As an electrician of 25 years I can say that ground is definitely not a myth. Ground is a reference point. In some places the Earth is actually used as the return path of the electrical circuit instead of a neutral (grounded conductor) The ground is not necessarily a constant voltage everywhere on the planet but it is the local reference to 0 volts from a safety standpoint because most humans stand on the earth when dealing with electrical equipment. Sometimes ground is just a reference voltage within a closed circuit that is isolated from the Earth. If you hook up certain Transformers for commercial or residential power without grounding the center tap of the Transformer to Earth the voltage will vary wildly from Earth ground. You can end up with the hot legs of the circuit being several hundreds of volts above Earth ground even though they are only 120 volts from neutral.
She was first licensed in the late 1970s while a student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT! She holds an Amateur Extra class license. Did I mention MIT? She has served as ARRL Technical Coordinator for the East Bay Section, and is a member of the Palo Alto Amateur Radio Club. McIntyre also is licensed in Japan, her second home, as JI1IZZ. Did I mention MIT? And she's a consultant for both Yaesu and ICOM? She is a senior engineer at Apple. Um, for those trying to dog her, she's probably forgotten more, than any of you have EVER even learned. The problem isn't with her, it's with your intelligence, ability to actually understand what she's actually saying. All the "im an electrician, I know electricians theory" all trying to talk shit need to stop and actually listen to what's she's actually saying. Stay in your lane and on the point morons.
Brother these are UA-cam commenters. Have you ever noticed how accomplished and experienced UA-cam commenters claim to be? Don't doubt them! 😂 They are the real cream of the crop! That's why they can see how this lady is wrong! 😂
@robertm1672 bumped for those who need to read more and think 🤔 about the true reason for this statement. Antenna theory is only 1 voltage difference engine. The wave from the physical wire has its own natural point. This in an Antenna is the halfway point of the collector. When you change voltage to another regulation range of voltage you have the same physics but much higher amperage and or voltage. Those details determine the wiring regulation. Even if the science doesn't agree with the current rules of the regulation. Look up the surface ground voltage to leaky ground exceptable levels.
She spent and entire lecture describing what we already knew and accepted in electrical or electronics circuit theory as if it was some revelation she had. Yes, ground is not some universal static void of all charge, it is a referrence that should be zero volts compared to the circuit you're dealing with. It may not be zero volts when referenced to any other circuit, even if they share a common ground--case in point, when you're attaching multiple devices together, such as audio or RF equipment which are all plugged into AC , they may share the earth ground from the AC system, but due to the differences in the circuits, or interference/capacitance in the interconnect cables they may have a different reference to this shared ground, current is indced into it and this current will flow between the devices through the interconnects to try to equalize the gound difference, producing the hum or ground loop noise we've all heard. One potential fix for this is to attach the various devices' chassis toegether using that mystery screw she pointed out in the back of that device in the picture. That's what the purpose of the screw is--to provide a lower impedence path for grounds to equalize and hopefully keep that current from trying to use signal paths to travel where it distorts our signal data.
@@RhettSparrow Where do you get "upset"? Perhaps confused, for the reasons already stated. Perhaps side-eyeing whoever wrote the video title for maybe implying a bit more connotation to Ms. McIntyre's presentation than she may have intended (without knowing the intended target audience--I. E. if this was made for students, it's actually a fairly appropriate and informative way to present it, I was just an ass, and I can own up to commenting without knowing the context.) Would it have been more entertaining if she were dressed as a wizard? Of course. I'd have been on the edge of my seat waiting for that beard to short a circuit and start smoking.
As I prep my UA-cam channel and start laying the groundwork (no pun intended) for content, this is exactly the kind of topic I want to explore. There’s a lot of confusion around "grounding," as well money and effort wasted. I think it’s time we all take a step back and recognize that what we’re really talking about is a localized safety solution, not some universal law. The more we understand that, the better we can appreciate the role grounding plays in our electrical systems-and the better we’ll be at designing safer, more reliable systems in the future. This is a draft of my first script. I will include the references at the bottom. I like this Lady! Introduction I’ve spent my career working with electricity and electronics-mostly hands-on, a mix of trade school and self-taught, with a degree from the school of hard knocks. Along the way, I’ve learned a lot of things that aren't covered in textbooks, but one thing's certain: in electrical systems, grounding is real-you can’t run a "safe", functional system without it. The problem comes when we start talking about "ground" as if it’s some kind of universal, unchanging reference point. The more you dig into the fundamental nature of electricity, the more you realize that "ground" as a concept becomes less clear when you move from practical, everyday electrical work to the world of theoretical physics. I wrote a deep dive paper into the concept of "ground." While it’s crucial in electrical systems and it serves a very real, practical function, its absolute meaning starts to get murky when you apply the term beyond the world of circuits and into fundamental physics. We’ll be challenging the Dunning-Kruger effect by questioning the myth of ground-the idea of a fixed, unchanging reference point in the universe-and rethinking some of the ideas that get thrown around in both engineering and physics. The Role of Ground in Electrical Systems In practical terms, "ground" serves a very simple "function": it provides a low-resistance path for electrical current to return to Earth, especially during a fault or short circuit. If something goes wrong in an electrical system-say, a wire comes loose and touches a metal casing-the current needs somewhere to go. Grounding directs that current safely into the Earth, preventing shocks or fires. It’s a safety mechanism, plain and simple. Now, here’s where it gets interesting. While "ground" is essential, it’s not the perfect electrical sink many people assume it is. When it comes to grounding electrical systems, a common misconception is that the Earth itself is a perfect conductor, capable of instantly absorbing and dissipating electrical energy. In reality, this idea is far from the truth. The Earth, in its purest form, is actually a poor conductor of electricity. This is because the Earth’s composition-primarily consisting of rock, soil, and water-offers considerable resistance to the flow of electrical current. This resistance can vary dramatically depending on local conditions such as soil type, moisture levels, and temperature. In fact, if the soil is dry or rocky, grounding can become much less effective. So, why do we still use the Earth as a grounding point? The answer lies in the field around the Earth-not the Earth itself. While the Earth may be a poor conductor, the electric field that surrounds it is far more significant when it comes to the flow of electrical charge. (This concept is for a different podcast) The Earth’s resistivity is not uniform-it changes based on soil type, moisture levels, and other environmental factors. So when we talk about the Earth as a "ground," it’s important to remember it’s not an infinite, catch-all sink for electricity. In fact, its ability to absorb current is not unlimited. Grounding, as we know it in the field, is more about providing a path of least impedance, not about dumping all the energy into the Earth. The Misleading Associations of Ground Here’s where the confusion sets in. The word "ground" carries a lot of misleading connotations-especially when we start thinking about it as something more than it really is. The two biggest misconceptions about "ground" are: 1. Ground as Zero Voltage: In electrical systems, we often refer to "ground" as a point of "zero volts." It’s the reference against which we measure other voltages. But let’s be real: zero volts is relative. There’s no universal "zero" across the universe. The voltage at ground is simply a reference point within the system you’re working with. Outside that context, the concept of "zero" becomes meaningless. 2. Ground as the Ultimate Sink for Electricity: The Earth is sometimes treated as the "ultimate sink" for electrical charge-like a vast, infinite reservoir waiting to absorb all the current that comes its way. But the truth is, the Earth has resistance, and its capacity to absorb current is far from limitless. The effectiveness of grounding depends on local factors-soil type, moisture content, depth of grounding rods, etc. So, calling Earth the "ultimate ground" isn’t quite the full story. These misconceptions lead to a misunderstanding of the true role of ground. Grounding is a "localized safety measure" within electrical systems, not an absolute, universal principle. Grounding and Relativity in Physics When we step out of the electrical engineering world and into the realm of theoretical physics, the whole idea of "ground" as an absolute reference point falls apart. Take Einstein’s theory of relativity as an example. According to relativity, there is no universal frame of reference-everything is relative. So, when we talk about "ground" as though it’s fixed and unchanging, we’re ignoring the fact that the concept of a "reference point" changes depending on where you are and who you ask. For example, someone standing on Earth might think of the surface as "ground," but for an astronaut in orbit, their concept of ground would be entirely different. The idea of a universal "zero point" or absolute ground simply doesn’t hold up across different frames of reference. And in the realm of quantum mechanics, where particles and fields are inherently uncertain and fluctuating, the notion of a fixed ground is even more problematic. In these contexts, "ground" becomes a relative term, just like any other reference point. Practical Grounding in Electrical Engineering Now, back to the practical side of things. Despite all this theoretical discussion, grounding is still crucial in electrical systems. You need ground to make sure that your electrical system is "safe". The ground path is a circuit we design and build providing that essential path for current to flow back to Earth in the event of a fault, ensuring that dangerous currents are safely dissipated. But it’s important to recognize that "ground" in electrical systems is a "localized safety feature" we built and labeled, rather than an absolute, universal principle. When you ground a system, you’re not tapping into some infinite reservoir of energy; you’re creating a safe return path for fault currents. The grounding system typically connects to the Earth’s surface (or another conductive body), but the goal is always the same: direct stray current away from people and equipment, preventing shocks and fires. Conclusion To sum it up: "ground" is a critical part of electrical systems. Without it, our circuits wouldn’t function “safely”. But the concept of ground as some sort of fixed, unchanging reference point-that’s a myth. In reality, grounding is a practical tool for managing fault currents and providing voltage references, but it is not an absolute, universal constant. References 1. Alexander, C. K., & Sadiku, M. N. O. (2009). Fundamentals of Electric Circuits (5th ed.). McGraw-Hill. A comprehensive textbook that covers the fundamental concepts of electrical circuits, including grounding and electrical safety. 2. Hewitt, P. G. (2012). Concepts of Physics (8th ed.). Addison-Wesley. A classic physics textbook that introduces the basics of electrical circuits and grounding, along with discussions of reference frames in physics. 3. Griffiths, D. J. (2017). Introduction to Electrodynamics (4th ed.). Pearson. A detailed text on electromagnetism that explains the behavior of electric fields, circuits, and the concept of grounding in electrical systems. 4. Einstein, A. (1915). The General Theory of Relativity. Annalen der Physik, 354(7), 769-822. A foundational paper in modern physics, where Einstein establishes the theory of relativity, showing the relativity of motion and reference points. 5. Feynman, R. P., Leighton, R. B., & Sands, M. (2011). The Feynman Lectures on Physics (Vol. 2). Basic Books.
There IS absolutely a true "zero voltage". If an object has the exact same amount of negatively charged particles and positively charged particles evenly distributed throughout, there will be no net electric field throughout, and any two points on that object you probe will show zero voltage. That object would be a proper reference point! If you find a negative voltage when measuring between that object "A" and second object B, object B has more electrons than protons and that voltage would be proportional to THAT ratio.
As I said in my comment. Nikola Tesla designed the AC motor after visualizing the earths magnetic fields. Electricity (or the way we tx/rx) is simply a manipulation of those fields with all electricity trying to return to ground. If your argument is that it is not consistent I would argue nothing is. We have solar flares, leap years, biological cancers even galaxy's collide. Unlike the maker of this video at least you understand the importance of safety. I would argue that ground is center and is more important than neutral. w.wiki/AuHU Let me know if I am misunderstanding your argument.
This is a much more scientific survey of my observations regarding ground ambiguities. Grounding potentials are nebulous and ground loops are elusive especially when crossed with any kind of inductive coupling. Flooding the zone with grounds is seldom a solution. Grounds are commonly lifted at the source in audio studios. I was surprised at the role of coax shield in feel lines of antenna systems and where common mode current might appear. You can know more and not think of everything.
The title of this video caught my eye - and that doesn't happen very often. I absolutely positively had to find out where the negative goes lol. Thank you for making this video.
As far as the ground being an actually good reference to the voltage in the neutral wire it is if you follow electrical code the resistance of the earth is the reason why it requires three ground rods a certain length and a certain distance apart from each other to reduce the amount of resistance and also get a variable reference to the Earth the soil that a ground rod is being pounded into is supposed to be tested for its continuity.
Very well done Kristen. In my circuits, I endeavor to use '0V' instead of 'GND'. With regards to 'Earth Ground', I think of it as a local electrostatic commonality (and nothing more) ... As I understand, historically, we once did NOT have an AC grid 'neutral' ground(ed) ... It was discovered that electrostatic / high potential discharges between the AC conductors resulted in insulation breakdown and the formation of an 'arc' where the nominal AC potential would now flow - usually resulting in fire. I have tested / recreated this.
Stand on a plastic bucket, charge yourself with an electrostatic generator, then touch what most scientists call "ground" and you will understand what it is very quickly 😂😂
@@gmcjetpilot Yeah, I'm afraid many do these days. Mine is a stainless fridge so it has a metal handle. If you build up a static charge you find out very quickly when you grab the handle.
