I was convinced by Jim's previous videos on this very subject. When lighting is in the area my coax goes outside regardless of the spark gap arrestor. I was about 8 years old during Hurricane Betsy, once the power was lost my Uncle turned off all outside breakers and removed the screw-in fuses on the inside panel. Perhaps hours later. Lighting hit the pole transformer on the street, which was grounded. It jumped the breakers, burnt up the well motor, and jumped the inside panel, and a light switch that was off in the room where we were sitting around the hurricane lamp. The bulb illuminated brightly and popped. Seems like there was other damage, but I can't remember. This Left a lasting impression on me. In hindsight, by then a lot of the power lines were down and the lighting was probably going for the 150 ft well. However, it also came inside the house as well. Respect, Mother Nature. In addition, several times while growing up, if the old rotary phone bell rang once.!!! It was followed by a simultaneous flash and thunderclap. 73/88
I've been a licensed electrical contractor since the 80's, and you got it exactly right. And one typically do want as much surface area you can get for your grounding conductor (like brades and pipe) for what ever RF you can ground out. Where people typically experience problems, especially interference is from creating grounding loops by using separate ground rods instead of running the ground to the electrical system internal grounding system. So you're absolutely right about that too. If you have an old electrical service entrance equipment that doesn't have the neutral grounded to a two ground rods 6 feet apart, you might want to either have an electrical service entrance panel upgrade done, or have the existing service neutral conductor grounded to two rods. So you're absolutely right, need to run that grounding conductor all the way back to your service entrance panel grounding system to prevent a ground loop, sometimes referred to as a multipath.
15 years as a communications technician. If hams could see the grounding we do at a commercial site, you'd all tell the ARRL to pound sand and some of you would go home and make some changes. lol We spent a lot of money on "grounding" things and the engineering dept took it VERY seriously.
Most licensees I know, are completely in the dark when any discussion of RF and grounding comes up. Most don't care, they just want to play push-to-talk, let-go-to-listen.
@@garycook5125 As a tech with a bunch of sites, you'd realize after a few years that the sites with proper grounding don't loose equipment in a storm. You're getting a call at 3am because of an electrical storm nearby? It's probably an older site with with poor grounding. It makes a difference.
@@ham-radio For those of us that can't get to our panel from the second floor, can we take a plug with NO hot or neutral connection and use the ground lug connection to our common pipe/bar for the station ground/bonding point?
Good morning Jim. Glad to see you doing what you do, helping us all. I was flowing along doing good on my check list until you said do not use a ground rod. Maybe I missed something. My little shack in common point ground like your diagram but it is grounded to a rod just outside the snack. That rod is tied to the main panel ground. What did I miss. Always always enjoy your presentations and use you as my gold standard of excellence. Trust me your named has been used for reference to many of my friends and post. 73
Jim, I watch you all the time. I have learned so much from you. I agree with you on this issue. Stay well my friend. Keep bringing us the wisdom the world needs.
To keep it simple: 1. An antenna has two conductors where a feedline presents a differential voltage between the two conductors. How do you kill an antenna and stop RF transmission? Short out the two conductors, i.e. connect them so that they are at the same voltage potential. If you have several pieces of equipment where there could be the possibility of having a different RF voltage on each of their cases, you stop them from becoming an antenna and producing RF-in-the-shack by simply making a low impedance connection between the cases. This is goal of the braid-and-copper-pipe configuration. You are simply making sure there is no RF voltage difference between cases and so the cases cannot become an antenna in the shack. 2. What about current loops? Ground loops (or current loops) are frequency (wavelength) dependent. At HF, the wavelength is so much longer than the loop, there is not a problem. Unless, of course, you configure things such that the connection is highly resistive and there is a voltage drop along the interconnecting wire. This is not really a ground loop issue but rather simply poor implementation problem. 3. For safety, the equipment cases are connected back to the main electrical panel’s ground. The copper pipe is probably already well referenced back via the several power cord ground-pin-to-case connections. But it never hurts to run a wire back to the ground of the wall power receptacle. 4. What about lightning? Lightning issues are never fixed inside the shack. Don’t connect a big wire from outside the house to the copper pipe inside the house (i.e. a heavy wire going into the house from an extra ground rod at the antenna entry point). Adding this wire essentially provides a nice conduit for inviting lightning energy right into you shack. Use lightning equipment outside at the entry point. Rods on the tower. Connect the feedline arrestors to the rod -- all outside the house. 5. No such thing as RF ground. You don’t need it in the shack. Your handheld radio in the shack doesn’t need one and your HF radio doesn’t either.
ב''ה, do we just say that "RF ground" is "counterpoise" as with reactance etc.? Sometimes the ground works well enough, everyone's seen a HT with a quarter wave perform better in the hand, yet what's going on has at least purpose-specific differences.
ב''ה, I have not seen this, but counterpoise is all you need for propagation (or aircraft and spacecraft systems would have issues) while safety is another story.
Always a pleasure to see your content. I watched the ARRL video a few weeks ago, and my takeaway was that the emphasis was on the myth of an RF ground - which you seem to be in agreement with. It was a bit misleading of a title; fair enough. With respect to GFCI devices - they only look for an imbalance between hot and neutral - has nothing to do with current flowing on the ground conductor. So, when you mention wanting all the fault current to return via the ground so the breaker/GFCI works, that isn't precise. GFCI will trip regardless of the return path the current is taking - whether it is through the ground lead, or through an alternate path (such as a person to another ground - e.g. a faucet, sink, tub, concrete slab, etc.)
@@ham-radio I am new to amateur radio licensed 3/21. It seems to me the ARRL is all about money not about the hobby and it's members. Reminds me of the NRA. Non profit does not mean there is a not a lot of profit for the ones at the top. KJ7VUL
Mike Holt has a the perfect educational video that destroys her position. It is over an hour long but very very informative on this very subject. Around the 20 minute mark and forward it explains a lot. His video title is: Grounding - Safety Fundamentals and it is one he did free because of its importance.
Thanks for the clarity, Jim! I found the ARRL presentation to be confusing with the mixing of different concepts and the "misleading by trying to be funny" title. The concept that *is* a myth is the idea many amateurs have that "earth" or "ground" is an infinite sink of uniform 0 electrical potential into which we can pour any and all unwanted charges simply by hooking up to a ground rod. Many individuals who have this misunderstanding advise violating the NEC and having a separate "shack ground rod" that is not bonded back to the electrical service ground *outside* the home as required by the NEC. That configuration poses a safety hazard because in the event of a nearby lightning strike, a significant potential can develop between the shack ground rod and the electrical service ground. Since the only path for current to flow between those two electrodes is through the radio equipment and the house wiring, this is a risk to life and property. Such stations do bond their two earthing electrodes, but they are bonded through the home rather than outside the home as required by NEC. In my opinion, a better way to think about ground rods is that they are probes into an electrical circuit we call "earth." They are not guaranteed to be at the same potential, and charges do not "seek ground," as if once finding that mystical location, they will remain there forever. A ground rod can be a source of current flowing into the home if not installed and bonded properly.
I've seen this with the NRA and the AOPA. The CEO pay goes up and up as the organization goes downhill. Looks like the ARRL is going the same way. I watched the ARRL video on grounding. She didn't adequately emphasize the difference between a safety ground and an RF ground. She didn't communicate her message effectively. I do think she knows what she is talking about but she could have said it better. Thanks for adding to the discussion, Jim.
I did at my old age find much of it hard to follow from issue to issue. I did watch it more than once because I could not believe that there is no ground. I thought perhaps that I got it wrong. Overall, it was not a resonable well thought out helpful presentation suitable for amateur radio operators so that they could use at their station. In other words, it failed. In my video, I tried to be helpful and explain how I do bonding and grounding in my room. I did not discuss grounding or lightning protection at the antenna. That is another long discussion. 73, Jim W6LG
I totally agree with you. Got my Novice in 1967 while in high school. Went on to Electrical Engineering and then Physics! While the approach is different it is important to get things right. In Physics every potential must have a reference. In Electrical Engineering - circuits every voltage must have a reference.
I believe that under the current management and very very top heavy salaries, they are failing. You may have noticed that they did not, I'll repeat, the ARRL has not released the annual report. I am sure it is a disaster. 73, Jim W6LG
The ARRL is losing more and more credibility with me by the day . The way they handled the LoTW issue a few weeks back was laughable , and to put out something as unsafe as this presentation is truly disgusting and unacceptable. A new ham is going to watch that and think it’s great advice. I can’t believe they let something like that get put out to the public in all honesty. One must wonder what is going on at the organization these days . I’ve always looked at the ArrL as kind of a necessary evil personality , but to put out blatant misinformation is actually pretty concerning. 73’ Jim N2JDX
Jim makes the point of disagreeing primarily “with the title” of the ARRL presentation- because it may lead to people disregarding AC / main grounding codes leading to dangerous safety situations. It’s a good point!
I believe there is a degree of separation between physics education or theory and its actual application. This is a rather regular occurrence in several STEM domains. For instance, engineering principles state that a two-stroke engine will not function; nonetheless, the man trimming his yard with a weed eater proves otherwise. A friend of mine was in his pool when lightning flashed one day. I warned him it was unwise and risky of him to get out of the water before being electrocuted. He instantly informed me that water is a poor conductor of electricity and functions as an insulator, according to his high school physical science teacher. I agreed with her that "pure water," or "H2O only," is a poor conductor of electricity due to the lack of ions and impurities. However, when salts and compounds dissolve in water, they produce positively and negatively charged ions. These ions attract and combine to create ionic compounds that can readily separate and conduct electricity. Continue to enjoy your ion-rich pool. Although she was correct, the way she delivered the information was misleading or, at the very least, misunderstood, and could have resulted in serious harm.
