[TowerTalk] Grounding

[jimlux]

On 9/3/19 4:57 PM, Dick's wrote:
> Julio-
> 
> I was more concerned with routing the conductors from each leg of the tower to the first ring of ground rods. I used 2” wide copper ribbons with a slow arc down to each rod. From each of the 3 rods I then branched out the required distance to other rods using stranded 2 awg copper and cad-welding them at each rod.

There's no particular electrical advantage to ribbon over suitable round 
conductors, if that's more convenient.  Some find that clamping the 
ribbon to the round tower leg is easier with a flat ribbon (using 
something like a hose clamp), but they make clamps for pipe to round 
conductor as well.

You could probably also use a standard crimp on eye lug with a hole 
sized to match your tower bolts to your round conductor.


By the way, AWG 2 (or larger) is more for mechanical strength than 
electrical properties.   The dominant factor driving the voltage rise is 
the inductance, and inductance doesn't change much with diameter or 
shape of conductor. (AC resistance does.. so if you're using your 
lightning ground as a RF ground for top band or something like that.. 
then you care)



> 
> I wrote a monthly newsletter column. If you start with the Sept 2017 issue you can see the write up on welding and ground rods at http://n4lnr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/LARC-9-2017C.pdf.  You can go forward or backwards to see the entire tower installation spanning more than a year.
> 
> Dick, K0CAT
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> Richard (Dick) Blumenstein
> 
> 
>> On Sep 3, 2019, at 3:25 PM, Jim Brown <jim at audiosystemsgroup.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 9/3/2019 5:24 AM, Julio Peralta via TowerTalk wrote:
>>> I've read that when using an 8' ground rod , the rods should be separated by
>>> 2X the length of the rods or 16'. However unless I missed it I haven't seen
>>> a distance mentioned for the first rods from the base.
>>
>> If the tower base is a Ufer ground, 8-16 ft is a good spacing for the first rods. If the base is not Ufer, I'd go for 8 ft. Either way, one to each leg.
>>
>> 73, Jim K9YC
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