Great talk. The part about salt hit hard. If you've ever been on a ship to repair a copy machine like I have, you end up scratching your head when it comes to grounding on a boat
I'm worried a great many of the comments here are, intentionally or otherwise, uncharitably misinterpreting the hypothesis being postulated in this presentation... Kristen McIntyre made very clear that Ground/GND/Earth is an important null reference point in most of the electrical & electronic schema she presented, especially regarding safety concerns. It might not have been obvious, but to sell the crux of her presentation, she feigned confusion about the purpose & ironically ungrounded assumptions (pun intended) that have been made: That "GND" is a myth, insofar as ham radios/antennae configurations are concerned, and as far as I could tell, no further does she extend the reach of her hypothesis. A vestigial relic, likely carried over some time after the vacuum-tube transistor radio heyday (as grounding of any form AFAIK, save for lightning rods, hadn't achieved widespread adoption until the 3rd quarter of the 20th century), by enthusiasts versed in traditional electrical & electron flow theories, where it's remained an albatross, seemingly persisting under its own momentum. I'd recommend any contrarians to understand that this was primarily to highlight her belief & challenge the uncritically accepted contradiction that, outside of explicit scenarios (many of which she detailed), grounding transmission/receiver antennae and/or radio equipment is unnecessary, if not outwardly detrimental, to the ham circuit. Please reassess with this information, or re/watch the video in full if you remain in disagreement.
Galileo Galilei’s three stages of truth, but the fact is, we’re in a time we need to question everything because if you start a microscopic hair off course, 1000 years later we’re lost and can’t understand why it should work but is failing… sounds like a few things right now.
I was sceptical at the title, but watched anyway (i don't want to live my life in an echo chamber ... other opinions deserve air ... well, most do) ... What a bloody interesting talk! Kristen's descriptions of her investigations (both theoretical and practical) are well presented, flow well and convey in layman's terms what's going on with with this very eclectic part of the hobby (radio and electrical). Thumbs up to Kristen 👍 for what must have been a huge amount of work, for me to be able to watch for free, and to Hayden for bringing it out of the lecture theatre, so i could watch it whilst sitting in the comfort of my home eating lunch 🤜🤛
Before telephone poles were grounded. They would explode when there was a storm. So they added ground. Which didnt solve the issue but mimimized the explosions. Hope this helps.
Greetings: "Ground" is a commonly abused misnomer such as "like" . However "ground" has multiple definitions depending on the area which it is used. In electrical, electronics, Etc, in most cases it is technically a 'common' or a "reference" point by measurement or potential. Also in electrical it is "earth". She covered most of this decent. If people would use the correct terms instead of general, socially acceptable and renaming (thus Redefindung and reassigning) it would eliminate confusions and the need 4 this discussion. Thx 4 the share.
It's interesting because the "flat plane" for "RF ground" insinuates almost innumerable 'boundary gradients' (due to the 'molecular fractures' inherent in all materials); these would seemingly indicate 'current roping' or perhaps more crudely as river-water channeling amongst strewn bolders. MonsterWire's entire business model was built upon alleviating this condition, reasoned as detrimental to "high-fidelity" audio amplification, along its many subsequent me-too copiers. The boundary gradients (err, micro-distortions) were also touched on by guitar-amp maven Alexander Dumble's infamous quote about crystalline lattice etc. I found these links and plenty more on the site run by an ORGanization named "SOUND QUALITY".
I guess many comments here are referring to various viewpoints. Is ground everywhere at the same potential? It depends what aspect of the system is interesting at the time. When we talk about potential lightning strike, we have to consider the thousands of volts voltage drop that can occur between the antenna cable and the USB cable or the power ground pin, even with the best precautions. When we connect a receiver to the computer, it does matter that both ground one side of audio cable via different plugs, so it's worthwhile to bond the computer and receiver cases, and make sure the receiver case is not otherwise grounded, or you may get a ground loop and a lovely hum. When it comes to electrical safety (breakers) all you care is that everything is either double-insulated, or grounded via house safety ground. All Kristen says is don't take it for granted that all grounds are at the same potential. It depends.
Wow, this is one of the most interesting amateur radio videos I've seen recently! Thanks for sharing this knowledge and helping me to learn a lot! 73 ~ AC7WH
I had a guitar amp that was really old but it didnt have a ground and if you touch the knobs without the cover and touched the guitar strings at the same time it would shock the hell out of you. Never had that from a grounded circuit.
I can't totally endorse calling it a myth, but I still think it's very important to really consider what your specific ground actually is on a given circuit. It's an important concept to understand though because it can have real safety implications.
Electricity fascinates me, but I was never really able to grasp it. Maybe I just didn't apply myself because I absorb most things effortlessly. From what I hear Earth actually has a negative charge. I think I get that earth isn't a 0 charge but just the dominant electrical body in the local environment (like a vacuum in your house vs the earth). So the deal with ground is that it consistently allows the negative charge of the earth neutralize any positive buildup where it is unwanted. (In the vacuum motor vs building up in the vacuum hose)?
@@ghostrecon3214 While the entire Earth has an electrical charge of sorts; the important thing is differentials. Ground in one place may be much more conductive than ground in other places. The actual ground state can be different in two locations and if you connect them improperly there can be massive surge currents between them. So when I say it's important to know what your ground is: that's a perfect example. Device ground and earth ground aren't always equivalent for a given job and sometimes the earth ground is worse. Why would it be worse? Signals. The Earth is a good antenna at certain frequencies and wires pick up all sorts of stray signals. Your home is generally a mess of stray signals(a lot of which is 60Hz), and your various metal things around the home react to these signals from inside and outside of the house. Ideally you want to be able to dump current to ground during a fault, but those ground wires pick up a lot of vlf. For running simple appliances this isn't a big deal, but things like computers need good power conditioning to clean it all up.
Earth ground isn't just for lighting or EMP from lightning. Wind blowing across antennas can accumulate high voltages in static electricity as well as snow and probably sand and dust storms. This is probably made worse with less moisture in the air such as in winter or cold climates. NEC also requires television and radio antennas as well as cable and telephone lines to be grounded at the electrical service ground. Insurance companies could deny payouts do to equipment damage caused by lightning if you don't have the equipment grounded according to the NEC. Insurance companies are always looking for an excuse to get out that even if it's completely legit.
There is even an example transmitter installation, at least Canadian Electrical Code has one - NEC probably has one too. It shows a recommended grounding circuit for an outdoor transmitter antenna. It gets you covered, but it does not necessarily save your equipment from a direct hit. Those tens of thousands of amps don't just take one path to ground, but all of them, weighted by admittances of branches. You touching the case included. That's why everyone says "don't operate in a storm and don't leave the antenna connected to the rig."
They used to call that the aether 😂 we used to know that large electrical charges could be captured and used later. They used glass jars on the small scale and had much larger systems that have been forgotten or purposely omited from our knowledge 🤔 so they could let us borrow the electron and send it back to them for a cost of course 🎉
Very well done Kristen. However, I would NOT remove residential ground connection (for the neutral bonding) - as the whole house these days essentially has the neutral (AC) conductor to enclosures et al which can and HAS resulted in someone standing on Earth / on Basement Concrete 'feeling it'. With regards to lightening protection - did not Tesla move away from sharp rod protection to spherical to cause the lightening to NOT strike that area AT ALL?!
Well however DC voltage is just a potential energy. And not energy itself. And in DC circuits, there isn’t a ground, it’s just negative and positive wires. Another thing is soil, and the current in that soil is also DC current which is safe to touch, think of a car battery, touch both poles and nothing happens. It’s DC current which is nothing like AC current which is life threatening
Its horses for courses. The trouble is a good long ground rod giving low resistance for a power installation, would have too much series inductance to be much good at RF. I suppose a clever clogs could tune it out with series capacitance, why bother though, a ground mat or radials are a lot easier to deal with.
Ground rods don't have too much series inductance at RF. They work just fine at RF. The ground wire in that 100 foot long piece of romex snaking through a dozen outlets in the walls of your house and back to your panel box has too much inductance to use as a ground at RF.
Ironic. Ppl saying she said she was wrong, others saying she was right, and both camps had some reference point. My take away from all this? Nobody actually knows anything.
Well, consider that most of the dangers of touching installations with grounding faults is that over 30 mA (milli Amps) could kill you if you don't lead it away from you and on to the phase which is named PE, it will and has saved lives of countless people and "idiots" and most of this is because of people thinking it's useless. Remember PE stands for protective earth
I found this very interesting. I do not run a ground for RF from my modest shack (upstairs). I work all bands 6-80m with very low SWR and low noise. I do have a MFJ-931 Artificial Ground, but I have never felt the need to use it. I may try it on the back of tthis presentation as it is just a tuner for a counterpoise. Currently the only Counterpoise I run is directly under my EFRW. Thanks for the video. 2E0GKF
I've worked 159 DXCC entities with my humble setup. Happy with that after one year on HF. I've learned loads about propogation working Digital that will serve me well in the future. I don't get many problems with lightning, if there is a risk, I disconnect the antenna's or take them down.
I was just waiting for something like this. The ground rod, its thick AWG something cable and the massive ground distribution block with a lot of srews in it exists only among US operators, in Europe nobody has this. And transmitting from an airplane would also be a bit difficult if it really was essential. Another curious thing but a bit off-topic is that a while ago the german VDE withdraw its grounding recommendations for bathtubs. Electricians were a bit puzzled when installing plastic tubs... Next talk could be that the Faraday cage is a myth, at least for RF.
Ground is not a myth, ground is the name of a concept to communicate about with each other. This video shows that ground is just not what Kristen McIntire thought it was before. I want to emphasise what she says about lightning. That part IS most important to have a ground. Lightning could only strike once in 20 years in your area, but let these 20 years not give you the impression you don't need (earth)ground.
I KG4NWV, The best way I can concur is where is the ground plane and ground wire going to Earth from Satellites? I think it's more important for power distribution safety than radio wave propagation. If a live wire hits ground it may overcurrent the breaker and become safe. Your more likely to keep electrical areas safer with a ground system.
Satellites sometimes suffer from damage during high energy solar events precisely because they aren't grounded. They become charged to high voltages during these events as they are flooded with charged particles and that can damage the electronics on board. If they did have a ground wire, they wouldn't have this problem.
What she is pointing out, is that ground is not necessarily 0 volts. A simple example of this is the Earth battery. The reason why the "Carrington Event" solar flare of 1859 wrecked such havoc on the railroad moris code systems directly relates to this.
Ground is not a myth. It's important to know what kind of ground we are talking about here. There is an electrical earth ground here that is used here across the USA. And then there's an earth ground that we hams use as an rf reference. Now, it has been pointed out that if the ground we use for our radios is not the same as our electrical neutral earth ground, for instance it we drive a separate ground rod for our ham gear, then we are causing two different electrical potentials and are possibly violating electrical code and creating a safety hazard.
All I can say is if my trailer isn't grounded and I touch the outside metals, like when opening the door... I GET SHOCKED. So grounding is a must... but only if the trailer is hooked up to power...duh.
You forgot one. It's a source and sink of unlimited free electrons. The Earth has zero net charge. Connecting to it neutralizes any positive or negative charges that might otherwise build up on conductors. This is the reason it is important in the radio world. It provides lightning protection, and it dissipates static charges on your antenna that ruin radio reception.
There are not unlimited free electrons, also the earth is actually negative in that it has a surplus of electrons. Connecting to it only bonds to earth (the ground) so you remove any potential difference between your thing and the earth
But it doesn't. When a highly negative cloud base edges over you but not over the power company transformer, the green ground and the white neutral (commonly connected in the main circuit breaker (US, I've read that Brits have a variety of systems)) your antenna shield can be at a different V than a grounded mast. Also, high current in the wiring can mess up neutral potential, as well as send voltage spikes about.
@@LarryAllenTonar If your coax shield is bonded to ground where it enters your shack like it is supposed to be then you wont have that problem. And if the ground didn't sink that charge, everything metallic would be at hundreds or thousands of volts of potential every time the wind blew or a thunderstorm wandered by.
Kristen, your glasses are the most invisible I've ever "seen". That said, I used to use rimless back in the John Lennon days and people would see his photo on my wall and think the photo was of me. Grounding that seems to help involves a lightning rod as high as possible about 100 ft from your station. It is constantly pulling static sparks into the ground. You hope its never really hit with lightning ! It does it job and makes a dome of discharged energy around you. I've had really good luck. I can hear it discharge the fields when they come near, a funny sounding screechy sound, like a car door that needs lubrication very badly. N6GRG
The ground that is bonded to neutral in a residential application is there for safety purposes for grounding equipment it is also meant to be a low impedance conductor for shorts in the system and that is why the neutral needs to be at the same voltage as the actual Earth so that the electrical path can be completed in case of an emergency or a break in the system. The only reason neutral is bonded to an actual ground rod is to keep the electrical system within the 120 volts that has been determined to be safe for the insulation and the people using the power. The electricity in the conductors will not break through the insulation because it is kept within a tolerable range in reference to the Earth which is what everything else is bonded to to prevent arcs and breakdown in the insulation.