Hi Jim, Thank you very much for this video - not only is it informative, in my case it’s quite timely in that I’m beginning a project to move my shack from the basement to a shed, about 60 feet from my house and about 100:feet from my panel. I had intended to drive a ground rod outside the shed, but you’ve given me something to think about! Needless to say, I’m going to do a bit more investigation before I waste time, money and potentially cause a problem! Thank you and 73! Tim VE1XR
Excellent video Jim and your info is no myth, I'm in telecomms, and the first thing they taught us is to think of it this way, no grounding = different potentials which can = serious injury or death. The same as if you have multiple ground rods they must be linked, EPR in lightning incidents will nearly always cause death. I also agree about lightning "arrestors" and why some knowledgeable sales outlets and manufacturers are now starting to call them what they truly are - lightning diverters. Keep up the good work Jim.
Jim, this is why I asked you while back to make a FULL video (or series), about grounds. Ground for a shack in the house, ground for an external shack, RF ground, equipment ground, Antenna ground, Lightning Ground, etc. There is SO much faulty information out there, it's confusing and ovewhelming for a noobie to navigate what is right. If you did a MASTER CLASS on all aspects of GROUNDING for HAMs, it would be an epic informative video for everyone to learn from the master himself. :)
This is exactly what I've learned from every reputable, experienced source over the years. Thank you for all your videos -- they're greatly appreciated! 73 de N8ESP
I grounded my base station like a cell site, using a single point ground system with #2awg solid, and ground rods the 5/8” x 8ft every 6ft. That main ground made a halo around the house, grounded to the antenna, and then came into my house and went to a copper buss bar. I also used polyphaser surge arrestor. All my equipment was grounded to the same ground bar as well.. I built cell sites for a living and saw the amount of work went into building a proper ground system. It takes a lot of work to do it properly. The main thing to remember is to ground all the equipment and antenna and coax to a single point ground system.
Thanks for this video. I have a number of issues to address while planning my home shack, and this helps fill in at least a few of the puzzle pieces. Now if I could just figure out what sort of antenna to put up....
Like your videos. I do the same in shack , i use a solid bar of aluminium drilled and taped where i need it. Aluminium is not as effective as copper but if you use approximately twice the size compared to copper. I used to work for telecom company that used batteries to power the equipment and to save money they used aluminium buss bars and that is how I got the idea about using it the shack.
Jim, I watched the ARRL's presentation several weeks ago. First impression was similar to yours, but if you give the full presentation a chance you'll note the following: 1 - There is "marketing" in her comments related to "I don't know where the current goes" - she's talking about incorrect grounding assumptions people make who don't keep Kirchoff's current laws in mind. Trust me, she does not mean "Ground is a myth" alone, she's saying this instead "Grounding is not the same thing as RF Protection" - as evidenced with her total presentation. 2 - She is suggesting NOT to connect the station grounds to the same ground as the antenna to station connections as they provide a path INWARD to the station. Your grounding setup is possibly dangerous in that you are providing a new pathway into the shack for lightning charges that come via the antenna path. Instead, consider using the single breaker panel ground (or another ground near the station, but tied to the breaker panel) as the ground for the station equipment, and also put another ground rod in for the antenna and transmission lines, with the fused fail-overs - but do NOT connect that rod to the station grounds. The bottom line is, when you discussed common station grounds, she's saying that is a ground reference and achieves the goals you want due to that (no ground loops at the equipment) and she mentions RF isolation and then lightning protection, but as THREE different goals with three different courses of action. Bottom line here "cute" tag line of "Ground is a Myth" - means "it's not as simple as that, Grounding alone to achieve the other 2 goals makes the single solution a myth". That is what she meant. 73 KM5L
Actually I got that too. But it’s not what she said. She said it was a myth. And from a physicist’s perspective it is. However she was not clear in her explanation. I had to watch it very carefully to understand the way you’re explaining it here. When there’s what you said and what you meant you already have a problem. And that is exactly what Jim is getting at.
@@patrickbouldinkm5l143 As someone who has spent a lot of time teaching, it is important that the instructor is clear enough that students should not misunderstand the material. The ARRL presentation in the eyes of someone who already knows the material makes sense because you assume the sarcasm. Someone who is new to the hobby and not a technical expert can easily take away the wrong, and dangerous, idea. I am with Jim that the ARRL presentation should be considered substandard for alleged experts in this service. I do expect more from them.
I have a copper bar 1/4 x 2" x 36" drilled and tapped 1/4-20 every inch and all ground cables are connected to it including all antenna switches. The copper bar is connected to a Edison ground system. I do check the ground resistance from time to time because it can change with the moisture in the earth.
Here's my scenario. My shack is on the second floor on the opposite side of the house where the main panel is at. There's no easy or affordable method to embed ground rods around the house and tie them back to the main (concrete and other obstructions in the way). The distance from the shack to the main panel is roughly 70ft. I can bond everything in the shack to a common copper rod as described in this video under the desk, however how do I ground it back to the main?
To claim that an electrical ground is a myth is very unusual. It's surprising to hear about a statement like that, which goes against the common grain of knowledge. I suspect it's made to "scare people" into generating attention for some narative or other cause. All I can add is that I spent the first 4 years of my 40+ year career working in the electrical deparment of Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. and the rest in industry, and your understanding is exactly what every product safety engineer understands as well. Good Luck! 73
Ground is not a myth, but nearly every ham's perception of what it is is a myth. A physicist doesn't think of the earth as 'ground'. If ground were really what hams think it is, antennas lying on the ground, or even underground as some longwave antennas are, wouldn't work, but they do. Ground is a conductor of varying resistance, an energy sink of varying resistance, and a reference point of varying resistance. But just driving a rod into our Colorado sandstone does not provide what we would consider to be a ground, not even for DC, because it is such a very high resistance as to be pointless unless it just rained. The capacitive coupling of my raised counterpoise to 'ground' changed every day with how wet that ground was, and with the water in either its liquid state or frozen, shifting the resonant frequency and also changing the efficiency of my longwave antenna. When ground is a fluctuating variable with weather conditions, we can't keep thinking of it as a fixed reference point, as we hams almost invariably do. When I help other hams with antenna problems the problems often end up being due to the ham perceiving 'ground' as some sort of magical fixed entity, as if the Earth were a giant copper ball. It's far from it.
@@ham-radioI think the intent of the word myth was that there is no one ground. The word is used and miss used and miss understood. The thing to beware of is a single isolated ground rod for the radio. That it is ever a RF ground is defiantly a myth. The fact that it makes the radio safe is a myth. Only safety grounds, that green wire connected to the “ third prong” on the power plug, make radios safe of should I say safer. I think that both your presentation and the ARRL presentation were good. No one presentation seems to fully cover any topic, especially one such as grounding and bonding!
In other words there is very much mythology surrounding the topic of electrical "ground". Enough that it was a fitting subject for a talk with the title that offended some sensitive souls.
You are correct. I ran into this problem in Antarctica. There grounding properly could be a real problem. The earth, is variable in its geological properties, it effects grounding.
Oliver Heavisides figured out how to apply Maxwell's equations when the theorists could not becauae he was a technician in the field with a real need. Having a degree isn't the same qualification as experience.
Jim is conflating the ARRL with the presenter of the talk at the convention, who offers some good arguments of her own. Individual presos at a convention are NOT official positions of the ARRL, as far as I know. I have the Grounding and Bonding ARRL book myself.
I don't have the book. She is the Vice President and with that comes the responsibility, in my view, to be responsible. And that is not a myth. I think many do agree with you and many will disagree with me. And, that is fair. 73, Jim W6LG
@@ham-radio Please, Kristen is absolutely and quite responsible and is allowed her own well-reasoned scientific conclusions (which are NOT necessarily the position of the ARRL, for which she works incredibly hard and long on our behalf), even if you or I do not agree with them and I might or might not. Why not let each viewer decide? Using her presentation to bash the entire ARRL (again, as you usually do) is asinine and absolutely unfair. Your title for the video is misleading clickbait, and you should change it. I've learned much from Kristen and from you through your videos, but please stick to the practical stuff and use your and our time more wisely. I do wish you well, Jim and I'm sorry your health is the way it is. 73 de KK6IPR
Thanks for all. But still I must say that it is an ARRL video and she is the Vice President. The title upsets me a lot as you can tell. Again thanks. Many will read your comment and get a different perspective. The discussion is important for all of us. Many have posted very good comments. Some have pointed out corrections to some of what I said. All of that is good. 73, Jim
Thank you Jim. There is a reason the NEC. requires Proper Grounding and sets the Methods to follow. I cant imanage the ARRL would Approve this Line of thinking. You are spot on with your presentation. Best wishes 73'
Jim, I agree almost perfectly on every point. You are absolutely, 100% correct about the safety aspects of grounding and the absolute need to follow the electric code for grounding the station and tower. Those codes exist for good reason. We can’t emphasize this enough! Regarding the RF ground, I would not call it a myth, but I would say that it is relative. As you drew your station, you could reasonably call that copper pipe an RF ground point for LF and HF frequencies. The distance is significantly less than 1/4 wavelength. All else can be described in relative terms to that ground point. Why is this important? Because it actually does matter. For one, as you said, that transmitter noise problem is likely to go away when the shack is tied to that ground reference point with low impedance connections at the frequencies in view. The station may also benefit in the reverse direction with lower noise. Another advantage is that if anything gets unplugged from the power and is still connected to an antenna or control wire, the chassis is still grounded and protects you. That ground also makes it handy to bring test equipment on the bench and not get fooled by phantom signals that are relative between the test equipment ground and the DUT ground. I could list the benefits for hours - after 50 years that ground point proves its worth time and again. The antenna out on the tower is totally relative to that ground point as well, and can be described as well, which proves a stable relationship and the mark of dependable performance. I use a method similar to yours, except my shack has a copper bar tied to a HALO ground which is part of the building’s electrical ground system installed by my electrical contractor, which is at the end of that chain of grounds coming from the antenna. I do not skimp on safety or performance. On lightening arrestors, I also agree that they are misnamed. But one point to mention is that some styles of arrestors are designed to help avoid a strike, not absorb one. Yes, if your antenna gets hit, you best have had your rig disconnected. For commercial antennas and power substations, proper lighting protection reduces strikes. There are commercial guidelines for lightning protection that an electrician can use to decrease the risk and damage from lightning. I am also a fan of grounded antennas, which I also find reduces noise from static, including rain static. I was shocked like you about many things in that presentation. Not knowing what that screw is for was just too much. Ground is not a myth. Ground is a point of reference, which also happens to be near the voltage potential of your body in your shack or yard. That alone makes it not just “not a myth” but rather important as well. As a ham I find it embarrassing. As a professional I declare it dangerous nonsense. As an engineer I shake my head and say, “This is what they must mean by ‘Amateur’ in ARRL!”
