[TowerTalk] Fwd: Earth Ground: How good is good enough

[David Gilbert]

As NR1DX has rather pointedly made clear, none of us know what kind 
project he is actually working on or why he wants the information, and 
we certainly don't know that it is for a tower ground.  Since he doesn't 
want to tell us that information, I don't see the point in trying to 
guess what he's doing.  If anyone has a good answer for his question, 
fine ... that's all he wants.  Otherwise our comments are just a waste 
time and effort.

Dave   AB7E


On 9/10/2021 7:26 PM, Hans Hammarquist via TowerTalk wrote:
>   Dave,
> My strong believe is that, yes you should make an as good ground for your tower as you can afford but, the important thing is IMHO that you have a very good ground connection between your tower and your shack. With that I mean that you have a good size conductor connecting the ground in your shack and your tower.
> In my case: I have 9 4' grounding rods connected to my tower. My tower is close, ~6 feet, to my shack. (My shack has a 100% aluminum shield around it, floor, walls, and ceiling.) I have a 8 inch wide aluminum strap/ribbon connecting the shack ground to the tower. The idea is that, in the event of a lightning strike in/on the tower, the tower will have an elevated voltage as a result of the grounding resistance. I figure that if my shack will be elevated to the same voltage as the tower very little voltage will enter my shack as long as the resistance between my tower and my shack is much lower than any other ground connection to the shack.
> Ideally the tower and the shack, with all the equipment inside, should all be grounded with the same grounding system. It might not be possible like in my case as I have a power line (with its own safety ground) and a phone line coming from my house, and the house has its own ground. I don't think I have had any hits in my tower and I am not looking forward to the day it will happen.
> 73 de,
> Hans - N2JFS
>   
>   
>
>
> On Thursday, September 9, 2021, Artek Manuals <Manuals at artekmanuals.com>
> 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
>>
>> But how do I actually measure it ?  And once I have this number how good
>> is "good enough"
>>
>> Take my situation I live on ancient sandbar 65' above sea level In Florida
>> . Now this is practically a mountain in Florida and the soil is so poor
>> that below about 6" nothing but granular quartz exists, mostly not even
>> roots, a desert with a lot a rainfall.  The soil is so soft that I can push
>> the first 5' of a 10' ground rod in by hand. I often wonder why my house
>> doesn't sink into it and from a phenomena called "sink holes" a  few house
>> do.
>>
>> So to coin a take on the old light bulb joke " How many engineers with 10'
>> ground rods does it take to make a good  ground (RF ground in this case@
>> 1.8 Mhz) and how will they know when they have enough 10' rods"
>>
>> Dave
>> NR1DX
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dave Manuals at ArtekManuals.com www.ArtekManuals.com
>>
>> --
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