[TowerTalk] Station Ground

[N6KJ]

At the moment, my rig and amplifier ground lugs
are not connected to anything.  I have no stray
RF problems or RFI that I am aware of (except a
little bit of TVI when operating 40/80 which I've
never been able to solve).  The manufacturer always
says you should connect up the ground lug.  So far, I
have not done that but I WILL do it if-and-only-if
it doesn't make things worse.  My assumption is that
the ground lug is there for a reason Maybe this is a 
bad assumption, but ....  

The primary reason for my questions today is:
I am going to start on a home addition soon.  As of
today, my rig is located in the basement next to an
outside wall.  I can easily get to a ground rod
that is located only about 5 feet from my
rig.  This will no longer be true once the addition
is built.  Once the addition is built, my rig
will still be in the basement but the wall will
no longer be an outside wall, SO if I ever want a
good ground system with a short connection to ground
then I need to do it now.  I don't have to hook it
up to my rig/amp, but I have to at least drive in
the ground rods and run a wire from the ground rods
into the shack.  

I'm not worried about safety ground.  I can use the
existing safety ground OR add one later, but a good
RF ground needs short leads to ground and that means
building the grounding network NOW.  I think I now
have enough info from everyone to do that.  Thanks.


--- Jim Lux <jimlux at earthlink.net> wrote:

> At 01:39 PM 1/14/2005, you wrote:
> >How do people attach their rigs to a bus-bar (or
> >similar)?  The bigger the ground wire the better,
> 
> WHy would you necessarily want a huge wire?  How
> much current do you expect 
> to be carrying through that wire?  Hopefully not
> much. Sure, bigger is 
> (slightly) lower inductance, but presumably, the
> wire is fairly 
> short.  Also, is the rig chassis ground common with
> the power supply return 
> (if 12V powered)?  What about the electrical safety
> ground (the greenwire 
> ground)?
> 
> [ Stuff Deleted ]