Thanks very much. With respect to lightning, my video was not about lightning. I made a quick reference to a listed device connected to the common point at the main panel. Light arrestors, in my view, do not arrest lightning. I helped design one that used an MOV to ground above a certain voltage. If one is lucky, the device might help. But a direct hit would vaporize the MOV. Best thing as you said is disconnect the transceiver from everything. I used to put them into my chair. Most lightning around us would hit the powerlines and come in that way. There is a lot more to the subject of lightning that would have taken way too much time in my video. It was already long and Ihad to edit it down. NEC Chapter 8 and videos by Mike Holt are good sources. I did mispeak about the GFCI as many have pointed out. The video was not about GFCI's. It was about how I set up my station and how others may want to do it the same way. The title of the ARRL's video is what upset me so much. It seemed to me to be completely irresponsible. I was so upset after a few days of thinking about it made my video even though I felt terrible physically from the cancer and medication. I felt it was important for me to say groundd is not a myth. I am not an engineer. I have never taken a course in engineering. But I do know the ARRL video was wrong. Sorry for the long response by me. Thanks again for your comment and advice. 73, Jim W6LG
The Grounding and Bonding Book from ARRL is a good book and lays things out better than I can. Ultimate reference is the Motorola R56 Communication Site Guidelines Braid indoors is fine but not outdoors exposed to weather. Use strap outdoors.
I'm just a ham, but I spent a couple of years studying grounding for the shack when I needed to reduce noise in my receiver and after a friend/fellow ham had lightning strike his new radio on a shelf that he never opened the box to. I learned about the electrical code for bonding ground rods. Of course, it is not possible for a ham to set up his/her station next to the service entrance. In fact, Murphy made it a law that the best place for the shack is the farthest corner from the service entrance. I can't afford the NEC grounding rules. Instead, I take an isolationist approach. Everything that goes outside comes through a common entrance and has some kind of disconnect. Any AC the ham gear uses is plugged into one outlet nearest the entrance. To operate, I plug in, when I'm done, I unplug it all. IN the event of a strike, the equipment is not in the loop and there is no potential between the station or antenna ground and the facility ground. No reason to bond. I have a power supply that charges a backup battery. New LiFePO4 batteries are affordable now, so I can use it to charge my battery which powers my station. If I unplug the power supply from the wall, my station is not connected to the facility at all. Total isolation. Equipment grounding is just like you showed. Copper ground that every piece of equipment is tied to by short pieces of braid or wire, braid being best. Here is what I could never understand the whys and wherefores for. I was in a room on a desk with a steel frame and a wood countertop. I grounded my radios to a ground rod outside my window. I had an s7 noise level. I started grounding everything to a common point, in my case it was a copper pipe I flattened out that went to the outside ground rod. Each piece of equipment I grounded dropped the noise level, fair enough. But, I also had a steel table in the middle of the floor with only a few books on it. Nothing else, no lamp, radio, just books. For kicks and giggles, I measured the voltage between the steel frame of my desk and that table. I used vice grips to clamp a wire to that table and back to my desk. The noise level in my radio went down another s-unit. I even got a reduced noise level when I grounded the 3rd ground plug hole to my bar. I tested grounding anything and everything metal in the room. The only surprise was that one table. That was my inspiration to study grounding. I grilled everyone I ever heard had suffered lightning strikes with questions. I grilled anyone I could about Field Day, mobile and remote field operation sites. Everyone who tells me that one can protect one's shack by "giving lightning a path" is ignorant of Kerchhoff's law. Electricity takes EVERY path to ground, not the path of least resistance. Lightning travels .25 to 2 miles from ground to cloud. That means the voltage must be between 500,000 and over 2,000,000 volts. Lightning creates EMP or eddycurrents that charge nearby antennas. You don't need to have a direct hit to suffer lightning damage. Electricity just needs a path and static electricity just needs enough particles of dust or humidity to bridge the gap between two objects with different potential. Direct hits can't be protected, but one can avoid indirect hits by opening the circuit. KISS it! I'd love to have a talk with you sometime to talk about grounding. I'm not an engineer or specialist or anything, I'm just a ham on a tight budget that wants to safely transmit and receive on my radios.
Great Video Jim, one of my antennas is a long /random wire, it goes straight into the big MFJ-989 tuner. As you know that tuner must be grounded just exactly the way you described, works like a champ. All transceivers are bonded to the main ground individually,. Many thanks Jim & best 73 de GM0KET 😎👍🏴
Can anyone explain if grounding your radio equipment to a ground rod works and its “recommended”, how come some Hams got their radios toasted with the coax unplugged but had a connection to a ground rod while a strike hit opposite side near a neighbor house? 🤷🏻♂️
I was always wondering about that since any antena cable or non 110/230V radio equipment ------ PE (protective earth wire; EU terms) connection creates new (additional) and easy way for lightning current to go thru inside building electric installation into ground (instead of being kept outside only).
We had a limb on the line that the power company refused to trim. Eventually the ground line, which was holding it up, broke. The ground rod line outside the garage burned out. It was the middle of the night, and power started oscillating between the two sides of the house. The ground holds the center of the 220v (in the US) so that each half receives 110v. Our TVs, VCR, etc, and lights were all hit with higher voltage. It caused everything with motors to scream and smoke, and all of the lights oscillated. It kept on *blinking* the house until I was able to shut off the main breaker. Then there was no way to safely return power to the house until the electric company could repair the wire. What Jim is saying is true, that if you lose your grounds then your circuits won't break. There's nothing to properly *inform* them except overcurrent in the wires. They also say that breakers protect the wires and not the devices themselves by tripping on overcurrent or when the wires are heating up. ARRL seems to be criticizing nuances where electricians, electrical engineers, ect have different terminology or understanding. ARRL's comprehension of what 'ground' means might be a myth! But criticizing different kinds of grounds and their meaning doesn't invalidate what 'ground' is. It's the reference, and it's usually the discharge. An engineer in a different field would treat signal grounds differently.
I think she's talking about a GFCI breaker, which does indeed trip the breaker in the event of a ground fault. AC safety grounds, lightning protection, and RF grounds are all different things. Bonding your equipment to an AC ground is fine for safety. But AC grounds generally are high impedance paths to RF, and are poor lightning and RF grounds. My main concern with grounds are lightning and fire safety and protecting my equipment. AC safety should already be a given thanks to the NEC. For lightning and RF grounds, you need short, straight low inductance paths to ground rods, not a 14ga wire twisting and turning through the walls of your house going 50 feet back to the electrical panel. That ground bar at your equipment needs a good low impedance path through the wall to a ground rod close by, and that ground rod needs to be bonded outside to the electrical panel ground rod. I have a ground rod outside of the shack cable entrance where I mount all my coax surge protectors, and I have a ground rod at the base of each of my masts and towers they tie to. All of my ground rods are then bonded together with #6 buried in the ground and connected to the outside electrical panel ground rod. The equipment ground bar is tied to the rod at the shack cable entrance. Each piece of coax or control cable goes through a surge protection device before it enters the shack. Avoid any sharp bends in the #6 wire connecting the masts, ground rods, and shack ground together. After the antenna cables go through the surge protectors outside, they all terminate in a patch panel. Cables also run from each radio's antenna jack to this patch panel. Patch jumpers allow me to quickly and easily connect any radio to any antenna. When I'm done in the shack, the patches are removed, disconnecting the radios from the antennas.
Thanks Jim !! Question, my powersupply 230V ac. Is connected maincable to Earth. -and connected to the bonding device( cupper pipe) The bonding device is connected to Earth.? Thanks!! Theo PA0HTY Then you created an Earth loop connectie. 7:43 Solution? Powersupply not connected to Earth ?
