[TenTec] Station and AC Ground

Gary Hoffman ghoffman at spacetech.com
Tue Nov 29 16:16:04 EST 2005


Well....yes and no.

Yes, a circuit exists through your radio gear that ties the two grounds
together.  Depending on the equipment, it might even be a pretty good
connection, although not at RF.

But if you unplug the equipment for some reason, the bond goes away.

Code requires a permanent, heavy bond, not associated with equipment, and
certainly not unplugable.

Now whether you wish to apply the Underwriters code to your station or not
is a personal decision I guess, although I would wonder about insurance
issues in the event of an electrical fire.

73 de Gary, AA2IZ


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "JAMES BRASSELL" <jimbrass at bellsouth.net>
To: "Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment" <tentec at contesting.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 9:37 AM
Subject: [TenTec] Station and AC Ground


> Hey, All.
>
> Just a quick observation and question.  I have read many posts on this
site about having the station and AC mains grounds tied together.  For my
observation, when you have a separate station ground (and I do; a good one)
and all pieces of equipment are tied to that ground and the ground wire from
the AC plug is tied to the equipment chassis then you have effectively tied
the AC mains ground to the station ground.  I have measured from the AC
mains ground to the station ground and it is zero ohms, with no voltage (to
the microvolt between them).  I have looked in the equipment and the AC
ground is tied directly to the chassis, not through a board.  My question
is, if the equipment is grounded and you have a good AC mains ground is that
not tying the mains and station grounds together?  I could see where one
might have a problem if the ground in the equipment was achieved through a
circuit board and the equipment was not otherwise grounded.  I feed two
verticals, GAP Titan and
>  Voyager, and run 1500 watts into them on a regular basis without any RF
problems.  What say you?
>
> Jim, K4ZMV
> _______________________________________________
> TenTec mailing list
> TenTec at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec
>
>




More information about the TenTec mailing list