[TowerTalk] Earth Ground: How good is good enough

[Wes]

https://archive.org/download/TNM_Manual_on_earth-resistance_testing_-_James_G__20180125_0208/TNM_Manual_on_earth-resistance_testing_-_James_G__20180125_0208.pdf



On 9/9/2021 2:51 PM, Artek Manuals wrote:
> Jim et all
>
> One of my heroes of the late 20th century was Ed Demming a noted statistician 
> ( with a degree in EE of all things) who changed the way the world (most 
> notably the US and Japan in the 70's and 80's) looked at and tried to use 
> statistics to solve mass production quality problems through design of 
> experiments techniques. . One of Ed's famous sayings was "If you cant say it 
> with numbers..you don't understand the problem".
>
> So I will say it AGAIN. What I want to do is measure the ground resistance of 
> a multi ground rod system in VERY POOR soils in my case. WHY I want to know 
> this number or what I intend to use it for IS NOT relevant to the discussion 
> at this point. Please don't get your cart before my horse.
>
> No where in my original query did it indicate that this was for a vertical 
> antenna system ...but to clarify IT IS NOT. I followed N6LF's work on 
> measuring soil conductivity and did a lot of measurement to conclude that my 
> soil is very poor, in the range of .0015. But for the record laying out radial 
> fields in a jungle with a pure quartz floor is not really practical and I went 
> to elevated radials a long time ago.
>
> I will happily spend the $10 if N0AX's book ...IF...it talks about actual 
> measurement techniques for deriving the resistance of a ground system composed 
> of several ground rods at any given frequency. Those of you who recommended 
> the book please verify for me that it talks about actual measurement 
> techniques WHY I want to know is not relevant to the question.
>
> What I want to do is to be able to describe the problem with numbers using 
> verifiable measurement techniques at different frequencies.
>
> Maybe I am writing an article for next year's April issue of QST for building 
> a 50 ohm dummy load using an array ground rods outside my shack  window. Maybe 
> I am just curious.
>
> Dave
> NR1DX
>
>
>
>
> On 9/9/2021 2:41 PM, Jim Brown wrote:
>> On 9/9/2021 9:41 AM, Artek Manuals wrote:
>>> I 've read a lot of articles over the years about ground systems and how to 
>>> build a good one. Most of them ignore actual soil conditions and few talk 
>>> about the differences between "DC/AC (Low Freq)/Lightning" and RF ground vs 
>>> frequency
>>
>> N0AX's ARRL book on the topic is excellent. Also, these two links may help. 
>> The first addresses grounding and bonding, the second about 
>> radial/countepoise systems for verticals.
>>
>> http://k9yc.com/GroundingAndAudio.pdf
>> http://k9yc.com/160MPacificon.pdf
>>
>> Some important points. The ONLY reasons for an earth connection are 1) 
>> lightning safety, and 2) to make certain RX antennas work (Beverages and some 
>> loops. An earth connection has NOTHING to do with noise reduction, and it 
>> does NOT make TX antennas work better. That's the function of 
>> radials/counterpoise.
>>
>> 73, Jim K9YC
>>
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>