[TowerTalk] bonding to AC power box or inside fuse panel?

[Patrick Greenlee]

Thank you very much  for providing the information I needed to see the error 
of my ways, well, the error in the ways of the folks who advised me and were 
dead wrong.  I had recently moved my station from the second floor to the 
ground floor very near the two each 200 Amp service panels.  I drilled a 
hole in the concrete slab and put in an 8 ft copper clad rod. I connected 
all the station equipment( including the computer that hosts the SDR 
software for the Flex 5000) with braid to a common point behind the 
equipment cluster and ran a braid from that point to the ground rod, about a 
4 ft run.

Now that I have been enlightened I will open the access panel in the stud 
wall below the breaker boxes so I can access the ground rod located there to 
which the two breaker boxes are grounded and connect it with braid to the 
"RF" ground rod.  It would be equally easy to bring a ground wire or braid 
from the ground bus in one of the breaker boxes to my "RF" ground rod. Any 
reason to choose one way over the other if both are easy and require the 
same length of conductor to connect them together. I'd do both if there is a 
reason it would be better.

PLAN B:  If I move the station back upstairs the breaker panels and their 
ground rod will be about 25-30 ft from the ground rod in the ground below 
the widow of the upstairs operating position. I'm willing/able to run a 
connecting conductor between those two points.  Then the instrument cluster 
will be wired to a single point behind the equipment (rather short runs) and 
then the common point would go out through the wall to the ground rod below.

Is plan B minimally acceptable?

I have a buried conduit bringing LMR400 from a metal barn located 1 in 5 out 
remote coax switch to the house where the conduit comes up out of the ground 
to enter the house.  At that point I have a replaceable cartridge gas 
discharge static arrester grounded to a ground rod.  Is it required that 
this ground rod be connected to any of the other ground rods? If so to which 
others?  The metal barn is grounded to a ground rod also. Is it supposed to 
connect to any other ground rods?  If yes the runs will be fairly long.

Thanks again for sharing your experience and knowledge.

73,

Patrick AF5CK

-----Original Message----- 
From: Jim Brown
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 6:32 PM
To: towertalk at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] bonding to AC power box or inside fuse panel?

On 1/21/2013 3:07 PM, Patrick Greenlee wrote:
> But... don't hook the breaker panel ground (green wires) to the RF ground 
> buss.
>
> If I got it wrong, someone please explain it to me simply.

You do have it wrong -- VERY wrong.  See my posts and Joe's.

73, Jim K9YC
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