Topband: earth tester

[Jim Brown]

What do you want to measure?  These testers, as well as the "fall of 
potential" method, measure the impedance to earth at dc and low audio 
frequencies.

It's important to remember that a connection to earth is for lightning 
protection, and does not make a TX antenna work better.

If you want to measure your soil conditions, N6LF shows a method on his 
website. It uses a driven rod that passes through an opening in a wire 
screen. Z between the rod and the screen is measured using a vector 
impedance analyzer, first before the rod is driven, and again after 
being driven to its full length, and soil parameters are computed from 
the two measurements.  I've thought about doing this, but never got 
around to it.  This measurement yields the data on the soil conditions 
that affect the performance of vertical antennas.

73, Jim K9YC



On Wed,4/22/2015 6:00 AM, Paul Christensen wrote:
>> "Do you use a earth tester?  Which brand do you know is very good and 
>> accurate to consider?"
>
> Jorge,
>
> If you can, try and find a "clamp-on" earth tester rather than the 
> type that relies on the fall-of-potential method with electrodes. 
> There are several good clamp-on units by Megger, Fluke and AEMC. I 
> recently acquired an AEMC model 3711.  It wasn't supplied with a 
> calibration loop, but I found one from Fluke that quickly checks 
> calibration at 100, 50, 12.5, and 0.5 ohms. You'll want that 
> calibration loop to validate the accuracy of the clamp tester, 
> especially if you use an off-brand model from Asia.
>
> N4CC and I recently installed a large grounding field, with some 
> ground rods driven down to a depth of 24 ft.  The clamp-on device was 
> useful for quick validation.  Had we used a unit with electrodes, it 
> would have taken us much longer to perform our tests.  By the way, in 
> sandy/clay type soil here in north FL, we found that connecting 8 ft. 
> rods end-to-end to form a 24 ft rod substantially lowered earth 
> resistance by a factor of 10x.
>
> Paul, W9AC
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