I was hoping she would get into the "separate or do not separate" the analog circuit ground from the digital circuit ground in electronics. From what I've researched, analog circuit components should be kept to one side of the board, and digital to the other, but best practice is for them to both share the same ground plane (I think there is one stipulation where a certain frequency range plays a factor, and so shared ground in very minute circumstances should be avoided). The importance of cable shielding, from my understanding should be seen as an extension of device shielding, as in, many devices are in a metal case acting as a faraday cage in many ways, if a cable that is plugged into the device is properly shielded then the faraday cage would be extended to the cable. She did go over isolation and shielding, but it's helped me to think of cable shielding as an extension of a device's faraday cage. Let's say I have a DB9 serial cable running from my radio to a serial port on my pc (because I'm old school I guess), if I wanted to ensure quality RS-232 signals where being passed for CAT control without picking up any RF and without having digital computer circuitry RFI bleed into the radio, I should use a serial cable with a metal DB9 connector that is connected to the shield of that cable as well as utilize ferrites either along the whole cable or just before connection points. This should get rid of any "cross talk". The part I find confusing or more convoluted is that If all of the devices in your shack are connected together via their ground lug screws/terminals and a bus bar, and then from the bus bar to a ground rod, and then a ground rod every 8ft or 2.5ish meters all the way until you reach your service entry panel (mains electrical service panel) ground rod to connect to it as well, wouldn't that make for a more robust shielded system that ensures the insides of devices can do what they are supposed to without interference from other devices or things? Or, would connecting stuff in this way cause problems with RF being coupled to the ground wire messing with your antenna system and other such things? (I'm sure this would depend on distances/proximity and lengths of conductors) Or, is she just saying that it isn't necessary if you properly isolate equipment with baluns and cable shielding? Technically though, would or wouldn't it be better to have all device case shields be connected to same ground? What is the best thing? Not sure if "it depends" applies here. One thing must be better than the other, even if that thing is not absolutely necessary.
On a side tangent, why were electronics in the 80's/90's so much more heavily shielded than today's stuff (generally speaking)? Was it because they used larger noisier components? Is it because mostly everything is digital and low power now? (cheapo wall warts, inductive chargers, and capacitive touch lamps meat FCC standards apparently...?) And, what is with cheap USB cables? Everybody loves USB C, but finding a USB C cable that has actually been designed to spec, which also happens to be affordable, is not really a thing. (Apple makes a great cable, but it costs booku bucks). How feasible is it from an electrical engineering standpoint to actually be using USB C for everything anyway? I would really like an engineer to explain. Especially if a manufacturer could just use a different cable that is more affordable and typically can be found with better shielding that is built to a more uniformly adhered to standard. One example would be XLR cable, it tends to have far superior shielding than just an AUX audio cable (3.5mm) would that be the reason why keyer jacks on radios are 1/4"? Some are not, but usually that's a QRP thing, and not all 1/4" aux audio cable is shielded as good, but if you type XLR to 1/4" cable you will get the good stuff, and then just chop off the XLR end and direct wire to your paddle/ straight key.
Digital grounds can carry very high instantaneous currents because of the fast switching, you typically don’t want that ground current and I^2R voltage in your sensitive analog circuit, so separating the grounds is just a means to separate the current path to the power source of the two circuits. It’s exactly the same as having two “hot” wires of say 12v and 5v… Ground can be thought of in exactly the same way only it’s the reverse direction. So all separate grounds do is exactly that, it separates two power supplies. One to power the digital portion and the other the analog portion. You can see by thinking in terms of water flowing or current that ground is also usually connected at one point in a star pattern to separate the current but keep the same reference potential (Ground)…
@@robertw1871 " ground is also usually connected at one point in a star pattern to separate the current but keep the same reference potential (Ground)"? So don't separate the grounds. That allows everything to have the same potential. You can have multiple voltages and yet all are sharing a ground plane. Not sure about the star pattern biz. Everything prior to the quoted portion of your comment was bashing same ground, then you threw me with that curveball, so I think we agree maybe.
@@jampskan5690 It’s more useful to think of electrons like rivers flowing and use current rather than voltage or potential. The voltage just sets how much water is available to do work… It’s the current that is doing the job. So it’s the same principle for both separate grounds and star grounds and or anything else weird going on. Those things are there to control where the amps are flowing, for a lot of different reasons. So in the case of a star all the little rivers are flowing into one point before returning to the source (actually ground (reference potential) is the beginning of the river but that just complicates things). So the star ends up being not just two grounds for digital and analog but many for all the different sections, so winds up being the same idea. So if you draw the circuit out with a bunch of arrows starting at your reference point you can see all the branches that you want to keep clean. The current (AC) also has a field associated, so it will radiate, you want to keep that EM field from coupling to other sensitive areas, so it ends up being more than just clean power. Another note is when you can’t fully separate things then DC runs could be isolated with inductance to keep things separate in the time (frequency) domain. So places where there’s a component that with change current form DC to AC. I think you have it pretty much right, I thought I’d just restate it in different words. It’s not an intuitive thing, many people including professional engineers don’t really consider much of what’s going on. It does get more complicated, these currents also take particular paths in ground planes and so forth. The fields tend to couple around each-other, so the currents in the ground with be in the ground plane under the voltage drops where current is changing to heat, or direct under the traces carrying the current on the other layers, it won’t spread across the entire plane.. Electricity is a really bizarre thing the closer you look… -R
@@robertw1871isn’t it amazing how we, as the human race, peacock around about how smart we are, but when you really look at it, we’re just smacking electrons with a rock and still don’t know why it works 😂
Ground rods are for safety. It spreads the electrical contact out like the difference between a glass of water overflowing and wetting your shoes compared to a water jet cutting your feet off.
And one more thing. As a former industrial electrician I have never run into a Wye configured 3ph motor. It's my understanding that this is a European practice. And that neutral is not using earth ground to complete the connection. It is a straight connection.
I don't know what to make of it all, to be honest. Have we all been fed a line of crap for years or is this all semantics? Either way, it's definitely an interesting angle, some points make more sense than others for me. My take away is, maybe the term "ground" was used to help us simpletons better understand something fairly complex and, in turn, has gotten out of control. I compare this to devices we call antenna tuners that actually do nothing to tune the antenna, unless located at the feed point. I call them radio pacifiers because that's truly what they do. Very interesting take on this and something I'm going to have to watch a few more times to take it all in. Then ponder whether its real or semantics of a relative term. Thanks for putting this together for all of us to bang our head against the wall about.
That’s an electrician and electronic enthusiast. I can say that an earth ground for AC electrical distribution is very important it serves as a safety measure and in the transmission of power all neutrals are tied to earth ground. In electronic circuits where the circuitry is isolated through some type of transformer direct AC earth ground is is usually not needed and replaced by a chassis ground neutral bus that provides the return path for all circuitry.
Are there any dowsers here ?. I find that selecting house ground stake location has subtle but important effect on performance of A/V equipment in the house. Anybody noticed change in RF rig performance according to earth stake location ?.
KC1CCG - I have a 500 foot long wire about 40 foot above a soggy field. I BELIEVE in ground as in earth because of how well this antenna functions. There may well be no ground as many people imagine it....but as an imperfect common reference for antennas and equipment, electrical distribution systems....of course its real. non ideal, yes, but obviously useful.
then does this mean, when extrapolated; our solar system, galaxy, universe, is like a car electrical system, when it is self grounded to the chassis? does this mean all satellites and rocket electronics are also self grounded to the chassis as well? And does this imply the one thing across the universe everything in it has in common, is Gravity and that it is actually a substance of some sort? That Space is grounded to gravity?
The main issue is we as a society have over used the term "ground" and ascribed too many different meanings too it. Fundamentally and originally it means a path to earth and it describes the relationship of action between electricity and the earth. Electricity wants to reach earth more then anything else. It is always moving in an effort to reach earth, essentially the whole time it's moving it's searching for and seeking a path to the earth. In a rudimentary over simplified way you can say seeking earth is why electricity moves, seeking earth is the motivation.
It seems that the way you described to think about it is just as susceptible to misunderstanding as the present way it is taught. I prefer to think of it in potentials, not electrons. Because, though there are some electrons that can break free from the atomic structure under "normal" conditions, it is the transfer of energy (potential) which is happening. That change in energy (potential) causes an electric field that propagates the transfer of energy (potential) to particles farther down the line. These differences in potential will naturally propagate to equilibrium unless acted upon by an external source. I totally agree with what you mentioned about overusing the term ground. It is a shortcut to teaching from those either too lazy or that don't really understand it themselves. ...but, it does serve a useful purpose.
I do think this is over complicating the matter. It’s only a myth if you think of ground or earth, as some universal and ubiquitous zero potential thing, and every time you see the word or symbol for ground or earth, that they are part of it. Does anyone think of it like that? Possibly but only people for whom it’s not actually relevant. I would think any electrician, electrical engineer, just about any other Engineer, amateur radio operator, and so on, understand that it’s nothing more than the side of the voltage supply not called positive.
Grounding as commonly understood by most hams today is indeed mythical. A ham with no grounds and one with everything grounded will indeed not be different in signal strength whatsoever. Is our rig grounded via the third prong, to the electrical mains, or not? If so then no additional ground is necessary. Does it do anything to reduce RFI in the vast majority of cases? If no, then no "RF ground" (another myth) is necessary. The only possible need for grounding involves a tower / antenna for lightning protection if done properly. That is it.
18:43 actually if you take your dipole and the tree is too small, just let it hover over the ground and it still works fine. You need just one radial. For a low SWR about 30 cm worked fine for me on the 20 m band.
I think gnd matters more when dealing with static charges or lightnings than RF. Well this begs question how a static charge can influence an equipment ? - Maybe it has something to do with the shape of a casing, where some sharp corners could lead to the E field gradient not being an uniform distribution or in case of mosfets they have insulated gate so in rare examples where the body is not connected to the source of a particular mosfet that may cause too much potential difference when charged statically semiconductor's body but not the gate since the gate's dielectric was in neutral charge state before. So maybe it is necessary to do some experiment on equipment with outside UV charging.
ground in electronics is nothing to do with the earth - like in a car 1 side of the battery (-) is connected to the body and called ground, and the other is connected to (+) - that way you only need to run 1 power lead to provide power to anything & attach the other to the body/ground. mains power is similar with 1 of the AC lines attached to the earth at the power plant and again in different places even homes. that way if you have an electrical device running from mains power with its metal casing attached to a ground you should never be able to get a shock from it as any other lead connecting to the case will automatically blow a fuse/breaker so it should never be live. other than that it can be useful to have easy access to a ground lead to ground some shielding some cables to dissipate/dump any static/interference/noise. a lot of countries & areas done even bother with ground in their electrical sockets/outlets and have absolutely no problems other than fuses/breakers not being as effective/safe
Tangentially related to "ground" -- (1) concept of earthing for biological healing (trangential to that: RF radiation as toxic to blood, biologies, causal to cancer, per Dr Magda Havas, Dr Devra Davis and many many others); also (2) atmospheric voltage gradient, which ostensibly explains the suspected / increasingly-evidenced 'antiquitech' of airship travel thought to be commonplace prior to the so-called 'mud-flood' -- this is per Jon Levi, Michelle Gibson, and other youtubers. Shape-of-the-earthers / realmsters also have some bearing on this as the concepts are noted in scripture. Thoroughly interesting, and deeply relevant concept -- kudos!
It's simple Machines, motors .... casing to be grounded so that there is no potential difference between the " ground " you stand on & the equipment casing. Any leak current will be relayed into the actual ground. If not grounded & touched the current will take the path of least resistance & that might be you. It may be your lasts current path experience. Even the age old Neutral ground bonding works very well even in wet areas like marinas or port key side supply circuits. I prefer it far above the fancy earth leakage systems that so often trips on the slightest earth faults
The effects of ground or earth varies from DC to White Light. It can be a conductor, attenuator or reflector, depending on frequency and distance relative to free space. RFI in the shack is a different matter. An antenna must be matched at its terminals to coax and located far enough away depending on power. Consider a high power broadcast station. Still, an important subject and there are many engineering level books free on the web.