My blood tests tell a different story. They are done twice a week. Seven times in the hospital in intensive care in the last 18 months. ANC was zero. WBC was .4. I am hoping for an increase. In the meantime, no visitors allowed. Ham radio is my only way out of the house. Sun is up and I am going to check the long path now. 73, Jim W6LG
You are right. I'm a physicist and I can see that what she's getting at is all very well in theory but it's practice that counts and the various safety codes cannot be brushed off [like she did] because 'everything' is wired to those regulations. More alarming is that a neighbour had her house re-wired without 'pulling' a permit (on everything, not just electrical). That foolish saving of $800 for filing the permit [with a $3000 fine if it was reported] is amazing. Dodgy cheap 'electrician' was used, un-inspected and ground tied to the heating radiator system!
Very good Jim ! Grounding and bonding is very important to your safety. Every thing should be kept at same potential. it is the difference that is dangerous . This can cause arcing and shock Hazzard from the difference of potential . Even start a fire/damage equipment/cause shock injury and possible loss of life. The ARRL has a good book on grounding and bonding . Myth was the wrong word to use. It is much more than lightning protection. like a short inside power supply that made 120V go to the case . Heavy snow or rain can make a static charge that can shock you and or damage equipment. During a storm power lines may detach from pole or house and touch your antenna . grounding and bonding save you from all and more. If your common point ground goes to a driver rod . it MUST be bonded to outher ground rods and outside your home. and connect to utility ground. Bonding of ground rods is done outside and with heavy copper wire. and with UL type clamps. never solder. welding is good. during a surge that can be large amount of amps. solder will throw splatter of hot metal and is dangerous and could start a fire or cause severe burns. Please take grounding and bonding very serious and do some research how to do correctly. Your life may depend on it. 73
I don’t yet fully understand grounding, but the electric code clearly indicates that equipment should not be bonded to a separate ground rod unless that rod is in turn bonded to the electric panel ground rod. Thanks for stressing the importance of following the electric code.
I am an electrician and not an engineer. 35 years in the business. Ground is not a myth and very real. A grounded electrical system is a safety feature. It is an alternate path for electrical current to flow in the event of a live conductor touching the metal case of say a washing machine. All current has to flow back to source neutral for an appliance to work. The grounded system protects people from being the path back to neutral. Maybe I’m not so smart but that is my simple explanation. Grounds can be complicating and there rules to follow.
Per Mike Holt , A ground rod will neither remove a shock hazard nor trip a breaker . Current wants to go back to its source not to ground . That being said , ground rods and and the source are bonded , so they do help to a degree.
Just revised circuits on a subpanel in my garage (with permit & inspection). I'm setting up my shack and wanted my radio gear on its own circuit. No amps, so one circuit will be enough. Lights are separate, and I do have an outlet there run from the circuit for my work bench outlets on the other side of the garage to operate a small heater. Only one of the circuits is protected by a GFCI OUTLET. On the others I installed GFCI BREAKERS, so if they detect ground fault, it will trip the breaker and require a reset. The panel is less than 25 ft from the most distant outlet, so that's not inconvenient. I have arc fault protection (AFCI) on most circuits, though that's not required in a garage (in 2024). It is a subpanel, so ground and neutral are not tied together there. Ground goes back to the Main panel and is tied to neutral there. The inspector found a defect missed by the previous owner's subpanel inspection. The subpanel box was not bonded to its ground bus - ouch. Because it was a Siemens box, I ordered the bonding screw from a supply house for ridiculous, if still minor, expense ($1.25 + $14 shipping) and now have several lifetimes' supply of Siemens bonding screws - 9 remaining from a 10-pack. In most of WA, electrical permitting is a state process rather than local, and it's pretty easy and not terribly expensive. Just read the applicable NEC carefully so you stay in compliance.
My old house I just moved from had the ground on a cold water pipe. There was no way to drive in a ground rod. You had about 3 inches of dirt over bedrock. The house was in an ancient riverbed (Long since dry). There was a near miss with the new owner when the connection on the pipe loosened up and went to sparking. There was almost a fire. The house was built in the 1920s. I had gotten the last of the knob and tube wiring out of it about 12 years ago.
My question is what is the best way to connect that copper bar (common bonding bar) to the common point ground? Wouldn't the power supply, which has a 3 prong plug be providing this? I am sorry, just confused about that part.
Jim I was an arrl member. I did not renew this year due to money. I found out today from them that all the years I was a member and got digital qst ,I no longer have those copies. If you get the digital version you only can view while you are paid up so all the years I was are gone ,not available to me. That sucks
Problem with ground is that it can cause good and it can cause harm. Lightning is not predictable. If you have your radio gounded to an outside point then your are inviting lightning to destroy you equiptment and more. Old timers would throw their coax outside the window when danger of a storm. I have seen lightning destroy the wiring in a home that was up to code. Towers should be grounded, but not your simple radio home setup. A copper pipe under you desk is crazy. If you have a strike, where do you think the surge is going to go? Yes, into the copper pipe ,but the ground will not contain 100% of the surge. You have been very lucky. Grounding is not a myth, but complete protection from grounding is a myth.
So Jim you're saying that I should connect my copper line coming from my common point ground bar to a nearby electrical box case to ground it? (my electrical panel box ground is about 50 feet away.)
Hey Jim, I have a question. If I connect my equipment etc. to a copper rod in my shack as you showed, and I drill a hole in my floor and connect a copper wire from that rod to the steel frame of my mobile home, is that enough? I think I only have a sub panel in my mobile home and not a main panel with a ground rod. My main panel is 50ft. from my mobile home and that has 1 or 2 ground rods. Thanks.
Thanks. Maybe we are just not smart enough to understand the ARRL. But, I do believe it is really bad advice by the ARRL as is so often the case in the last 4 years with the newest CEO who has been paid over a million dollars. 73, Jim
As you said, AC electrical grounding is the safety. When an electronic device shorts, and they do fail at times, the resulting new path of electrical currant has to go somewhere. Better to the "ground" than in us.
I have a copper bonding bar mounted on the wall behind my desk that goes to a MFJ window passthrough to my ground rod outside. Why is the ground rod bad?
You are quite correct. The name of ARRL presentation should have been "Ground is often mislabeled" I spent 20 years as an electrical field engineer working for an electric utility. I was very disappointed by the presentation. Early electrical systems in rural areas only used one wire to provide distribution. The return was quite literally the earth. Of course some areas the soil is not very conductive and therefore a rod or two driven in to the ground does not give you a good ground. When we grounded transmission lines or substations we tried to achieve one ohm or less with a meggar. RF grounds are a different animal. A radio wave transmitted through the air does not a have a return path. However, ground planes are real and are necessary for many antenna systems.
I'm still in the process of learning HAM radio (in the UK) and I got also confused with the grounding. They recommend an RF ground but at the same time explain that the main electrical ground could be at a different potential that the RF ground (rod of copper in the ground). Then it seems safer to me to only use (as Jim advices) the main ground, however I suppose you add RF choke on the wire to prevent noise to come from the house to RF equipment and the other way round too. Am I correct?
Kristen, K6WX, is a much-respected ham in the Bay Area, both for her technical expertise and her ability to run a radio club (she did a great job heading up PAARA, the Palo Alto club, for several years). I'd suggest getting in touch with her and discussing your concerns. I think you'll enjoy the conversation.
I am certain she is well liked and respected. Clearly she is brilliant. I have never taken a course in electronics at any level. I would not be able to debate her on the subject because I just don't know enough. Having said that, the title and subject that ground is a myth just upset me so much that I had to say ground is not a myth. I am sure she has seeen my little video. The Vice President of the ARRL could make a second video in response to the comments made here. My advice to the ARRL would be to remove the video. Thanks for the advice. I will likely start another round of chemo on Sunday. As you can tell in my video, I feel terrible and struggled with my presentation. 73, Jim W6LG
Each of your points here are in alignment with the ARRL presentation. She discussed the fact that she was talking about RF ground only. She kept saying that grounding for lightning and safety are still very important, but running a shack ground wire down two floors to get an RF ground is fruitless. I am sorry you thought you were in disagreement; however, I did find the ARRL title a bit misleading, but I think it was to get the attention of those that still search for RF grounds in a ground rod. Both of you make the same points. The best you can do with RF is to keep all equipment at a "common" potential with heavy bonding wire. For me, braided bonding has worked fine indoors, away from the weather. Once I started bonding my equipment together and added line chokes to the coax, my rf-in-the-shack problems went away. Oh, yea, going QRP portable helped convince me as well. No ground rods, no rf burns, great fun. --Mark, KE6BB
Yes, a wide flat braid has a lower inductance per unit length than a cylindrical Wire 🙏 Great Info. Basically because it takes more work to create a rotating magnetic field around a wide flat wire as opposed to a cylindrical conductor.
@@ham-radio A great experiment you can run, is to set up a number of different gauge wires all of the same length (maybe 50cm or 100cm) along with wide braided conductors and also even Copper Tape of the same lengths and check them all out on your LCR meter, particularly looking at the L (Inductance). The results will be enlightening ⚡🙏⚡ Keep up the great work my friend. You are doing a fantastic Job 🙏 73 from 🇦🇺
I personally knew, an Aviation Electrician, who died grounding himself. He was at home, and while installing a regular TV antenna rested it (accidentally?) Against the power cable that ran into his house.
