I miss a good grounding to my shack, and have for long been thinking about the best solution. One day I had the final idea: thick electrical cable with stranded wires. The grounding end is peeled about 4 meters and will be buried down in the soft dirt near the creek at the west side of our lot. The distance from the house wall to the creek is about 30 meters...that is why I chose thick wires. I was worried about galvanic contacts, and this lead me to this solution; the only joint will be at the house wall, secured from rain. The pictures below show my initial preparation work.
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| My wife let me mess up the living room for a while :) |
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| Let's see if 5 times 4 meters is enough for grounding. |
Next I will follow with the implementation. Spade work ahead! Hopefully I have time to do it before the ground frost.
It would be very nice if you can comment this idea, or just share your own experiences in shack grounding. Is this overdoing...or is the grounding wire too long!?
Later note 17.Jan.2012: Tested: Yes, the wire is too long, this is not good grounding. I have to either peel the cable or find another solution
I would say a big NO! It doesn't help you at all. Grounding your station should be done as close to the shack as possible and is only for safety and a small bit of discharging elektrostaticbuild up. A better was is to make a counterpoise for every band a length and connect it to the grouding point of your antennatuner. You could make a ground for safety with a copper rod into the wet soil. But keep connections short. 73, Bas
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment, Bas! Some other friends have said the same...I have to think about this. I have no way to get grounding directly to wet soil...that's the reason why I was thinking about my solution. What if all the cables are peeled and digged down in the ground...would it be better?
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