I never undestood why the electric company made me install a copper rod and run a ground wiring and also attach to it the neutral wire to it. So, why do I need 3 wires if 2 are the same thing??
Because they aren't the same thing. The white neutral wire has current flowing through it, so it will not be at the same potential as the green ground wire which has no current flowing through it. You wouldn't want the metal chassis of your appliances to be sitting at a potential difference, so they're connected to the green wire, not the white one. Connecting the white wire to the green one in the panel box makes half of your electrical system safer. That way you hopefully don't get shocked when you touch the base of a screw in light bulb which is connected to the white wire. Connecting the white wire to ground also guarantees the black wire will never get more than about 120V different than ground. If there was no connection, the wires would float and could accumulate charge that could put them at hundreds or thousands of volts referenced to ground. That would be a bad thing for your wiring and for you.
@@cferrarini Only at that one connection point. If the wires were perfectly ideal wires it would be true anywhere. But real wires have resistance, so they have voltage drop. That means if there's current flowing in the neutral, then there's voltage drop, and that means the farther you get from that one point the more voltage difference there will be between the neutral and ground. This is why it is crucial that there never be current flowing in the ground lead except during a fault. Go ahead, check it in your house with a multimeter. You'll find the neutral is not sitting at 0V if there's any current flowing. The hot wire pulls it up above 0V. The more current, the harder it pulls.
Electricity will almost always (99%+ of the time) choose a path leading to earth than any other path of any other circuit. Meaning if a random path to earth becomes open to any circuit the power will leave its designed path and choose earth instead of completing the designed circuit.
"GND" Connection could just reference a "Abstract Greater Mass" to Connect To. A "GND" could be a Place to Discharge a Energy State into a Greater Mass. The Term for "Electrical Return" I am Most familure with is "Common or Common Path". Could a Ground State just be Considered a Place that Accepts Energy from a Non-Ground State Point. To My Understanding from the "NEC" Discriptions a Common or Neutral Conductor is Current "Carrying or Flowing" Conductor connected to Ground Point called a "Grounded Conductor". A Ground Conductor is a Conductor connected to Ground Point "Not carrying or flowing Current" under Normal Operating Conditions. This is a great discussion that Promotes "Critical Thinking" to Explore the Physical World with New Perspectives to Maybe adjust our Perceptions a Little. Good Work Kristen
Consider the ground points indicated at 6.00 in the circuit. Those 3 points are at the same potential and in fact if you decide to really build that circuit you close the circuit by connecting those three points with a wire right? Or you use a base where those three points touch the same plate so that they are at the same potential, so they belong to a short circuit and the differnce of potential is clearly 0 at the nodes of a short circuit . Remember that the definition of a potential function implies you have to deal with conservative fields , in this case electrostatic field. It is the density of charge in a particular location in space who creates the field and if you go far from this density and put there a tiny test charge you had in your pocket (😂) you assume field is 0 there because you are so far from the charge density creating the field Now potential function is operatively defined as the work function to move your tiny test charge from very far to a generic point A. Well thats the point , you have to integrate the field in a point where we presume is 0 but integratig 0 gives a general constant as a result not only 0! So you can assume in this far field region your potential is 0 or whatever you please by your convenience. It is not important, because at the end od the story if you measure the potential difference between a point A and B of the field those arbitrary quantities will neglect. Sorry my english is terrible. Lets go back to practical stuff. Ground point must be smartly chosen as the point capable of draining all the charges potentially circulating in your net for safety security. Think about a lightening striking a house, you to create and incredible conductive path ( very tiny impedance path) so that you save your home network and house and family because charges go where they find less resistance and of course earth is so big, it can absorb and drain all the lightening in this world and if you smartly designed your electric net in your house choosing a preferential high conductive net discharge path to the ground you are a good elelctrician because you do not want be a part of that preferentail conductive path, right? Ciao.
.... in some circumstances...maybe, but take an antenna fed at the high Z point on a hot dry day and not 'ground' it... the build up of an electrostatic charge, with that charge (those microscopic fingers of electrostatic charge) trying to find it's path to 'ground'... could make your RX virtually unusable... earth 'grounding' the cold side of that antenna's matching transforemer (49:1 or 9:1... even a balun) quickly remediates the problem. You can call it whatever you like, but providing a path for an electrostatic charge 'problem' is in my words... providing a "ground" return. This is important in stand alone battery operated systems where there may not be any DC 'ground return' option.... which is what I have and use. A lotta folks mix up RFI issues with electrostatic charge build up... different kettle of fish.
Hmm, I think you are Correct. My system is bonded (to itself) on AC Side for my GFI to work correctly. My DC. Not grounded . solar panels not grounded so as not to encourage lighting contact..
ERIC DOLLARD has a lot to say about all this, particularly regarding his earth telemetry, earthquake prediction, and extensive info going back to our earliest days of EE. TESLA must figure in here prominently, also. In examining high-energy physics Directed Energy Weaponry (see the Raytheon patents, etc) it's most interesting, in real-world, to see how certain objects when "grounded" are spared from molecular annihilation (or "insta-rust" and other withering / warping / wilting (as seen amongst so many steel girders across so many attack sites), versus other objects, particularly when 'isolated' (via rubber car tires, for instance) from touching earth, readily become "toasted" (to use Dr Judy Wood's verbiage, pursuant to HUTCHISON EFFECT). As frequencies increase, apparently, locality of "ground" matters more and more prominently, as well as boundary isolation from nearby fields (thinking of 'earth ground field' in relation to nearness of 'microwave-wilted or rusted' objects). Anyway, just some more interesting tangents to explore and enjoy!
Ma'am have you ever had a lightening strike at your home? I worked at many radio stations in my career and saw what lightening can do and if it wasn't for ground we'd be buying a new FM antenna every time we took a strike! Even within the transmitter and throughout building and equipment! I don't think you understand about Ground. If I were you I'd research more and even do a controlled lightening strike and see what ground does and you'll understand. And/or talk to a radio TV engineers they'll explain it to you also!
Sorry, I don't see anything in your one counterexample that could actually disprove the POV presented in this video. Just overconfidence and a condescending attitude. What if we use lightning strikes to disprove it instead? We might (somehow) collect 3-dimensional e-field potential maps of the entire affected area, instantaneously during one fraction of a lightning strike's duration (picoseconds?). If there are no measurable gradients (however small) in that detailed heatmap of the potentials at and near 'ground', including every connected piece of equipment and power infrastructure around the strike zone in that instant, then we might have some basis to question Kristen's point of view. Otherwise, I'm more likely to trust the POV of the MIT-trained engineer who happens to also be a ham, over that of a commercial station engineer (who can't spell 'lightning'?), when sizing up who's more likely to fully understand such a complex, largely hidden from our senses (and the limits of ordinary test equipment), and nuanced subject as 'ground' - as it might apply to every other usage of the term in electronics and radio. I mean, I qualified for a career as a licensed commercial radio station 'engineer' after like 2 weeks of home study; it was easier than passing the amateur Extra written exam tbh. It's not even on the same playing field of understanding as a 4 year engineering program at a world-class university. The people arguing against this POV in comments here often seem to share a perspective of: "I observe, or was trained, to avoid or minimize a type of harmful bulk energy transfer that involves grounding techniques (in the sense that my trade and employers use the word), and was taught ( without deeper understanding of EM fields and fluxes based in the underlying physics) that 'the ground' may as well be thought of as a near-perfect sheet conductor, for all practical uses of the term." As if it were always just that simple. It also tells me they're not really listening and thinking about what's presented in the video. Certainly, there are plenty of instructors and materials in voc/tech programs giving their students just enough of a foundation to effectively do the work they're being trained for. The best teachers will hopefully mention as an aside that it's presenting an oversimplification of reality, but the approximation will be "good enough" for their future job.
A ground fault circuit interrupter does not need to have any reference to ground it can work without a ground connection whatsoever all it does is measure the difference between the hot and the neutral wires it has nothing to do with ground itself except for the fact that it is detecting if there is a fault to ground which is detected by the difference in voltage
I like the notion that ground is inertia. Give it a think in terms of inertial dampening of a moving object (or charge) before you write it off. Spooky
14 днів тому
'Neutral' is a better description! Gravity is the myth!
14 днів тому
"According to Dirac, at any point in space, the electron neither exists nor doesn't exist. It can only be described as a mathematical function. The same is true for the quarks that make up the atom's nucleus, as they too are fermions, which behave according to the Dirac equation."
not sure what this is all about? something bout outside reference of the circuit won't be grounded? i do know if u touch one of the electrical power wires coming into your home transformer on your electrical pole and your feet are on earth, a reference point for mythical ground, u go up in a puff of smoke, all we need to know.
"Ground is a Myth!" I'll go stand on it and see for myself. Anyway, at radio frequency, unless your radio is sitting on the ground, it isn't at ground potential.
ah so she is talking about the word ground, yes the word ground has several different meanings depending on the context it is used in. but isn't this subject more appropriate for an English lesson?
I’m a British 🇬🇧 Foundation Licence holder M7EOM I would like to Thank you for teaching me this I’ve certainly taken on board what you’ve said thanks again Kristen
Take it all with a pinch of salt she not as clever as she thinks I would not let her wire a plug. Am a ham also a spark and electrical engineer she needs locking up for the safety of man kind.
We have lost the full understanding of the word "voltage."" Voltage is a "potential difference between two points in a closed curcuit." A single point can have no voltage difference without a reference, and a "ground" is but an arbitrary reference to another point within a circuit or outside the circuit. Within a circuit, there will be different potentials to various points from which we arbitrarily called a ground. As you move the arbitrary ground reference, the measured potentials to the previous points measured will result in different potentials. Outside a circuit, there will be no measurable potential difference or voltage from any external point to any arbitrary point called a ground that is electrically located within the circuit. Be careful when identifying whether a circuit actually exists. All the above are just words describing a ground as an arbitrary reference point that has no inherent voltage and certainly not zero as voltage demands a potential difference, and the word "difference" still means between two points within a closed circuit. We may elect to call either point ground, but "by itself the term ground is meaningless." Simple 240/120 volt center tapped, single phase, utility circuits already have a reference point at the very location of the transformers center tap, which is called ground. Now, we may define the difference between a neutral wire and a ground wire. A neutral wire is an intentional current carrying conductor (typically white in color of insulation), while a ground wire is a nonintentional current carrying conductor (typically bare or green in color if insulated). The neutral wire has a connection on one end, which connects to the aforementioned ground reference, and the other end connects to the load return. The ground wire has a connection on one end, which connects to the aforementioned ground reference, and the other end connects to that which should never be energized. Although a ground point is in and of itself, a meaningless term, it most definitely is not a myth to another point within the same closed ciricuit!
Electricians ... this video is about RF and Hamm Radio equiptment, not about AC power. So don't get into this and post an argument. I was questioning the whole thing as I watched because I didnt realize until halfway through the vide that it is about radio and RF .
@HamRadioDX --- it is what happens. People don't pay attention. Then feel the need to throw there own knowledge or lack thereof into the mix and then they look ridiculous if they don't admit they screwed up and try to double down on their comment
As an electrician of 25 years I can say that ground is definitely not a myth. Ground is a reference point. In some places the Earth is actually used as the return path of the electrical circuit instead of a neutral (grounded conductor)
The ground is not necessarily a constant voltage everywhere on the planet but it is the local reference to 0 volts from a safety standpoint because most humans stand on the earth when dealing with electrical equipment.
Sometimes ground is just a reference voltage within a closed circuit that is isolated from the Earth.
If you hook up certain Transformers for commercial or residential power without grounding the center tap of the Transformer to Earth the voltage will vary wildly from Earth ground. You can end up with the hot legs of the circuit being several hundreds of volts above Earth ground even though they are only 120 volts from neutral.
She's arguing that ground is a myth for RF, not for safety.
47 years as an electrician and yes
Touch an improperly electrified and ungrounded appliance (sarcasm) and get back to me.
Touch a properly grounded one when your feet's are not at the same ground and come back to me.
I don't think that the tunel is two way open 😅!
Thats a safety ground you talkin bout.
Not a signal ground
@mrfirefighter360 Play drop the ground wire next to an open 9600v 2 contacts slotted branched ] touching a fence???
@louco2 on all 4s this time and barking like a wait cat mow over this way....
Awesome presentation!!! Thanks so much for the thoughts.
She was first licensed in the late 1970s
while a student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
MIT!
She holds an Amateur Extra class license.
Did I mention MIT?
She has served as ARRL Technical Coordinator for the East Bay Section, and is a member of the Palo Alto Amateur Radio Club.
McIntyre also is licensed in Japan, her second home, as JI1IZZ.
Did I mention MIT? And she's a consultant for both Yaesu and ICOM?
She is a senior engineer at
Apple.
