[TowerTalk] rf burns

[chris casey]

Yeah, so... I've never had a good ground. Right now the tuner and the
rig are connected by a piece of #14 solid copper, and then the usual
rig to PS to the wall.

Best I can tell I need to bring my station to a ground outside which
is also tied to the service ground. But I can't find a service
ground... So I know I'm exposed in the ground area to some fun.

The thing that I find strange is when I bring this in to the garage,
or into the travel trailer, and connect things the same I have no
problem. Yes its a different plug in the wall, so there are places
where things can be different still. And I took everything apart just
now, re-routed cables etc some, and the behavior changed but is still
there... I need a way to check for RF that doesn't involve my
fingertips. Thats awful.

I see some mention of high voltages created in the tuner and arcing
etc, but I don't think I'm getting arcing but I'm not sure short of a
movie style arc noise I would be sure...

Thanks.

On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 8:42 PM, Mike N1TA <mike at n1ta.com> wrote:
> Hi Chis,
>
> What type of ground do you have at your station (if any)?
>
> Mike N1TA
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [TowerTalk] rf burns
> From: chris casey <cscvrp at gmail.com>
> Date: Mon, February 06, 2012 7:01 pm
> To: towertalk at contesting.com
>
> So I haven an 80M loop I usually only get to use for sweepstakes every
> year, rest of the time the feed line is coiled up in a tree.
>
> I have had opportunity to bring it inside and setup a "permanent"
> operating station. I've had grand fun, but see some weird behavior now
> and then. When it was wet out a couple days ago while tuning (mfj
> tuner, 450ohm window line feed) it would bounce all over. And more
> often than not when I get towards a good match I start getting a growl
> in my headphones. Tonight I got a doozie of a rf burn off my key base
> which sets right in front of the tuner knobs. It will do this on
> several bands, 40m down at the bottom of the band tonight.
>
> I have a splice which I figure I'll cut upstream from and add a new
> hunk in and add some length. Its a bit short and running right
> through a pine tree, I guess I'll add some more feed line in and go
> around the tree.
>
> Same antenna with same feed line length matched all over the place
> without issue when ran to the travel trailer for sweepstakes. Now if I
> don't want nasty noises on TX I have to run an swr above 1.5 usually.
> I worked HU2DX on 15M and TX6T/P 17M CW tonight on the first call so
> it must not be just a stub of feed line 10' long to the splice...
>
> Besides re-working the splice, and routing around the tree, any ideas?
>
> --
>
> -Chris
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-- 

-Chris