doesn't seem to have the static quantity
that I remember from the Midwest.  Maybe our milder rainstorms don't
impart the same amount of charge to the raindrops. (kinder, gentler
rain...thousand points of light...wouldn't be prudent...)  So, any of you
Texas or Midwestern gentlemen with big backyards want to try this?

73, Ward N0AX