Um, for those trying to dog her, she's probably forgotten more, than any of you have EVER even learned.
The problem isn't with her, it's with your intelligence, ability to actually understand what she's actually saying.
All the "im an electrician, I know electricians theory" all trying to talk shit need to stop and actually listen to what's she's actually saying.
Stay in your lane and on the point morons.
Brother these are UA-cam commenters. Have you ever noticed how accomplished and experienced UA-cam commenters claim to be? Don't doubt them! 😂 They are the real cream of the crop! That's why they can see how this lady is wrong! 😂
@robertm1672 bumped for those who need to read more and think 🤔 about the true reason for this statement.
Antenna theory is only 1 voltage difference engine.
The wave from the physical wire has its own natural point.
This in an Antenna is the halfway point of the collector.
When you change voltage to another regulation range of voltage you have the same physics but much higher amperage and or voltage.
Those details determine the wiring regulation. Even if the science doesn't agree with the current rules of the regulation.
Look up the surface ground voltage to leaky ground exceptable levels.
She spent and entire lecture describing what we already knew and accepted in electrical or electronics circuit theory as if it was some revelation she had. Yes, ground is not some universal static void of all charge, it is a referrence that should be zero volts compared to the circuit you're dealing with. It may not be zero volts when referenced to any other circuit, even if they share a common ground--case in point, when you're attaching multiple devices together, such as audio or RF equipment which are all plugged into AC , they may share the earth ground from the AC system, but due to the differences in the circuits, or interference/capacitance in the interconnect cables they may have a different reference to this shared ground, current is indced into it and this current will flow between the devices through the interconnects to try to equalize the gound difference, producing the hum or ground loop noise we've all heard. One potential fix for this is to attach the various devices' chassis toegether using that mystery screw she pointed out in the back of that device in the picture. That's what the purpose of the screw is--to provide a lower impedence path for grounds to equalize and hopefully keep that current from trying to use signal paths to travel where it distorts our signal data.
Why are you upset though? Because she does not have a long white beard? Was the lecture promised to answer you?
@@RhettSparrow Where do you get "upset"? Perhaps confused, for the reasons already stated. Perhaps side-eyeing whoever wrote the video title for maybe implying a bit more connotation to Ms. McIntyre's presentation than she may have intended (without knowing the intended target audience--I. E. if this was made for students, it's actually a fairly appropriate and informative way to present it, I was just an ass, and I can own up to commenting without knowing the context.) Would it have been more entertaining if she were dressed as a wizard? Of course. I'd have been on the edge of my seat waiting for that beard to short a circuit and start smoking.
@@jasengibson6619😂🤣😂
As I prep my UA-cam channel and start laying the groundwork (no pun intended) for content, this is exactly the kind of topic I want to explore. There’s a lot of confusion around "grounding," as well money and effort wasted. I think it’s time we all take a step back and recognize that what we’re really talking about is a localized safety solution, not some universal law. The more we understand that, the better we can appreciate the role grounding plays in our electrical systems-and the better we’ll be at designing safer, more reliable systems in the future.
This is a draft of my first script. I will include the references at the bottom. I like this Lady!
Introduction
I’ve spent my career working with electricity and electronics-mostly hands-on, a mix of trade school and self-taught, with a degree from the school of hard knocks. Along the way, I’ve learned a lot of things that aren't covered in textbooks, but one thing's certain: in electrical systems, grounding is real-you can’t run a "safe", functional system without it. The problem comes when we start talking about "ground" as if it’s some kind of universal, unchanging reference point. The more you dig into the fundamental nature of electricity, the more you realize that "ground" as a concept becomes less clear when you move from practical, everyday electrical work to the world of theoretical physics.
I wrote a deep dive paper into the concept of "ground." While it’s crucial in electrical systems and it serves a very real, practical function, its absolute meaning starts to get murky when you apply the term beyond the world of circuits and into fundamental physics. We’ll be challenging the Dunning-Kruger effect by questioning the myth of ground-the idea of a fixed, unchanging reference point in the universe-and rethinking some of the ideas that get thrown around in both engineering and physics.
The Role of Ground in Electrical Systems
In practical terms, "ground" serves a very simple "function": it provides a low-resistance path for electrical current to return to Earth, especially during a fault or short circuit. If something goes wrong in an electrical system-say, a wire comes loose and touches a metal casing-the current needs somewhere to go. Grounding directs that current safely into the Earth, preventing shocks or fires. It’s a safety mechanism, plain and simple.
Now, here’s where it gets interesting. While "ground" is essential, it’s not the perfect electrical sink many people assume it is. When it comes to grounding electrical systems, a common misconception is that the Earth itself is a perfect conductor, capable of instantly absorbing and dissipating electrical energy. In reality, this idea is far from the truth. The Earth, in its purest form, is actually a poor conductor of electricity. This is because the Earth’s composition-primarily consisting of rock, soil, and water-offers considerable resistance to the flow of electrical current. This resistance can vary dramatically depending on local conditions such as soil type, moisture levels, and temperature. In fact, if the soil is dry or rocky, grounding can become much less effective.
So, why do we still use the Earth as a grounding point? The answer lies in the field around the Earth-not the Earth itself. While the Earth may be a poor conductor, the electric field that surrounds it is far more significant when it comes to the flow of electrical charge. (This concept is for a different podcast) The Earth’s resistivity is not uniform-it changes based on soil type, moisture levels, and other environmental factors. So when we talk about the Earth as a "ground," it’s important to remember it’s not an infinite, catch-all sink for electricity. In fact, its ability to absorb current is not unlimited. Grounding, as we know it in the field, is more about providing a path of least impedance, not about dumping all the energy into the Earth.
The Misleading Associations of Ground
Here’s where the confusion sets in. The word "ground" carries a lot of misleading connotations-especially when we start thinking about it as something more than it really is. The two biggest misconceptions about "ground" are:
1. Ground as Zero Voltage:
In electrical systems, we often refer to "ground" as a point of "zero volts." It’s the reference against which we measure other voltages. But let’s be real: zero volts is relative. There’s no universal "zero" across the universe. The voltage at ground is simply a reference point within the system you’re working with. Outside that context, the concept of "zero" becomes meaningless.
2. Ground as the Ultimate Sink for Electricity:
The Earth is sometimes treated as the "ultimate sink" for electrical charge-like a vast, infinite reservoir waiting to absorb all the current that comes its way. But the truth is, the Earth has resistance, and its capacity to absorb current is far from limitless. The effectiveness of grounding depends on local factors-soil type, moisture content, depth of grounding rods, etc. So, calling Earth the "ultimate ground" isn’t quite the full story.
These misconceptions lead to a misunderstanding of the true role of ground. Grounding is a "localized safety measure" within electrical systems, not an absolute, universal principle.
Grounding and Relativity in Physics
When we step out of the electrical engineering world and into the realm of theoretical physics, the whole idea of "ground" as an absolute reference point falls apart. Take Einstein’s theory of relativity as an example. According to relativity, there is no universal frame of reference-everything is relative. So, when we talk about "ground" as though it’s fixed and unchanging, we’re ignoring the fact that the concept of a "reference point" changes depending on where you are and who you ask.
For example, someone standing on Earth might think of the surface as "ground," but for an astronaut in orbit, their concept of ground would be entirely different. The idea of a universal "zero point" or absolute ground simply doesn’t hold up across different frames of reference. And in the realm of quantum mechanics, where particles and fields are inherently uncertain and fluctuating, the notion of a fixed ground is even more problematic. In these contexts, "ground" becomes a relative term, just like any other reference point.
Practical Grounding in Electrical Engineering
Now, back to the practical side of things. Despite all this theoretical discussion, grounding is still crucial in electrical systems. You need ground to make sure that your electrical system is "safe". The ground path is a circuit we design and build providing that essential path for current to flow back to Earth in the event of a fault, ensuring that dangerous currents are safely dissipated. But it’s important to recognize that "ground" in electrical systems is a "localized safety feature" we built and labeled, rather than an absolute, universal principle. When you ground a system, you’re not tapping into some infinite reservoir of energy; you’re creating a safe return path for fault currents. The grounding system typically connects to the Earth’s surface (or another conductive body), but the goal is always the same: direct stray current away from people and equipment, preventing shocks and fires.
Conclusion
To sum it up: "ground" is a critical part of electrical systems. Without it, our circuits wouldn’t function “safely”. But the concept of ground as some sort of fixed, unchanging reference point-that’s a myth. In reality, grounding is a practical tool for managing fault currents and providing voltage references, but it is not an absolute, universal constant.
References
1. Alexander, C. K., & Sadiku, M. N. O. (2009). Fundamentals of Electric Circuits (5th ed.). McGraw-Hill.
A comprehensive textbook that covers the fundamental concepts of electrical circuits, including grounding and electrical safety.
2. Hewitt, P. G. (2012). Concepts of Physics (8th ed.). Addison-Wesley.
A classic physics textbook that introduces the basics of electrical circuits and grounding, along with discussions of reference frames in physics.
3. Griffiths, D. J. (2017). Introduction to Electrodynamics (4th ed.). Pearson.
A detailed text on electromagnetism that explains the behavior of electric fields, circuits, and the concept of grounding in electrical systems.
4. Einstein, A. (1915). The General Theory of Relativity. Annalen der Physik, 354(7), 769-822.
A foundational paper in modern physics, where Einstein establishes the theory of relativity, showing the relativity of motion and reference points.
5. Feynman, R. P., Leighton, R. B., & Sands, M. (2011). The Feynman Lectures on Physics (Vol. 2). Basic Books.
There IS absolutely a true "zero voltage". If an object has the exact same amount of negatively charged particles and positively charged particles evenly distributed throughout, there will be no net electric field throughout, and any two points on that object you probe will show zero voltage. That object would be a proper reference point! If you find a negative voltage when measuring between that object "A" and second object B, object B has more electrons than protons and that voltage would be proportional to THAT ratio.
As I said in my comment. Nikola Tesla designed the AC motor after visualizing the earths magnetic fields. Electricity (or the way we tx/rx) is simply a manipulation of those fields with all electricity trying to return to ground. If your argument is that it is not consistent I would argue nothing is. We have solar flares, leap years, biological cancers even galaxy's collide. Unlike the maker of this video at least you understand the importance of safety. I would argue that ground is center and is more important than neutral. w.wiki/AuHU Let me know if I am misunderstanding your argument.
Very interesting video! Thanks for sharing!
This is a much more scientific survey of my observations regarding ground ambiguities. Grounding potentials are nebulous and ground loops are elusive especially when crossed with any kind of inductive coupling. Flooding the zone with grounds is seldom a solution. Grounds are commonly lifted at the source in audio studios. I was surprised at the role of coax shield in feel lines of antenna systems and where common mode current might appear. You can know more and not think of everything.
This is the fourth time I've seen this presentation, and it got me thinking instead of sticking to dogma.
The title of this video caught my eye - and that doesn't happen very often.
I absolutely positively had to find out where the negative goes lol.
Thank you for making this video.
Brilliant human being!
As far as the ground being an actually good reference to the voltage in the neutral wire it is if you follow electrical code the resistance of the earth is the reason why it requires three ground rods a certain length and a certain distance apart from each other to reduce the amount of resistance and also get a variable reference to the Earth the soil that a ground rod is being pounded into is supposed to be tested for its continuity.
Very well done Kristen. In my circuits, I endeavor to use '0V' instead of 'GND'. With regards to 'Earth Ground', I think of it as a local electrostatic commonality (and nothing more) ... As I understand, historically, we once did NOT have an AC grid 'neutral' ground(ed) ... It was discovered that electrostatic / high potential discharges between the AC conductors resulted in insulation breakdown and the formation of an 'arc' where the nominal AC potential would now flow - usually resulting in fire. I have tested / recreated this.
Stand on a plastic bucket, charge yourself with an electrostatic generator, then touch what most scientists call "ground" and you will understand what it is very quickly 😂😂
You can get the same effect walking on a carpet in stocking feet for a while and then touching the metal handle on your fridge.
Yeah buddy
@@richb.4374 Metal handle on frig? What u rich. My frig has plastic handle. 😅
@@gmcjetpilot Yeah, I'm afraid many do these days. Mine is a stainless fridge so it has a metal handle. If you build up a static charge you find out very quickly when you grab the handle.
Thats funny. Mines 30 years old.@gmcjetpilot
Great talk. The part about salt hit hard. If you've ever been on a ship to repair a copy machine like I have, you end up scratching your head when it comes to grounding on a boat
I'm worried a great many of the comments here are, intentionally or otherwise, uncharitably misinterpreting the hypothesis being postulated in this presentation...
