[TowerTalk] Another Sort of Anomalous ground condition
K4SAV
RadioIR at charter.net
Mon Nov 7 17:13:10 EST 2005
I don't see anything unusual here. You sre simply making a receive loop
antenna. No doubt that the ground rods are not a good RF ground, but
even a good RF ground probably isn't going to make any difference in
what you are describing. Any four foot long wire is going to pick up
signals, no matter what the far end is connected to.
Jerry, K4SAV
ROBERT CARROLL wrote:
>I have a different anomalous ground condition. I have recently moved from
>NJ to the Atlanta area and am in the process of setting up a shack. I am on
>the air with wire antennas, but the shack is still in chaos. I am in a
>ground level basement. The house power panel is about 3 feet to the left of
>the station, and the house ground rod is just outside the house behind the
>power panel. It has the telephone ground etc attached to it. I can't tell
>how long the rod is as a concrete apron was poured around if as part of a
>pool installation. The station ground goes out through a conduit and
>attaches to the power ground. I don't have much faith in the performance of
>the rod as an RF ground, but at least I am in compliance with the electrical
>code.
>
>The story is too long to tell, but involves worries about coupling into RX
>antenna ports when using a Beverage or other antenna. No sign of problem
>there, but by chance I touched the tip connector of a cable connected to the
>antenna jack of a backup second transceiver/amp combination and was
>surprised to hear some nice sweepstakes signals. They were about 5 s-units
>down from the reading on the main setup. In investigating I find that I can
>short the transceiver coax and the signals go away, but if I touch the coax
>tip to even the ground post on the transceiver I can hear signals. And if I
>touch it to the single point ground I am using--which is about four feet
>from the power ground--I get even better signals. Just to make sure this was
>not a ground conductor inductance issue, I did the experiment while
>listening to a broadcast station. The ground makes a nice broadcast band
>antenna, and the signals are quite a bit stronger than those I get by
>touching the tip of the coax myself.
>
>I have made resistance checks between the power panel box and the station
>ground and see 0 ohms, to I don't think this is an issue of the box not
>being connected to the ground rod.
>
>I disconnected all the other leads coming to the transceiver to make sure
>the chassis wasn't picking up RF from something plugged into it--no change.
>
>It sounds to me like the power neutral must be bringing in this noise, but
>maybe I am off base.
>
>Just for the heck of it I drove in two rods about 1 foot away from the power
>rod in a small open area not covered by the cement apron and tied them to
>the station ground with no effect.
>
>I'm not certain it would have any effect, but I thought about connecting a
>radial field to try to get a better RF ground than provide by rods, but I am
>not sure that would help if pickup is pouring off the power neutral, and
>unless I can convince the wife to lay radials on the concrete and across a
>pool I can't do this anyway.
>
>Can anyone give me ideas as to what might be going on and how/if to try to
>cure it?
>
>Bob W2WG
>
>
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