Jim, great presentation. I live on the 7th floor of an apartment building. I was told by a sales person at DXEngineering to buy 6 guarge battery cables and connect each piece of equipment with a direct run to a copper bus bar. I am not close to the breaker box for my unit so I cannot ground it as you recommend. Also, I would be affraid to touch the box other than to turn on/off a circuit breaker. All of the equipment is plugged into a TrippLite Isobar. I did not connect my Delta-2 antenna switch to the bus bar. Do I need to do that? if so, where is the connector on it? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks 73 KE0WNL
A complex subject which is not easy to get your head around! One point I would like to make regarding earth loop 'hum' - with amateur radio equipment it is normally designed to work off of battery or separate mains PSU, so it is 'doubly insulated' - it does not use the mains earth to provide safety or bonding. Earthing the way you illustrate with a star connection is exactly what is needed - no earth loops and everything has a common reference. I used to live on 13th floor and you could light a traditional bulb between the electric earth and the water earth! Earth is an inaccurate description, as would 'ground'. They are concepts whereas bonding is a reality and is what we need to exercise. Take a look around a high power transmitting station (especially a LW or MW one). You will find lots of copper connecting things together to create a common bond. Even then you can still light bulbs between earths! A standard 'trick' when in the antenna field to check if the transmitter was on air was to create an arc between the barbed wire fence and the 'earth' wand (bonded to the station 'earth'). If you got an arc, the transmitter was on.... I would not trust the opposite statement though!
Best way I have read/heard someone explain it to me is RF ground is 'the other side of your antenna'. Applies to most antennas we come across like dipole, verticals or their variations. A poorly balanced antenna will find that other half, hence why people get RFI problems with some un balanced antennas. Safety earth ground, is somewhat different topic. reality is most modern equipment is safe with third prong slot on electrical plug into any home built in the last 65 years or so. Then there is that whole other can of worms of grounding for lightning protection...
The other side of a dipole is NOT an RF Ground. Radials are NOT an RF Ground. I don't know where that comes from and it makes no sense at all. RF is AC. 73, Jim W6LG
Please don't ever use the ARRL as a reference for anything. They are a giant political organization with their own agenda to survive. They are obsolete and no longer have amateur radio operators best interest at heart
@@ham-radio I am of the current opinionthat the ARRL is just a branch of the federal government at this point. The size of the golum is of such a magnitude that it is virtually impossible to alter their direction by means of regular communication. The only way to change the organization is to have a massive stop in membership and their sourse of funding. This is the only sound they will hear.
Jim I have a simple question. My basement station includes 3 transceivers a matching tuner and a few other associated devices all of them attached to a battery bank that is trickle charged by solar. My attennas are grounded via lightning protectors outside. I have the radio equipment tied together but no ground to the panel. Is this correct? I follow everyone of your videos. Thank you for them Brian VE3GUE
I was convinced by Jim's previous videos on this very subject. When lighting is in the area my coax goes outside regardless of the spark gap arrestor.
I was about 8 years old during Hurricane Betsy, once the power was lost my Uncle turned off all outside breakers and removed the screw-in fuses on the inside panel.
Perhaps hours later. Lighting hit the pole transformer on the street, which was grounded. It jumped the breakers, burnt up the well motor, and jumped the inside panel, and a light switch that was off in the room where we were sitting around the hurricane lamp. The bulb illuminated brightly and popped. Seems like there was other damage, but I can't remember. This Left a lasting impression on me. In hindsight, by then a lot of the power lines were down and the lighting was probably going for the 150 ft well. However, it also came inside the house as well. Respect, Mother Nature.
In addition, several times while growing up, if the old rotary phone bell rang once.!!! It was followed by a simultaneous flash and thunderclap. 73/88
I've been a licensed electrical contractor since the 80's, and you got it exactly right. And one typically do want as much surface area you can get for your grounding conductor (like brades and pipe) for what ever RF you can ground out.
Where people typically experience problems, especially interference is from creating grounding loops by using separate ground rods instead of running the ground to the electrical system internal grounding system. So you're absolutely right about that too.
If you have an old electrical service entrance equipment that doesn't have the neutral grounded to a two ground rods 6 feet apart, you might want to either have an electrical service entrance panel upgrade done, or have the existing service neutral conductor grounded to two rods.
So you're absolutely right, need to run that grounding conductor all the way back to your service entrance panel grounding system to prevent a ground loop, sometimes referred to as a multipath.
15 years as a communications technician. If hams could see the grounding we do at a commercial site, you'd all tell the ARRL to pound sand and some of you would go home and make some changes. lol We spent a lot of money on "grounding" things and the engineering dept took it VERY seriously.
Exactly. The motorola book on grounding was not produced because grounding is a myth. Sheesh.
Most licensees I know, are completely in the dark when any discussion of RF and grounding comes up. Most don't care, they just want to play push-to-talk, let-go-to-listen.
@@garycook5125 As a tech with a bunch of sites, you'd realize after a few years that the sites with proper grounding don't loose equipment in a storm. You're getting a call at 3am because of an electrical storm nearby? It's probably an older site with with poor grounding. It makes a difference.
Im a licensed electrician your explanation is spot on! Thanks KA1HIW
Great to hear that. Many years ago I was a Deputy Building Inspector. That means little today. Thanks for the help. 73, Jim W6LG
@@ham-radio For those of us that can't get to our panel from the second floor, can we take a plug with NO hot or neutral connection and use the ground lug connection to our common pipe/bar for the station ground/bonding point?
That’s my questions as well?!?
Ground is most important, all audio systems are grounded to cut down on static and for safety 73 Jim
Yes of couse. Thanks for adding that. 73, Jim
Jim, Thanks for the great video. I worked in the High Voltage repair industry for 46 years. You are right on target with your talk !
Good morning Jim. Glad to see you doing what you do, helping us all. I was flowing along doing good on my check list until you said do not use a ground rod. Maybe I missed something. My little shack in common point ground like your diagram but it is grounded to a rod just outside the snack. That rod is tied to the main panel ground. What did I miss. Always always enjoy your presentations and use you as my gold standard of excellence. Trust me your named has been used for reference to many of my friends and post. 73
Jim, I watch you all the time. I have learned so much from you. I agree with you on this issue. Stay well my friend. Keep bringing us the wisdom the world needs.
I am trying. But the fatigue, hair loss and tooth loss is really getting to me. Chemo again next week appears likely. 73, Jim
To keep it simple:
1. An antenna has two conductors where a feedline presents a differential voltage between the two conductors. How do you kill an antenna and stop RF transmission? Short out the two conductors, i.e. connect them so that they are at the same voltage potential. If you have several pieces of equipment where there could be the possibility of having a different RF voltage on each of their cases, you stop them from becoming an antenna and producing RF-in-the-shack by simply making a low impedance connection between the cases. This is goal of the braid-and-copper-pipe configuration. You are simply making sure there is no RF voltage difference between cases and so the cases cannot become an antenna in the shack.
2. What about current loops? Ground loops (or current loops) are frequency (wavelength) dependent. At HF, the wavelength is so much longer than the loop, there is not a problem. Unless, of course, you configure things such that the connection is highly resistive and there is a voltage drop along the interconnecting wire. This is not really a ground loop issue but rather simply poor implementation problem.
3. For safety, the equipment cases are connected back to the main electrical panel’s ground. The copper pipe is probably already well referenced back via the several power cord ground-pin-to-case connections. But it never hurts to run a wire back to the ground of the wall power receptacle.
4. What about lightning? Lightning issues are never fixed inside the shack. Don’t connect a big wire from outside the house to the copper pipe inside the house (i.e. a heavy wire going into the house from an extra ground rod at the antenna entry point). Adding this wire essentially provides a nice conduit for inviting lightning energy right into you shack. Use lightning equipment outside at the entry point. Rods on the tower. Connect the feedline arrestors to the rod -- all outside the house.
5. No such thing as RF ground. You don’t need it in the shack. Your handheld radio in the shack doesn’t need one and your HF radio doesn’t either.
ב''ה, do we just say that "RF ground" is "counterpoise" as with reactance etc.? Sometimes the ground works well enough, everyone's seen a HT with a quarter wave perform better in the hand, yet what's going on has at least purpose-specific differences.
I saw that presentation, been scratching my head since.
It was a poorly produced presentation. 73, Jim W6LG
If you keep stretching until you figure it out, you'll be bald.
@@noithinknot4583 too late! LOL
Chemotherapy is taking my hair and my teeth! 73, JIm W6LG
ב''ה, I have not seen this, but counterpoise is all you need for propagation (or aircraft and spacecraft systems would have issues) while safety is another story.
Thanks for being our "Elmer"! I appreciate your experience, understanding, and ability to express that knowledge.
KD9LUC
When all connected like that it also reduces noise in the receivers and transmitters. After 50 plus years with ARRL I quit them a couple of years ago.
Always a pleasure to see your content. I watched the ARRL video a few weeks ago, and my takeaway was that the emphasis was on the myth of an RF ground - which you seem to be in agreement with. It was a bit misleading of a title; fair enough. With respect to GFCI devices - they only look for an imbalance between hot and neutral - has nothing to do with current flowing on the ground conductor. So, when you mention wanting all the fault current to return via the ground so the breaker/GFCI works, that isn't precise. GFCI will trip regardless of the return path the current is taking - whether it is through the ground lead, or through an alternate path (such as a person to another ground - e.g. a faucet, sink, tub, concrete slab, etc.)
This is how I understand it, too.
@@tennesseered586 Agree. this is also my understanding. but in fairness to Jim, there is only so much you can cram into a UA-cam presentation.
Who is running ARRL ? Secret service agent "Cheatle"🤣⚡️⚡️
David Minster, I was told that his salary has added up to 1 million dollars during the last three years. I am hoping that is wrong. 73, Jim W6LG
@@ham-radio it’s not wrong unfortunately
Just like many non-profits. Just a scam for the top people. I wonder how many have been killed due to this scum.