Kristen McIntyre made very clear that Ground/GND/Earth is an important null reference point in most of the electrical & electronic schema she presented, especially regarding safety concerns.
It might not have been obvious, but to sell the crux of her presentation, she feigned confusion about the purpose & ironically ungrounded assumptions (pun intended) that have been made: That "GND" is a myth, insofar as ham radios/antennae configurations are concerned, and as far as I could tell, no further does she extend the reach of her hypothesis.
A vestigial relic, likely carried over some time after the vacuum-tube transistor radio heyday (as grounding of any form AFAIK, save for lightning rods, hadn't achieved widespread adoption until the 3rd quarter of the 20th century), by enthusiasts versed in traditional electrical & electron flow theories, where it's remained an albatross, seemingly persisting under its own momentum.
I'd recommend any contrarians to understand that this was primarily to highlight her belief & challenge the uncritically accepted contradiction that, outside of explicit scenarios (many of which she detailed), grounding transmission/receiver antennae and/or radio equipment is unnecessary, if not outwardly detrimental, to the ham circuit. Please reassess with this information, or re/watch the video in full if you remain in disagreement.
Galileo Galilei’s three stages of truth, but the fact is, we’re in a time we need to question everything because if you start a microscopic hair off course, 1000 years later we’re lost and can’t understand why it should work but is failing… sounds like a few things right now.
I was sceptical at the title, but watched anyway (i don't want to live my life in an echo chamber ... other opinions deserve air ... well, most do) ...
What a bloody interesting talk! Kristen's descriptions of her investigations (both theoretical and practical) are well presented, flow well and convey in layman's terms what's going on with with this very eclectic part of the hobby (radio and electrical).
Thumbs up to Kristen 👍 for what must have been a huge amount of work, for me to be able to watch for free, and to Hayden for bringing it out of the lecture theatre, so i could watch it whilst sitting in the comfort of my home eating lunch 🤜🤛
Great video, I really enjoyed it 👍
Thanks Ape!
@ nah son, thank you 🍻
Before telephone poles were grounded. They would explode when there was a storm.
So they added ground. Which didnt solve the issue but mimimized the explosions. Hope this helps.
Greetings: "Ground" is a commonly abused misnomer such as "like" . However "ground" has multiple definitions depending on the area which it is used. In electrical, electronics, Etc, in most cases it is technically a 'common' or a "reference" point by measurement or potential. Also in electrical it is "earth". She covered most of this decent. If people would use the correct terms instead of general, socially acceptable and renaming (thus Redefindung and reassigning) it would eliminate confusions and the need 4 this discussion. Thx 4 the share.
It's interesting because the "flat plane" for "RF ground" insinuates almost innumerable 'boundary gradients' (due to the 'molecular fractures' inherent in all materials); these would seemingly indicate 'current roping' or perhaps more crudely as river-water channeling amongst strewn bolders. MonsterWire's entire business model was built upon alleviating this condition, reasoned as detrimental to "high-fidelity" audio amplification, along its many subsequent me-too copiers. The boundary gradients (err, micro-distortions) were also touched on by guitar-amp maven Alexander Dumble's infamous quote about crystalline lattice etc. I found these links and plenty more on the site run by an ORGanization named "SOUND QUALITY".
This phenomena has a scientific name: Bullshit.
I guess many comments here are referring to various viewpoints. Is ground everywhere at the same potential? It depends what aspect of the system is interesting at the time. When we talk about potential lightning strike, we have to consider the thousands of volts voltage drop that can occur between the antenna cable and the USB cable or the power ground pin, even with the best precautions. When we connect a receiver to the computer, it does matter that both ground one side of audio cable via different plugs, so it's worthwhile to bond the computer and receiver cases, and make sure the receiver case is not otherwise grounded, or you may get a ground loop and a lovely hum. When it comes to electrical safety (breakers) all you care is that everything is either double-insulated, or grounded via house safety ground. All Kristen says is don't take it for granted that all grounds are at the same potential. It depends.
Wow, this is one of the most interesting amateur radio videos I've seen recently! Thanks for sharing this knowledge and helping me to learn a lot! 73 ~ AC7WH
I had a guitar amp that was really old but it didnt have a ground and if you touch the knobs without the cover and touched the guitar strings at the same time it would shock the hell out of you. Never had that from a grounded circuit.
I can't totally endorse calling it a myth, but I still think it's very important to really consider what your specific ground actually is on a given circuit. It's an important concept to understand though because it can have real safety implications.
Electricity fascinates me, but I was never really able to grasp it. Maybe I just didn't apply myself because I absorb most things effortlessly.
From what I hear Earth actually has a negative charge. I think I get that earth isn't a 0 charge but just the dominant electrical body in the local environment (like a vacuum in your house vs the earth). So the deal with ground is that it consistently allows the negative charge of the earth neutralize any positive buildup where it is unwanted. (In the vacuum motor vs building up in the vacuum hose)?
@@ghostrecon3214 While the entire Earth has an electrical charge of sorts; the important thing is differentials. Ground in one place may be much more conductive than ground in other places. The actual ground state can be different in two locations and if you connect them improperly there can be massive surge currents between them. So when I say it's important to know what your ground is: that's a perfect example.
Device ground and earth ground aren't always equivalent for a given job and sometimes the earth ground is worse. Why would it be worse? Signals. The Earth is a good antenna at certain frequencies and wires pick up all sorts of stray signals. Your home is generally a mess of stray signals(a lot of which is 60Hz), and your various metal things around the home react to these signals from inside and outside of the house. Ideally you want to be able to dump current to ground during a fault, but those ground wires pick up a lot of vlf. For running simple appliances this isn't a big deal, but things like computers need good power conditioning to clean it all up.
Earth ground isn't just for lighting or EMP from lightning. Wind blowing across antennas can accumulate high voltages in static electricity as well as snow and probably sand and dust storms. This is probably made worse with less moisture in the air such as in winter or cold climates. NEC also requires television and radio antennas as well as cable and telephone lines to be grounded at the electrical service ground. Insurance companies could deny payouts do to equipment damage caused by lightning if you don't have the equipment grounded according to the NEC. Insurance companies are always looking for an excuse to get out that even if it's completely legit.
There is even an example transmitter installation, at least Canadian Electrical Code has one - NEC probably has one too. It shows a recommended grounding circuit for an outdoor transmitter antenna. It gets you covered, but it does not necessarily save your equipment from a direct hit. Those tens of thousands of amps don't just take one path to ground, but all of them, weighted by admittances of branches. You touching the case included. That's why everyone says "don't operate in a storm and don't leave the antenna connected to the rig."
They used to call that the aether 😂 we used to know that large electrical charges could be captured and used later. They used glass jars on the small scale and had much larger systems that have been forgotten or purposely omited from our knowledge 🤔 so they could let us borrow the electron and send it back to them for a cost of course 🎉
@@keithbaker1951 Riiight. No. We call them capacitors now. Glass is a crummy dielectric for RF.
my crystal set does not work without a ground conection
But ground is a myth!
I think of electrical "ground" as having a propensity for conductivity.
How does this correspond with the national electrical code?
Finally, I've been thinking this the whole time. Wonderful factual presentation.
Very well done Kristen. However, I would NOT remove residential ground connection (for the neutral bonding) - as the whole house these days essentially has the neutral (AC) conductor to enclosures et al which can and HAS resulted in someone standing on Earth / on Basement Concrete 'feeling it'. With regards to lightening protection - did not Tesla move away from sharp rod protection to spherical to cause the lightening to NOT strike that area AT ALL?!
I use a 6ft copper rod 5ft into the ground, if i take the ground wires of the radios I get interference especially on SWR receivers.
Well however DC voltage is just a potential energy. And not energy itself. And in DC circuits, there isn’t a ground, it’s just negative and positive wires. Another thing is soil, and the current in that soil is also DC current which is safe to touch, think of a car battery, touch both poles and nothing happens. It’s DC current which is nothing like AC current which is life threatening
Its horses for courses. The trouble is a good long ground rod giving low resistance for a power installation, would have too much series inductance to be much good at RF. I suppose a clever clogs could tune it out with series capacitance, why bother though, a ground mat or radials are a lot easier to deal with.
Ground rods don't have too much series inductance at RF. They work just fine at RF. The ground wire in that 100 foot long piece of romex snaking through a dozen outlets in the walls of your house and back to your panel box has too much inductance to use as a ground at RF.
Ironic. Ppl saying she said she was wrong, others saying she was right, and both camps had some reference point.
My take away from all this?
Nobody actually knows anything.
Well, consider that most of the dangers of touching installations with grounding faults is that over 30 mA (milli Amps) could kill you if you don't lead it away from you and on to the phase which is named PE, it will and has saved lives of countless people and "idiots" and most of this is because of people thinking it's useless. Remember PE stands for protective earth
I found this very interesting. I do not run a ground for RF from my modest shack (upstairs).
I work all bands 6-80m with very low SWR and low noise.
I do have a MFJ-931 Artificial Ground, but I have never felt the need to use it. I may try it on the back of tthis presentation as it is just a tuner for a counterpoise.
Currently the only Counterpoise I run is directly under my EFRW.
Thanks for the video.
2E0GKF
I've worked 159 DXCC entities with my humble setup. Happy with that after one year on HF. I've learned loads about propogation working Digital that will serve me well in the future.
I don't get many problems with lightning, if there is a risk, I disconnect the antenna's or take them down.
I was just waiting for something like this. The ground rod, its thick AWG something cable and the massive ground distribution block with a lot of srews in it exists only among US operators, in Europe nobody has this. And transmitting from an airplane would also be a bit difficult if it really was essential. Another curious thing but a bit off-topic is that a while ago the german VDE withdraw its grounding recommendations for bathtubs. Electricians were a bit puzzled when installing plastic tubs...
Next talk could be that the Faraday cage is a myth, at least for RF.
Ground is not a myth, ground is the name of a concept to communicate about with each other. This video shows that ground is just not what Kristen McIntire thought it was before.
I want to emphasise what she says about lightning. That part IS most important to have a ground. Lightning could only strike once in 20 years in your area, but let these 20 years not give you the impression you don't need (earth)ground.
Wow, you are brilliant!
I KG4NWV, The best way I can concur is where is the ground plane and ground wire going to Earth from Satellites? I think it's more important for power distribution safety than radio wave propagation. If a live wire hits ground it may overcurrent the breaker and become safe. Your more likely to keep electrical areas safer with a ground system.
Satellites sometimes suffer from damage during high energy solar events precisely because they aren't grounded. They become charged to high voltages during these events as they are flooded with charged particles and that can damage the electronics on board. If they did have a ground wire, they wouldn't have this problem.
Wonderful accurate presentation. This is often misunderstood.
What she is pointing out, is that ground is not necessarily 0 volts. A simple example of this is the Earth battery. The reason why the "Carrington Event" solar flare of 1859 wrecked such havoc on the railroad moris code systems directly relates to this.
Ground is not a myth. It's important to know what kind of ground we are talking about here. There is an electrical earth ground here that is used here across the USA. And then there's an earth ground that we hams use as an rf reference. Now, it has been pointed out that if the ground we use for our radios is not the same as our electrical neutral earth ground, for instance it we drive a separate ground rod for our ham gear, then we are causing two different electrical potentials and are possibly violating electrical code and creating a safety hazard.
All I can say is if my trailer isn't grounded and I touch the outside metals, like when opening the door... I GET SHOCKED. So grounding is a must... but only if the trailer is hooked up to power...duh.
You forgot one. It's a source and sink of unlimited free electrons. The Earth has zero net charge. Connecting to it neutralizes any positive or negative charges that might otherwise build up on conductors. This is the reason it is important in the radio world. It provides lightning protection, and it dissipates static charges on your antenna that ruin radio reception.
There are not unlimited free electrons, also the earth is actually negative in that it has a surplus of electrons. Connecting to it only bonds to earth (the ground) so you remove any potential difference between your thing and the earth
But it doesn't. When a highly negative cloud base edges over you but not over the power company transformer, the green ground and the white neutral (commonly connected in the main circuit breaker (US, I've read that Brits have a variety of systems)) your antenna shield can be at a different V than a grounded mast. Also, high current in the wiring can mess up neutral potential, as well as send voltage spikes about.
@@LarryAllenTonar If your coax shield is bonded to ground where it enters your shack like it is supposed to be then you wont have that problem. And if the ground didn't sink that charge, everything metallic would be at hundreds or thousands of volts of potential every time the wind blew or a thunderstorm wandered by.
Kristen, your glasses are the most invisible I've ever "seen". That said, I used to use rimless back in the John Lennon days and people would see his photo on my wall and think the photo was of me.
