[TowerTalk] Where to find Surplus wire for ground

[K8RI]

On 11/12/2012 8:24 PM, Bryan Swadener wrote:
> Rick,
>
> An electrician advised me that 4 AWG solid is required locally for safety ground bonding.  I used about 40 ft to connect my station and electric service ground electrodes.  It costs around $1/ft.  OTOH, my tower's PE (Hank KR7X) specified 2/0 to connect each tower leg to a ground electrode.  IIRC, that stuff costs around $4/ft.
>

Here they use #6 stranded and the larger sizes of solid are very 
difficult to find.

Let's back up a bit.  You need to ground the station, BUT there are 
grounds and then there are grounds.

First do you have a tower?
If so, how tall, what's on it, how far is it from the house and the 
station?  How is it grounded and how well is it grounded?
What is your soil like? Sand, Clay, loam, rocky, or a mix?
Is it moist or dry?
Where the coax enters the house most of us use a grounded bulkhead and 
run the coax through either an ICE or Polyphaser lightning protector.
All of these ground need to tie to a common point, or single point 
ground to be the most effective.  Often that is not possible so we end 
up with compromises.  Is the house electrical entrance any where near 
where you bring in the coax, or can it be?

Even the grounds for the tower, bulkhead entrance, and station all need 
to tie back to the house electrical ground.

At least if we know more specific information about the layout, be might 
discover #6 or #8 would be fine from the rig to the bulkhead.

I have some old insulated wire of various sizes with some close to #2, 
but I don't remember just how much of what is in that barrel. 
Unfortunately, with the weight, if you are out on the West coast it'd 
cost quite a bit to get it there from Michigan.

BTW, I ground the shields on all coax at both the top and bottom of the 
tower as well as where it enters the house.  There is also an 8' ground 
rod about 3 to 6' out from each tower leg. Then the cable runs from the 
tower legs straight out for about 80 feet with an 8' ground rod 
cadwelded to the cable "about" every 16 feet.  There is a parallel run 
of grounding cable with ground rods back from the tower to the house 
bulkhead entrance.

It appears that there are going to be a whole new sheaf of regulations 
by the end of the year or the first part of next year. How many will 
pertain to hams and towers...who knows.

73

Roger (K8RI)



> vy 73,
> Bryan WA7PRC
>
> Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012
> From: Rick Scott
>
> Ive been trying to find information on grounding my station that's mid house with no real ground close. So I must go through the wall and down into the crawlspace.? I was told by an electrical engineer ham that I need 2ga wire minimum.? Well trying to tell the wife I need 10 -15 feet of wire that's 4 bucks a foot at the local big box, didn't go over well.
>
> Looking over the phone book I didn't find anyone that does surplus wire anymore (Copper prices I guess) .
>
> Anyone know of a source?
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