@@ham-radio I am new to amateur radio licensed 3/21. It seems to me the ARRL is all about money not about the hobby and it's members. Reminds me of the NRA. Non profit does not mean there is a not a lot of profit for the ones at the top. KJ7VUL
thanks funny all week long
Thanks for keeping us safe Jim. 73
Mike Holt has a the perfect educational video that destroys her position. It is over an hour long but very very informative on this very subject. Around the 20 minute mark and forward it explains a lot. His video title is: Grounding - Safety Fundamentals and it is one he did free because of its importance.
I agree 100% , it will cost you a little but it's a near must thing to do in my opinion
Thanks, Jim
Good one Jim.
in norway it is not allowed to connect a tower to the same earth as the house, it must have its own earth plate, the same applies to HF rigs
Finally a proper answer!!!
Thanks for the clarity, Jim! I found the ARRL presentation to be confusing with the mixing of different concepts and the "misleading by trying to be funny" title.
The concept that *is* a myth is the idea many amateurs have that "earth" or "ground" is an infinite sink of uniform 0 electrical potential into which we can pour any and all unwanted charges simply by hooking up to a ground rod.
Many individuals who have this misunderstanding advise violating the NEC and having a separate "shack ground rod" that is not bonded back to the electrical service ground *outside* the home as required by the NEC.
That configuration poses a safety hazard because in the event of a nearby lightning strike, a significant potential can develop between the shack ground rod and the electrical service ground. Since the only path for current to flow between those two electrodes is through the radio equipment and the house wiring, this is a risk to life and property. Such stations do bond their two earthing electrodes, but they are bonded through the home rather than outside the home as required by NEC.
In my opinion, a better way to think about ground rods is that they are probes into an electrical circuit we call "earth." They are not guaranteed to be at the same potential, and charges do not "seek ground," as if once finding that mystical location, they will remain there forever. A ground rod can be a source of current flowing into the home if not installed and bonded properly.
Thank you for this clear, concise information.
Greetings, Mr. Jim Thanks for the info 73
Very welcome
I've seen this with the NRA and the AOPA. The CEO pay goes up and up as the organization goes downhill. Looks like the ARRL is going the same way. I watched the ARRL video on grounding. She didn't adequately emphasize the difference between a safety ground and an RF ground. She didn't communicate her message effectively. I do think she knows what she is talking about but she could have said it better. Thanks for adding to the discussion, Jim.
I did at my old age find much of it hard to follow from issue to issue. I did watch it more than once because I could not believe that there is no ground. I thought perhaps that I got it wrong. Overall, it was not a resonable well thought out helpful presentation suitable for amateur radio operators so that they could use at their station. In other words, it failed. In my video, I tried to be helpful and explain how I do bonding and grounding in my room. I did not discuss grounding or lightning protection at the antenna. That is another long discussion. 73, Jim W6LG
I totally agree with you. Got my Novice in 1967 while in high school. Went on to Electrical Engineering and then Physics! While the approach is different it is important to get things right. In Physics every potential must have a reference. In Electrical Engineering - circuits every voltage must have a reference.
The real myth is the ARRL itself, how low will they go?.
I believe that under the current management and very very top heavy salaries, they are failing. You may have noticed that they did not, I'll repeat, the ARRL has not released the annual report. I am sure it is a disaster. 73, Jim W6LG
Thanks Jim!
Thanks Nick. 73, Jim
The ARRL is losing more and more credibility with me by the day . The way they handled the LoTW issue a few weeks back was laughable , and to put out something as unsafe as this presentation is truly disgusting and unacceptable. A new ham is going to watch that and think it’s great advice. I can’t believe they let something like that get put out to the public in all honesty. One must wonder what is going on at the organization these days . I’ve always looked at the ArrL as kind of a necessary evil personality , but to put out blatant misinformation is actually pretty concerning. 73’ Jim N2JDX
Jim makes the point of disagreeing primarily “with the title” of the ARRL presentation- because it may lead to people disregarding AC / main grounding codes leading to dangerous safety situations. It’s a good point!
I believe there is a degree of separation between physics education or theory and its actual application. This is a rather regular occurrence in several STEM domains. For instance, engineering principles state that a two-stroke engine will not function; nonetheless, the man trimming his yard with a weed eater proves otherwise. A friend of mine was in his pool when lightning flashed one day. I warned him it was unwise and risky of him to get out of the water before being electrocuted. He instantly informed me that water is a poor conductor of electricity and functions as an insulator, according to his high school physical science teacher. I agreed with her that "pure water," or "H2O only," is a poor conductor of electricity due to the lack of ions and impurities. However, when salts and compounds dissolve in water, they produce positively and negatively charged ions. These ions attract and combine to create ionic compounds that can readily separate and conduct electricity. Continue to enjoy your ion-rich pool. Although she was correct, the way she delivered the information was misleading or, at the very least, misunderstood, and could have resulted in serious harm.
Hi Jim,
Thank you very much for this video - not only is it informative, in my case it’s quite timely in that I’m beginning a project to move my shack from the basement to a shed, about 60 feet from my house and about 100:feet from my panel. I had intended to drive a ground rod outside the shed, but you’ve given me something to think about!
Needless to say, I’m going to do a bit more investigation before I waste time, money and potentially cause a problem!
Thank you and 73!
Tim
VE1XR
Thanks, Jim. Based on your very informative videos, I have made changes!
Excellent video Jim and your info is no myth, I'm in telecomms, and the first thing they taught us is to think of it this way, no grounding = different potentials which can = serious injury or death. The same as if you have multiple ground rods they must be linked, EPR in lightning incidents will nearly always cause death. I also agree about lightning "arrestors" and why some knowledgeable sales outlets and manufacturers are now starting to call them what they truly are - lightning diverters. Keep up the good work Jim.
Jim, this is why I asked you while back to make a FULL video (or series), about grounds. Ground for a shack in the house, ground for an external shack, RF ground, equipment ground, Antenna ground, Lightning Ground, etc. There is SO much faulty information out there, it's confusing and ovewhelming for a noobie to navigate what is right. If you did a MASTER CLASS on all aspects of GROUNDING for HAMs, it would be an epic informative video for everyone to learn from the master himself. :)
Always a pleasure to learn from people like yourself 👍
I’ll be taking my amateur licence soon.
73 from Finland
This is exactly what I've learned from every reputable, experienced source over the years.
Thank you for all your videos -- they're greatly appreciated!
73 de N8ESP
You're very welcome
I felt a tickle. You are doing it right of course Jim! That we could all be as well grounded! I felt a tickle again.
Thanks Jim. I always learn something new and interesting from your videos.
I grounded my base station like a cell site, using a single point ground system with #2awg solid, and ground rods the 5/8” x 8ft every 6ft. That main ground made a halo around the house, grounded to the antenna, and then came into my house and went to a copper buss bar. I also used polyphaser surge arrestor. All my equipment was grounded to the same ground bar as well.. I built cell sites for a living and saw the amount of work went into building a proper ground system. It takes a lot of work to do it properly.
The main thing to remember is to ground all the equipment and antenna and coax to a single point ground system.
Thanks for this video. I have a number of issues to address while planning my home shack, and this helps fill in at least a few of the puzzle pieces. Now if I could just figure out what sort of antenna to put up....
A dipole is a good place to start. 73, Jim
Like your videos. I do the same in shack , i use a solid bar of aluminium drilled and taped where i need it. Aluminium is not as effective as copper but if you use approximately twice the size compared to copper. I used to work for telecom company that used batteries to power the equipment and to save money they used aluminium buss bars and that is how I got the idea about using it the shack.
Jim, I watched the ARRL's presentation several weeks ago. First impression was similar to yours, but if you give the full presentation a chance you'll note the following: 1 - There is "marketing" in her comments related to "I don't know where the current goes" - she's talking about incorrect grounding assumptions people make who don't keep Kirchoff's current laws in mind. Trust me, she does not mean "Ground is a myth" alone, she's saying this instead "Grounding is not the same thing as RF Protection" - as evidenced with her total presentation. 2 - She is suggesting NOT to connect the station grounds to the same ground as the antenna to station connections as they provide a path INWARD to the station. Your grounding setup is possibly dangerous in that you are providing a new pathway into the shack for lightning charges that come via the antenna path. Instead, consider using the single breaker panel ground (or another ground near the station, but tied to the breaker panel) as the ground for the station equipment, and also put another ground rod in for the antenna and transmission lines, with the fused fail-overs - but do NOT connect that rod to the station grounds. The bottom line is, when you discussed common station grounds, she's saying that is a ground reference and achieves the goals you want due to that (no ground loops at the equipment) and she mentions RF isolation and then lightning protection, but as THREE different goals with three different courses of action. Bottom line here "cute" tag line of "Ground is a Myth" - means "it's not as simple as that, Grounding alone to achieve the other 2 goals makes the single solution a myth". That is what she meant. 73 KM5L
Actually I got that too. But it’s not what she said. She said it was a myth. And from a physicist’s perspective it is. However she was not clear in her explanation. I had to watch it very carefully to understand the way you’re explaining it here. When there’s what you said and what you meant you already have a problem. And that is exactly what Jim is getting at.