Grounding that seems to help involves a lightning rod as high as possible about 100 ft from your station. It is constantly pulling static sparks into the ground. You hope its never really hit with lightning ! It does it job and makes a dome of discharged energy around you. I've had really good luck. I can hear it discharge the fields when they come near, a funny sounding screechy sound, like a car door that needs lubrication very badly. N6GRG
The ground that is bonded to neutral in a residential application is there for safety purposes for grounding equipment it is also meant to be a low impedance conductor for shorts in the system and that is why the neutral needs to be at the same voltage as the actual Earth so that the electrical path can be completed in case of an emergency or a break in the system. The only reason neutral is bonded to an actual ground rod is to keep the electrical system within the 120 volts that has been determined to be safe for the insulation and the people using the power. The electricity in the conductors will not break through the insulation because it is kept within a tolerable range in reference to the Earth which is what everything else is bonded to to prevent arcs and breakdown in the insulation.
Thank you ,
I was hoping she would get into the "separate or do not separate" the analog circuit ground from the digital circuit ground in electronics. From what I've researched, analog circuit components should be kept to one side of the board, and digital to the other, but best practice is for them to both share the same ground plane (I think there is one stipulation where a certain frequency range plays a factor, and so shared ground in very minute circumstances should be avoided).
The importance of cable shielding, from my understanding should be seen as an extension of device shielding, as in, many devices are in a metal case acting as a faraday cage in many ways, if a cable that is plugged into the device is properly shielded then the faraday cage would be extended to the cable. She did go over isolation and shielding, but it's helped me to think of cable shielding as an extension of a device's faraday cage. Let's say I have a DB9 serial cable running from my radio to a serial port on my pc (because I'm old school I guess), if I wanted to ensure quality RS-232 signals where being passed for CAT control without picking up any RF and without having digital computer circuitry RFI bleed into the radio, I should use a serial cable with a metal DB9 connector that is connected to the shield of that cable as well as utilize ferrites either along the whole cable or just before connection points. This should get rid of any "cross talk".
The part I find confusing or more convoluted is that If all of the devices in your shack are connected together via their ground lug screws/terminals and a bus bar, and then from the bus bar to a ground rod, and then a ground rod every 8ft or 2.5ish meters all the way until you reach your service entry panel (mains electrical service panel) ground rod to connect to it as well, wouldn't that make for a more robust shielded system that ensures the insides of devices can do what they are supposed to without interference from other devices or things? Or, would connecting stuff in this way cause problems with RF being coupled to the ground wire messing with your antenna system and other such things? (I'm sure this would depend on distances/proximity and lengths of conductors) Or, is she just saying that it isn't necessary if you properly isolate equipment with baluns and cable shielding? Technically though, would or wouldn't it be better to have all device case shields be connected to same ground? What is the best thing? Not sure if "it depends" applies here. One thing must be better than the other, even if that thing is not absolutely necessary.
On a side tangent, why were electronics in the 80's/90's so much more heavily shielded than today's stuff (generally speaking)? Was it because they used larger noisier components? Is it because mostly everything is digital and low power now? (cheapo wall warts, inductive chargers, and capacitive touch lamps meat FCC standards apparently...?) And, what is with cheap USB cables? Everybody loves USB C, but finding a USB C cable that has actually been designed to spec, which also happens to be affordable, is not really a thing. (Apple makes a great cable, but it costs booku bucks). How feasible is it from an electrical engineering standpoint to actually be using USB C for everything anyway? I would really like an engineer to explain. Especially if a manufacturer could just use a different cable that is more affordable and typically can be found with better shielding that is built to a more uniformly adhered to standard. One example would be XLR cable, it tends to have far superior shielding than just an AUX audio cable (3.5mm) would that be the reason why keyer jacks on radios are 1/4"? Some are not, but usually that's a QRP thing, and not all 1/4" aux audio cable is shielded as good, but if you type XLR to 1/4" cable you will get the good stuff, and then just chop off the XLR end and direct wire to your paddle/ straight key.
Digital grounds can carry very high instantaneous currents because of the fast switching, you typically don’t want that ground current and I^2R voltage in your sensitive analog circuit, so separating the grounds is just a means to separate the current path to the power source of the two circuits. It’s exactly the same as having two “hot” wires of say 12v and 5v… Ground can be thought of in exactly the same way only it’s the reverse direction. So all separate grounds do is exactly that, it separates two power supplies. One to power the digital portion and the other the analog portion. You can see by thinking in terms of water flowing or current that ground is also usually connected at one point in a star pattern to separate the current but keep the same reference potential (Ground)…
@@robertw1871 " ground is also usually connected at one point in a star pattern to separate the current but keep the same reference potential (Ground)"? So don't separate the grounds. That allows everything to have the same potential. You can have multiple voltages and yet all are sharing a ground plane. Not sure about the star pattern biz. Everything prior to the quoted portion of your comment was bashing same ground, then you threw me with that curveball, so I think we agree maybe.
@@jampskan5690 It’s more useful to think of electrons like rivers flowing and use current rather than voltage or potential. The voltage just sets how much water is available to do work… It’s the current that is doing the job. So it’s the same principle for both separate grounds and star grounds and or anything else weird going on. Those things are there to control where the amps are flowing, for a lot of different reasons. So in the case of a star all the little rivers are flowing into one point before returning to the source (actually ground (reference potential) is the beginning of the river but that just complicates things). So the star ends up being not just two grounds for digital and analog but many for all the different sections, so winds up being the same idea. So if you draw the circuit out with a bunch of arrows starting at your reference point you can see all the branches that you want to keep clean. The current (AC) also has a field associated, so it will radiate, you want to keep that EM field from coupling to other sensitive areas, so it ends up being more than just clean power. Another note is when you can’t fully separate things then DC runs could be isolated with inductance to keep things separate in the time (frequency) domain. So places where there’s a component that with change current form DC to AC. I think you have it pretty much right, I thought I’d just restate it in different words. It’s not an intuitive thing, many people including professional engineers don’t really consider much of what’s going on. It does get more complicated, these currents also take particular paths in ground planes and so forth. The fields tend to couple around each-other, so the currents in the ground with be in the ground plane under the voltage drops where current is changing to heat, or direct under the traces carrying the current on the other layers, it won’t spread across the entire plane.. Electricity is a really bizarre thing the closer you look… -R
@@robertw1871isn’t it amazing how we, as the human race, peacock around about how smart we are, but when you really look at it, we’re just smacking electrons with a rock and still don’t know why it works 😂
Ground rods are for safety. It spreads the electrical contact out like the difference between a glass of water overflowing and wetting your shoes compared to a water jet cutting your feet off.
And one more thing. As a former industrial electrician I have never run into a Wye configured 3ph motor. It's my understanding that this is a European practice. And that neutral is not using earth ground to complete the connection. It is a straight connection.
I don't know what to make of it all, to be honest. Have we all been fed a line of crap for years or is this all semantics? Either way, it's definitely an interesting angle, some points make more sense than others for me. My take away is, maybe the term "ground" was used to help us simpletons better understand something fairly complex and, in turn, has gotten out of control. I compare this to devices we call antenna tuners that actually do nothing to tune the antenna, unless located at the feed point. I call them radio pacifiers because that's truly what they do. Very interesting take on this and something I'm going to have to watch a few more times to take it all in. Then ponder whether its real or semantics of a relative term. Thanks for putting this together for all of us to bang our head against the wall about.
The ground is a point you connect your circuit to a greater mass of electron. This mass of electron is used to temper the ether's caprices.
That’s an electrician and electronic enthusiast. I can say that an earth ground for AC electrical distribution is very important it serves as a safety measure and in the transmission of power all neutrals are tied to earth ground.
In electronic circuits where the circuitry is isolated through some type of transformer direct AC earth ground is is usually not needed and replaced by a chassis ground neutral bus that provides the return path for all circuitry.
Are there any dowsers here ?. I find that selecting house ground stake location has subtle but important effect on performance of A/V equipment in the house.
Anybody noticed change in RF rig performance according to earth stake location ?.
Have to watch later, Xmas shopping calls
KC1CCG - I have a 500 foot long wire about 40 foot above a soggy field. I BELIEVE in ground as in earth because of how well this antenna functions. There may well be no ground as many people imagine it....but as an imperfect common reference for antennas and equipment, electrical distribution systems....of course its real. non ideal, yes, but obviously useful.
then
does this mean, when extrapolated;
our solar system, galaxy, universe,
is like a car electrical system, when
it is self grounded to the chassis?
does this mean all satellites and rocket electronics
are also self grounded to the chassis as well?
And does this imply
the one thing across the universe everything in it
has in common, is Gravity and that it is actually
a substance of some sort? That Space is grounded
to gravity?
i dont get out and put jumper cables between my bumper and fire hydrant before i key up. swr = 1.3.
The main issue is we as a society have over used the term "ground" and ascribed too many different meanings too it. Fundamentally and originally it means a path to earth and it describes the relationship of action between electricity and the earth. Electricity wants to reach earth more then anything else. It is always moving in an effort to reach earth, essentially the whole time it's moving it's searching for and seeking a path to the earth. In a rudimentary over simplified way you can say seeking earth is why electricity moves, seeking earth is the motivation.
It seems that the way you described to think about it is just as susceptible to misunderstanding as the present way it is taught.
I prefer to think of it in potentials, not electrons. Because, though there are some electrons that can break free from the atomic structure under "normal" conditions, it is the transfer of energy (potential) which is happening. That change in energy (potential) causes an electric field that propagates the transfer of energy (potential) to particles farther down the line. These differences in potential will naturally propagate to equilibrium unless acted upon by an external source.
I totally agree with what you mentioned about overusing the term ground. It is a shortcut to teaching from those either too lazy or that don't really understand it themselves. ...but, it does serve a useful purpose.
I do think this is over complicating the matter. It’s only a myth if you think of ground or earth, as some universal and ubiquitous zero potential thing, and every time you see the word or symbol for ground or earth, that they are part of it. Does anyone think of it like that? Possibly but only people for whom it’s not actually relevant. I would think any electrician, electrical engineer, just about any other Engineer, amateur radio operator, and so on, understand that it’s nothing more than the side of the voltage supply not called positive.
In all applications it is an escape for unwanted charges from the system
Grounding as commonly understood by most hams today is indeed mythical. A ham with no grounds and one with everything grounded will indeed not be different in signal strength whatsoever. Is our rig grounded via the third prong, to the electrical mains, or not? If so then no additional ground is necessary. Does it do anything to reduce RFI in the vast majority of cases? If no, then no "RF ground" (another myth) is necessary. The only possible need for grounding involves a tower / antenna for lightning protection if done properly. That is it.
18:43 actually if you take your dipole and the tree is too small, just let it hover over the ground and it still works fine. You need just one radial. For a low SWR about 30 cm worked fine for me on the 20 m band.
I think gnd matters more when dealing with static charges or lightnings than RF. Well this begs question how a static charge can influence an equipment ? - Maybe it has something to do with the shape of a casing, where some sharp corners could lead to the E field gradient not being an uniform distribution or in case of mosfets they have insulated gate so in rare examples where the body is not connected to the source of a particular mosfet that may cause too much potential difference when charged statically semiconductor's body but not the gate since the gate's dielectric was in neutral charge state before. So maybe it is necessary to do some experiment on equipment with outside UV charging.
ground in electronics is nothing to do with the earth - like in a car 1 side of the battery (-) is connected to the body and called ground, and the other is connected to (+) - that way you only need to run 1 power lead to provide power to anything & attach the other to the body/ground.
mains power is similar with 1 of the AC lines attached to the earth at the power plant and again in different places even homes. that way if you have an electrical device running from mains power with its metal casing attached to a ground you should never be able to get a shock from it as any other lead connecting to the case will automatically blow a fuse/breaker so it should never be live.
other than that it can be useful to have easy access to a ground lead to ground some shielding some cables to dissipate/dump any static/interference/noise.
a lot of countries & areas done even bother with ground in their electrical sockets/outlets and have absolutely no problems other than fuses/breakers not being as effective/safe
Informative presentation. I need to watch it about three more times now. :)
Please do!
Can I stream tis on my channel ?
No sorry
Tangentially related to "ground" -- (1) concept of earthing for biological healing (trangential to that: RF radiation as toxic to blood, biologies, causal to cancer, per Dr Magda Havas, Dr Devra Davis and many many others); also (2) atmospheric voltage gradient, which ostensibly explains the suspected / increasingly-evidenced 'antiquitech' of airship travel thought to be commonplace prior to the so-called 'mud-flood' -- this is per Jon Levi, Michelle Gibson, and other youtubers. Shape-of-the-earthers / realmsters also have some bearing on this as the concepts are noted in scripture. Thoroughly interesting, and deeply relevant concept -- kudos!
