[TowerTalk] B.C. antenna

[Tom Rauch]

>  Every time I give a short post on a great idea assuming some reasonable
> ability of the reader, I have to expand on it which I am happy to safely
> do.  One 160M contester asked me not to describe this antenna.  He found
> it very useful. Perhaps Tom can be the "Official Ground Inspector" for Ham
> Radio.  I hope I have covered all the safety issues.  Remember every time
> you turn the lights on your hand is an inch away from a 110V connection
> and an arc when you turn it off.  Watch out for buried power lines when
> driving ground rods into the ground.   K7GCO

I certainly didn't intend to upset you, but there is little doubt the 
suggestion that someone connect one end of an antenna to a wire 
in the electrical outlet is a very poor suggestion.

The National Electrical Code prohibits any exposed connections to 
either the "grounded" or "ungrounded" sides of the power line. For 
example, I'm not allowed to build an amplifier that ties the neutral of 
the power line to the chassis of the amplifier.

All it would take is an open in the neutral and a conventional load 
connected at some other outlet to make the neutral rise to full line 
voltage. 

Even if that never occurs, the vast majority of noise sources are 
operated from the power line. Using the power line as any part of 
the antenna system would simply aggravate noise problems.

I was not trying to upset you, I just hate to see people put 
themselves in harm's way by making a connection to a power line 
and running it around their room, and out the window to "who-
knows-where".
73, Tom W8JI
w8ji@contesting.com

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