The title says it all. But I will bet that her washer, dryer, dishwasher and refrigerator are all grounded! And that is no theory. 73, Jim
@@patrickbouldinkm5l143 As someone who has spent a lot of time teaching, it is important that the instructor is clear enough that students should not misunderstand the material. The ARRL presentation in the eyes of someone who already knows the material makes sense because you assume the sarcasm. Someone who is new to the hobby and not a technical expert can easily take away the wrong, and dangerous, idea.
I am with Jim that the ARRL presentation should be considered substandard for alleged experts in this service. I do expect more from them.
I have a copper bar 1/4 x 2" x 36" drilled and tapped 1/4-20 every inch and all ground cables are connected to it including all antenna switches. The copper bar is connected to a Edison ground system. I do check the ground resistance from time to time because it can change with the moisture in the earth.
What tool do you use to check it and how ?
Here's my scenario. My shack is on the second floor on the opposite side of the house where the main panel is at. There's no easy or affordable method to embed ground rods around the house and tie them back to the main (concrete and other obstructions in the way). The distance from the shack to the main panel is roughly 70ft. I can bond everything in the shack to a common copper rod as described in this video under the desk, however how do I ground it back to the main?
This is my question also
To claim that an electrical ground is a myth is very unusual. It's surprising to hear about a statement like that, which goes against the common grain of knowledge. I suspect it's made to "scare people" into generating attention for some narative or other cause. All I can add is that I spent the first 4 years of my 40+ year career working in the electrical deparment of Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. and the rest in industry, and your understanding is exactly what every product safety engineer understands as well. Good Luck! 73
Ground is not a myth, but nearly every ham's perception of what it is is a myth. A physicist doesn't think of the earth as 'ground'. If ground were really what hams think it is, antennas lying on the ground, or even underground as some longwave antennas are, wouldn't work, but they do. Ground is a conductor of varying resistance, an energy sink of varying resistance, and a reference point of varying resistance. But just driving a rod into our Colorado sandstone does not provide what we would consider to be a ground, not even for DC, because it is such a very high resistance as to be pointless unless it just rained. The capacitive coupling of my raised counterpoise to 'ground' changed every day with how wet that ground was, and with the water in either its liquid state or frozen, shifting the resonant frequency and also changing the efficiency of my longwave antenna. When ground is a fluctuating variable with weather conditions, we can't keep thinking of it as a fixed reference point, as we hams almost invariably do. When I help other hams with antenna problems the problems often end up being due to the ham perceiving 'ground' as some sort of magical fixed entity, as if the Earth were a giant copper ball. It's far from it.
I had to read it 3 times. Thanks, Jim
@@ham-radioI think the intent of the word myth was that there is no one ground. The word is used and miss used and miss understood. The thing to beware of is a single isolated ground rod for the radio. That it is ever a RF ground is defiantly a myth. The fact that it makes the radio safe is a myth. Only safety grounds, that green wire connected to the “ third prong” on the power plug, make radios safe of should I say safer.
I think that both your presentation and the ARRL presentation were good. No one presentation seems to fully cover any topic, especially one such as grounding and bonding!
In other words there is very much mythology surrounding the topic of electrical "ground". Enough that it was a fitting subject for a talk with the title that offended some sensitive souls.
You are correct. I ran into this problem in Antarctica. There grounding properly could be a real problem. The earth, is variable in its geological properties, it effects grounding.
Excellent explanation of ground usage and connection, thanks.
You are welcome!
Oliver Heavisides figured out how to apply Maxwell's equations when the theorists could not becauae he was a technician in the field with a real need.
Having a degree isn't the same qualification as experience.
Thanks, Jim
The funny thing is the ARRL have full books about ground and talking about how essential it is to understand.
Jim is conflating the ARRL with the presenter of the talk at the convention, who offers some good arguments of her own. Individual presos at a convention are NOT official positions of the ARRL, as far as I know. I have the Grounding and Bonding ARRL book myself.
I don't have the book. She is the Vice President and with that comes the responsibility, in my view, to be responsible. And that is not a myth. I think many do agree with you and many will disagree with me. And, that is fair. 73, Jim W6LG
@@ham-radio Please, Kristen is absolutely and quite responsible and is allowed her own well-reasoned scientific conclusions (which are NOT necessarily the position of the ARRL, for which she works incredibly hard and long on our behalf), even if you or I do not agree with them and I might or might not. Why not let each viewer decide? Using her presentation to bash the entire ARRL (again, as you usually do) is asinine and absolutely unfair. Your title for the video is misleading clickbait, and you should change it. I've learned much from Kristen and from you through your videos, but please stick to the practical stuff and use your and our time more wisely. I do wish you well, Jim and I'm sorry your health is the way it is. 73 de KK6IPR
Thanks for all. But still I must say that it is an ARRL video and she is the Vice President. The title upsets me a lot as you can tell. Again thanks. Many will read your comment and get a different perspective. The discussion is important for all of us. Many have posted very good comments. Some have pointed out corrections to some of what I said. All of that is good. 73, Jim
Thank you Jim. There is a reason the NEC. requires Proper Grounding and sets the Methods to follow. I cant imanage the ARRL would Approve this Line of thinking. You are spot on with your presentation. Best wishes 73'
Jim, I agree almost perfectly on every point.
You are absolutely, 100% correct about the safety aspects of grounding and the absolute need to follow the electric code for grounding the station and tower. Those codes exist for good reason. We can’t emphasize this enough!
Regarding the RF ground, I would not call it a myth, but I would say that it is relative. As you drew your station, you could reasonably call that copper pipe an RF ground point for LF and HF frequencies. The distance is significantly less than 1/4 wavelength. All else can be described in relative terms to that ground point. Why is this important? Because it actually does matter. For one, as you said, that transmitter noise problem is likely to go away when the shack is tied to that ground reference point with low impedance connections at the frequencies in view. The station may also benefit in the reverse direction with lower noise. Another advantage is that if anything gets unplugged from the power and is still connected to an antenna or control wire, the chassis is still grounded and protects you. That ground also makes it handy to bring test equipment on the bench and not get fooled by phantom signals that are relative between the test equipment ground and the DUT ground. I could list the benefits for hours - after 50 years that ground point proves its worth time and again.
The antenna out on the tower is totally relative to that ground point as well, and can be described as well, which proves a stable relationship and the mark of dependable performance. I use a method similar to yours, except my shack has a copper bar tied to a HALO ground which is part of the building’s electrical ground system installed by my electrical contractor, which is at the end of that chain of grounds coming from the antenna. I do not skimp on safety or performance.
On lightening arrestors, I also agree that they are misnamed. But one point to mention is that some styles of arrestors are designed to help avoid a strike, not absorb one. Yes, if your antenna gets hit, you best have had your rig disconnected. For commercial antennas and power substations, proper lighting protection reduces strikes. There are commercial guidelines for lightning protection that an electrician can use to decrease the risk and damage from lightning. I am also a fan of grounded antennas, which I also find reduces noise from static, including rain static.
I was shocked like you about many things in that presentation. Not knowing what that screw is for was just too much. Ground is not a myth. Ground is a point of reference, which also happens to be near the voltage potential of your body in your shack or yard. That alone makes it not just “not a myth” but rather important as well. As a ham I find it embarrassing. As a professional I declare it dangerous nonsense. As an engineer I shake my head and say, “This is what they must mean by ‘Amateur’ in ARRL!”
Thanks very much. With respect to lightning, my video was not about lightning. I made a quick reference to a listed device connected to the common point at the main panel. Light arrestors, in my view, do not arrest lightning. I helped design one that used an MOV to ground above a certain voltage. If one is lucky, the device might help. But a direct hit would vaporize the MOV. Best thing as you said is disconnect the transceiver from everything. I used to put them into my chair. Most lightning around us would hit the powerlines and come in that way. There is a lot more to the subject of lightning that would have taken way too much time in my video. It was already long and Ihad to edit it down. NEC Chapter 8 and videos by Mike Holt are good sources. I did mispeak about the GFCI as many have pointed out. The video was not about GFCI's. It was about how I set up my station and how others may want to do it the same way. The title of the ARRL's video is what upset me so much. It seemed to me to be completely irresponsible. I was so upset after a few days of thinking about it made my video even though I felt terrible physically from the cancer and medication. I felt it was important for me to say groundd is not a myth. I am not an engineer. I have never taken a course in engineering. But I do know the ARRL video was wrong. Sorry for the long response by me. Thanks again for your comment and advice. 73, Jim W6LG
Thanks Jim
The Grounding and Bonding Book from ARRL is a good book and lays things out better than I can.
Ultimate reference is the Motorola R56 Communication Site Guidelines
Braid indoors is fine but not outdoors exposed to weather. Use strap outdoors.
I'm just a ham, but I spent a couple of years studying grounding for the shack when I needed to reduce noise in my receiver and after a friend/fellow ham had lightning strike his new radio on a shelf that he never opened the box to.
I learned about the electrical code for bonding ground rods. Of course, it is not possible for a ham to set up his/her station next to the service entrance. In fact, Murphy made it a law that the best place for the shack is the farthest corner from the service entrance.
I can't afford the NEC grounding rules. Instead, I take an isolationist approach. Everything that goes outside comes through a common entrance and has some kind of disconnect. Any AC the ham gear uses is plugged into one outlet nearest the entrance. To operate, I plug in, when I'm done, I unplug it all. IN the event of a strike, the equipment is not in the loop and there is no potential between the station or antenna ground and the facility ground. No reason to bond.
I have a power supply that charges a backup battery. New LiFePO4 batteries are affordable now, so I can use it to charge my battery which powers my station. If I unplug the power supply from the wall, my station is not connected to the facility at all. Total isolation.