It's simple
Machines, motors .... casing to be grounded so that there is no potential difference between the " ground " you stand on & the equipment casing.
Any leak current will be relayed into the actual ground.
If not grounded & touched the current will take the path of least resistance & that might be you.
It may be your lasts current path experience.
Even the age old Neutral ground bonding works very well even in wet areas like marinas or port key side supply circuits.
I prefer it far above the fancy earth leakage systems that so often trips on the slightest earth faults
The effects of ground or earth varies from DC to White Light. It can be a conductor, attenuator or reflector, depending on frequency and distance relative to free space. RFI in the shack is a different matter. An antenna must be matched at its terminals to coax and located far enough away depending on power. Consider a high power broadcast station. Still, an important subject and there are many engineering level books free on the web.
I never undestood why the electric company made me install a copper rod and run a ground wiring and also attach to it the neutral wire to it. So, why do I need 3 wires if 2 are the same thing??
Because they aren't the same thing. The white neutral wire has current flowing through it, so it will not be at the same potential as the green ground wire which has no current flowing through it. You wouldn't want the metal chassis of your appliances to be sitting at a potential difference, so they're connected to the green wire, not the white one. Connecting the white wire to the green one in the panel box makes half of your electrical system safer. That way you hopefully don't get shocked when you touch the base of a screw in light bulb which is connected to the white wire. Connecting the white wire to ground also guarantees the black wire will never get more than about 120V different than ground. If there was no connection, the wires would float and could accumulate charge that could put them at hundreds or thousands of volts referenced to ground. That would be a bad thing for your wiring and for you.
@stargazer7644 ok. I know that, but connecting them both together in the panel, doesn't make the two wires the same potential?
@@cferrarini Only at that one connection point. If the wires were perfectly ideal wires it would be true anywhere. But real wires have resistance, so they have voltage drop. That means if there's current flowing in the neutral, then there's voltage drop, and that means the farther you get from that one point the more voltage difference there will be between the neutral and ground. This is why it is crucial that there never be current flowing in the ground lead except during a fault. Go ahead, check it in your house with a multimeter. You'll find the neutral is not sitting at 0V if there's any current flowing. The hot wire pulls it up above 0V. The more current, the harder it pulls.
@@stargazer7644 I heard that in some coax networks the shield was grounded in many places if it was too long.
Electricity will almost always (99%+ of the time) choose a path leading to earth than any other path of any other circuit. Meaning if a random path to earth becomes open to any circuit the power will leave its designed path and choose earth instead of completing the designed circuit.
Ground is part of the Magnetosphere (of Earth). It's toroidal. Positive above, negative below.
yes provide a heavy conductor guide path for the extreme high voltage of the lighning to travel into the grounded dirt of the earth.
And the lightning rod and our founding.Father, who helped to invent it all myth.O k physicist
"GND" Connection could just reference a "Abstract Greater Mass" to Connect To. A "GND" could be a Place to Discharge a Energy State into a Greater Mass. The Term for "Electrical Return" I am Most familure with is "Common or Common Path". Could a Ground State just be Considered a Place that Accepts Energy from a Non-Ground State Point. To My Understanding from the "NEC" Discriptions a Common or Neutral Conductor is Current "Carrying or Flowing" Conductor connected to Ground Point called a "Grounded Conductor". A Ground Conductor is a Conductor connected to Ground Point "Not carrying or flowing Current" under Normal Operating Conditions. This is a great discussion that Promotes "Critical Thinking" to Explore the Physical World with New Perspectives to Maybe adjust our Perceptions a Little. Good Work Kristen
Consider the ground points indicated at 6.00 in the circuit. Those 3 points are at the same potential and in fact if you decide to really build that circuit you close the circuit by connecting those three points with a wire right? Or you use a base where those three points touch the same plate so that they are at the same potential, so they belong to a short circuit and the differnce of potential is clearly 0 at the nodes of a short circuit . Remember that the definition of a potential function implies you have to deal with conservative fields , in this case electrostatic field. It is the density of charge in a particular location in space who creates the field and if you go far from this density and put there a tiny test charge you had in your pocket (😂) you assume field is 0 there because you are so far from the charge density creating the field Now potential function is operatively defined as the work function to move your tiny test charge from very far to a generic point A. Well thats the point , you have to integrate the field in a point where we presume is 0 but integratig 0 gives a general constant as a result not only 0! So you can assume in this far field region your potential is 0 or whatever you please by your convenience. It is not important, because at the end od the story if you measure the potential difference between a point A and B of the field those arbitrary quantities will neglect. Sorry my english is terrible. Lets go back to practical stuff. Ground point must be smartly chosen as the point capable of draining all the charges potentially circulating in your net for safety security. Think about a lightening striking a house, you to create and incredible conductive path ( very tiny impedance path) so that you save your home network and house and family because charges go where they find less resistance and of course earth is so big, it can absorb and drain all the lightening in this world and if you smartly designed your electric net in your house choosing a preferential high conductive net discharge path to the ground you are a good elelctrician because you do not want be a part of that preferentail conductive path, right? Ciao.
.... in some circumstances...maybe, but take an antenna fed at the high Z point on a hot dry day and not 'ground' it... the build up of an electrostatic charge, with that charge (those microscopic fingers of electrostatic charge) trying to find it's path to 'ground'... could make your RX virtually unusable... earth 'grounding' the cold side of that antenna's matching transforemer (49:1 or 9:1... even a balun) quickly remediates the problem. You can call it whatever you like, but providing a path for an electrostatic charge 'problem' is in my words... providing a "ground" return. This is important in stand alone battery operated systems where there may not be any DC 'ground return' option.... which is what I have and use. A lotta folks mix up RFI issues with electrostatic charge build up... different kettle of fish.
Hmm, I think you are Correct. My system is bonded (to itself) on AC Side for my GFI to work correctly. My DC. Not grounded . solar panels not grounded so as not to encourage lighting contact..
Lightning says otherwise - LOL !
I’m learning 📚
ERIC DOLLARD has a lot to say about all this, particularly regarding his earth telemetry, earthquake prediction, and extensive info going back to our earliest days of EE. TESLA must figure in here prominently, also. In examining high-energy physics Directed Energy Weaponry (see the Raytheon patents, etc) it's most interesting, in real-world, to see how certain objects when "grounded" are spared from molecular annihilation (or "insta-rust" and other withering / warping / wilting (as seen amongst so many steel girders across so many attack sites), versus other objects, particularly when 'isolated' (via rubber car tires, for instance) from touching earth, readily become "toasted" (to use Dr Judy Wood's verbiage, pursuant to HUTCHISON EFFECT). As frequencies increase, apparently, locality of "ground" matters more and more prominently, as well as boundary isolation from nearby fields (thinking of 'earth ground field' in relation to nearness of 'microwave-wilted or rusted' objects). Anyway, just some more interesting tangents to explore and enjoy!
Ground is Round ... almost everytime
I knocked over 3 toddlers running to this comments section 😂
Ma'am have you ever had a lightening strike at your home? I worked at many radio stations in my career and saw what lightening can do and if it wasn't for ground we'd be buying a new FM antenna every time we took a strike!
Even within the transmitter and throughout building and equipment!
I don't think you understand about Ground. If I were you I'd research more and even do a controlled lightening strike and see what ground does and you'll understand. And/or talk to a radio TV engineers they'll explain it to you also!
Sorry, I don't see anything in your one counterexample that could actually disprove the POV presented in this video. Just overconfidence and a condescending attitude.
What if we use lightning strikes to disprove it instead? We might (somehow) collect 3-dimensional e-field potential maps of the entire affected area, instantaneously during one fraction of a lightning strike's duration (picoseconds?). If there are no measurable gradients (however small) in that detailed heatmap of the potentials at and near 'ground', including every connected piece of equipment and power infrastructure around the strike zone in that instant, then we might have some basis to question Kristen's point of view.
Otherwise, I'm more likely to trust the POV of the MIT-trained engineer who happens to also be a ham, over that of a commercial station engineer (who can't spell 'lightning'?), when sizing up who's more likely to fully understand such a complex, largely hidden from our senses (and the limits of ordinary test equipment), and nuanced subject as 'ground' - as it might apply to every other usage of the term in electronics and radio. I mean, I qualified for a career as a licensed commercial radio station 'engineer' after like 2 weeks of home study; it was easier than passing the amateur Extra written exam tbh. It's not even on the same playing field of understanding as a 4 year engineering program at a world-class university.
The people arguing against this POV in comments here often seem to share a perspective of: "I observe, or was trained, to avoid or minimize a type of harmful bulk energy transfer that involves grounding techniques (in the sense that my trade and employers use the word), and was taught ( without deeper understanding of EM fields and fluxes based in the underlying physics) that 'the ground' may as well be thought of as a near-perfect sheet conductor, for all practical uses of the term." As if it were always just that simple. It also tells me they're not really listening and thinking about what's presented in the video.
Certainly, there are plenty of instructors and materials in voc/tech programs giving their students just enough of a foundation to effectively do the work they're being trained for. The best teachers will hopefully mention as an aside that it's presenting an oversimplification of reality, but the approximation will be "good enough" for their future job.
A ground fault circuit interrupter does not need to have any reference to ground it can work without a ground connection whatsoever all it does is measure the difference between the hot and the neutral wires it has nothing to do with ground itself except for the fact that it is detecting if there is a fault to ground which is detected by the difference in voltage
I like the notion that ground is inertia. Give it a think in terms of inertial dampening of a moving object (or charge) before you write it off.
Spooky
'Neutral' is a better description! Gravity is the myth!
"According to Dirac, at any point in space, the electron neither exists nor doesn't exist. It can only be described as a mathematical function. The same is true for the quarks that make up the atom's nucleus, as they too are fermions, which behave according to the Dirac equation."
not sure what this is all about? something bout outside reference of the circuit won't be grounded? i do know if u touch one of the electrical power wires coming into your home transformer on your electrical pole and your feet are on earth, a reference point for mythical ground, u go up in a puff of smoke, all we need to know.
An excellent dissertation by an educated speaker.
Thx
"Ground is a Myth!"
I'll go stand on it and see for myself. Anyway, at radio frequency, unless your radio is sitting on the ground, it isn't at ground potential.
So this is really just a presentation about this lady's confusion... Right?
Ground is not neutral and neutral is not Ground but can be both at the same time
ah so she is talking about the word ground, yes the word ground has several different meanings depending on the context it is used in.
but isn't this subject more appropriate for an English lesson?
I’m a British 🇬🇧 Foundation Licence holder M7EOM I would like to Thank you for teaching me this I’ve certainly taken on board what you’ve said thanks again Kristen
Take it all with a pinch of salt she not as clever as she thinks I would not let her wire a plug. Am a ham also a spark and electrical engineer she needs locking up for the safety of man kind.
ground is for safety
We have lost the full understanding of the word "voltage."" Voltage is a "potential difference between two points in a closed curcuit."
A single point can have no voltage difference without a reference, and a "ground" is but an arbitrary reference to another point within a circuit or outside the circuit.
Within a circuit, there will be different potentials to various points from which we arbitrarily called a ground. As you move the arbitrary ground reference, the measured potentials to the previous points measured will result in different potentials.
Outside a circuit, there will be no measurable potential difference or voltage from any external point to any arbitrary point called a ground that is electrically located within the circuit. Be careful when identifying whether a circuit actually exists.
All the above are just words describing a ground as an arbitrary reference point that has no inherent voltage and certainly not zero as voltage demands a potential difference, and the word "difference" still means between two points within a closed circuit. We may elect to call either point ground, but "by itself the term ground is meaningless."
Simple 240/120 volt center tapped, single phase, utility circuits already have a reference point at the very location of the transformers center tap, which is called ground. Now, we may define the difference between a neutral wire and a ground wire.
A neutral wire is an intentional current carrying conductor (typically white in color of insulation), while a ground wire is a nonintentional current carrying conductor (typically bare or green in color if insulated). The neutral wire has a connection on one end, which connects to the aforementioned ground reference, and the other end connects to the load return.
The ground wire has a connection on one end, which connects to the aforementioned ground reference, and the other end connects to that which should never be energized.
Although a ground point is in and of itself, a meaningless term, it most definitely is not a myth to another point within the same closed ciricuit!
Electricians ... this video is about RF and Hamm Radio equiptment, not about AC power.
So don't get into this and post an argument.
I was questioning the whole thing as I watched because I didnt realize until halfway through the vide that it is about radio and RF .
That's the issue when people don't watch the whole video before commenting I guess...
@HamRadioDX --- it is what happens. People don't pay attention. Then feel the need to throw there own knowledge or lack thereof into the mix and then they look ridiculous if they don't admit they screwed up and try to double down on their comment
Things blow up without a ground.