[TowerTalk] Single Point Ground

[Tom Rauch]

> The shack will be in a walkout basement room. The entry 
> panel will be outside of this area.
> The house is serviced with underground power and phone. 
> The nearest utility pole is about 800 feet away. (above 
> ground)
> The utility power entry is located about 65 feet away on 
> the opposite end of the house from the shack. The utility 
> uses a UFER ground.
>
> How should I tie/route the utility ground to my single 
> point ground. Does the tie wire need to be routed outside 
> and buried or can it be run through the structure or a 
> combination of the two? (concrete driveway and sidewalks 
> in the way outside)

What you always want to do is have the least impedance at 
all frequencies between the utility ground at the house 
entrance and the shack ground.

I face a similar problem. My shack entrance is 40 feet or 
more from the utility ground and the house is in the way. I 
used 4" copper flashing to bridge that gap, and I have a 
circle of heavy wire (mostly copper tubing) outside the 
house. I'm sure the most important thing is the direct wide 
ground connection. You want the impedance of that path to be 
significantly lower than the impedance through the house 
wiring to the radio room entrance. You won't get that with a 
connection run around outside.

In your case I'd run right through the house with something 
wide, and not have any splices in the house that could fail. 
Also don't let that ground connection lay against or near 
anything metallic where it could make a poor connection that 
might arc and heat.

Mine is tested and proven in dozens of hits, one was hard 
enough to melt the phone lines between the house and the 
road and melt heliax on the tower. Virtually nothing inside 
the house ( not even a modem) was damaged and I don't have a 
single polyphaser anywhere.

73 Tom