Equipment grounding is just like you showed. Copper ground that every piece of equipment is tied to by short pieces of braid or wire, braid being best.
Here is what I could never understand the whys and wherefores for. I was in a room on a desk with a steel frame and a wood countertop. I grounded my radios to a ground rod outside my window. I had an s7 noise level. I started grounding everything to a common point, in my case it was a copper pipe I flattened out that went to the outside ground rod. Each piece of equipment I grounded dropped the noise level, fair enough.
But, I also had a steel table in the middle of the floor with only a few books on it. Nothing else, no lamp, radio, just books. For kicks and giggles, I measured the voltage between the steel frame of my desk and that table. I used vice grips to clamp a wire to that table and back to my desk. The noise level in my radio went down another s-unit. I even got a reduced noise level when I grounded the 3rd ground plug hole to my bar. I tested grounding anything and everything metal in the room. The only surprise was that one table.
That was my inspiration to study grounding. I grilled everyone I ever heard had suffered lightning strikes with questions. I grilled anyone I could about Field Day, mobile and remote field operation sites. Everyone who tells me that one can protect one's shack by "giving lightning a path" is ignorant of Kerchhoff's law. Electricity takes EVERY path to ground, not the path of least resistance.
Lightning travels .25 to 2 miles from ground to cloud. That means the voltage must be between 500,000 and over 2,000,000 volts. Lightning creates EMP or eddycurrents that charge nearby antennas. You don't need to have a direct hit to suffer lightning damage. Electricity just needs a path and static electricity just needs enough particles of dust or humidity to bridge the gap between two objects with different potential. Direct hits can't be protected, but one can avoid indirect hits by opening the circuit.
KISS it! I'd love to have a talk with you sometime to talk about grounding. I'm not an engineer or specialist or anything, I'm just a ham on a tight budget that wants to safely transmit and receive on my radios.
Thank you very much, Jim. You are absolutely right! Thanks for making this video.
You are very welcome
Great Video Jim, one of my antennas is a long /random wire, it goes straight into the big MFJ-989 tuner. As you know that tuner must be grounded just exactly the way you described, works like a champ. All transceivers are bonded to the main ground individually,. Many thanks Jim & best 73 de GM0KET 😎👍🏴
Well put, Jim. This is how I was taught about grounding. IBEW Local 531 member, K9EBBI.
Unions arere good at teaching and helped build this country. I'd like to see more Unions and stronger Unions doing what they do best. 73, Jim
Can anyone explain if grounding your radio equipment to a ground rod works and its “recommended”, how come some Hams got their radios toasted with the coax unplugged but had a connection to a ground rod while a strike hit opposite side near a neighbor house? 🤷🏻♂️
That's exactly what I have in my shack except I don't have the coax switch grounded. I didn't even think to throw a strap on it but I will tomorrow.
Probably doesn't matter much with the coax braid doing the job BUT connectors have a nasty habit of working loose on their own. 73, Jim W6LG
I was always wondering about that since any antena cable or non 110/230V radio equipment ------ PE (protective earth wire; EU terms) connection creates new (additional) and easy way for lightning current to go thru inside building electric installation into ground (instead of being kept outside only).
Thank You.
You're welcome
We had a limb on the line that the power company refused to trim. Eventually the ground line, which was holding it up, broke. The ground rod line outside the garage burned out. It was the middle of the night, and power started oscillating between the two sides of the house. The ground holds the center of the 220v (in the US) so that each half receives 110v. Our TVs, VCR, etc, and lights were all hit with higher voltage. It caused everything with motors to scream and smoke, and all of the lights oscillated. It kept on *blinking* the house until I was able to shut off the main breaker. Then there was no way to safely return power to the house until the electric company could repair the wire.
What Jim is saying is true, that if you lose your grounds then your circuits won't break. There's nothing to properly *inform* them except overcurrent in the wires. They also say that breakers protect the wires and not the devices themselves by tripping on overcurrent or when the wires are heating up.
ARRL seems to be criticizing nuances where electricians, electrical engineers, ect have different terminology or understanding. ARRL's comprehension of what 'ground' means might be a myth! But criticizing different kinds of grounds and their meaning doesn't invalidate what 'ground' is. It's the reference, and it's usually the discharge. An engineer in a different field would treat signal grounds differently.
I think she's talking about a GFCI breaker, which does indeed trip the breaker in the event of a ground fault.
AC safety grounds, lightning protection, and RF grounds are all different things. Bonding your equipment to an AC ground is fine for safety. But AC grounds generally are high impedance paths to RF, and are poor lightning and RF grounds.
My main concern with grounds are lightning and fire safety and protecting my equipment. AC safety should already be a given thanks to the NEC.
For lightning and RF grounds, you need short, straight low inductance paths to ground rods, not a 14ga wire twisting and turning through the walls of your house going 50 feet back to the electrical panel. That ground bar at your equipment needs a good low impedance path through the wall to a ground rod close by, and that ground rod needs to be bonded outside to the electrical panel ground rod. I have a ground rod outside of the shack cable entrance where I mount all my coax surge protectors, and I have a ground rod at the base of each of my masts and towers they tie to. All of my ground rods are then bonded together with #6 buried in the ground and connected to the outside electrical panel ground rod. The equipment ground bar is tied to the rod at the shack cable entrance. Each piece of coax or control cable goes through a surge protection device before it enters the shack. Avoid any sharp bends in the #6 wire connecting the masts, ground rods, and shack ground together.
After the antenna cables go through the surge protectors outside, they all terminate in a patch panel. Cables also run from each radio's antenna jack to this patch panel. Patch jumpers allow me to quickly and easily connect any radio to any antenna. When I'm done in the shack, the patches are removed, disconnecting the radios from the antennas.
Thanks Jim !!
Question, my powersupply 230V ac. Is connected maincable to Earth.
-and connected to the bonding device( cupper pipe)
The bonding device is connected to Earth.?
Thanks!!
Theo PA0HTY
Then you created an Earth loop connectie. 7:43
Solution?
Powersupply not connected to Earth ?
Thanks Jim from VE8AP your looking good sir
My blood tests tell a different story. They are done twice a week. Seven times in the hospital in intensive care in the last 18 months. ANC was zero. WBC was .4. I am hoping for an increase. In the meantime, no visitors allowed. Ham radio is my only way out of the house. Sun is up and I am going to check the long path now. 73, Jim W6LG
You are right. I'm a physicist and I can see that what she's getting at is all very well in theory but it's practice that counts and the various safety codes cannot be brushed off [like she did] because 'everything' is wired to those regulations. More alarming is that a neighbour had her house re-wired without 'pulling' a permit (on everything, not just electrical). That foolish saving of $800 for filing the permit [with a $3000 fine if it was reported] is amazing. Dodgy cheap 'electrician' was used, un-inspected and ground tied to the heating radiator system!
There were questions about electrical grounding on my extra exam last week.
Very good Jim ! Grounding and bonding is very important to your safety. Every thing should be kept at same potential. it is the difference that is dangerous . This can cause arcing and shock Hazzard from the difference of potential . Even start a fire/damage equipment/cause shock injury and possible loss of life. The ARRL has a good book on grounding and bonding . Myth was the wrong word to use. It is much more than lightning protection. like a short inside power supply that made 120V go to the case . Heavy snow or rain can make a static charge that can shock you and or damage equipment. During a storm power lines may detach from pole or house and touch your antenna . grounding and bonding save you from all and more. If your common point ground goes to a driver rod . it MUST be bonded to outher ground rods and outside your home. and connect to utility ground. Bonding of ground rods is done outside and with heavy copper wire. and with UL type clamps. never solder. welding is good. during a surge that can be large amount of amps. solder will throw splatter of hot metal and is dangerous and could start a fire or cause severe burns. Please take grounding and bonding very serious and do some research how to do correctly. Your life may depend on it. 73
I don’t yet fully understand grounding, but the electric code clearly indicates that equipment should not be bonded to a separate ground rod unless that rod is in turn bonded to the electric panel ground rod. Thanks for stressing the importance of following the electric code.
That's my read on the subject. Also, there are specifics about how that should be done. Thanks for pointing that out. 73, Jim
I am an electrician and not an engineer. 35 years in the business. Ground is not a myth and very real. A grounded electrical system is a safety feature. It is an alternate path for electrical current to flow in the event of a live conductor touching the metal case of say a washing machine. All current has to flow back to source neutral for an appliance to work. The grounded system protects people from being the path back to neutral.
Maybe I’m not so smart but that is my simple explanation. Grounds can be complicating and there rules to follow.
Per Mike Holt , A ground rod will neither remove a shock hazard nor trip a breaker . Current wants to go back to its source not to ground . That being said , ground rods and and the source are bonded , so they do help to a degree.
Just revised circuits on a subpanel in my garage (with permit & inspection). I'm setting up my shack and wanted my radio gear on its own circuit. No amps, so one circuit will be enough. Lights are separate, and I do have an outlet there run from the circuit for my work bench outlets on the other side of the garage to operate a small heater. Only one of the circuits is protected by a GFCI OUTLET. On the others I installed GFCI BREAKERS, so if they detect ground fault, it will trip the breaker and require a reset. The panel is less than 25 ft from the most distant outlet, so that's not inconvenient. I have arc fault protection (AFCI) on most circuits, though that's not required in a garage (in 2024).
It is a subpanel, so ground and neutral are not tied together there. Ground goes back to the Main panel and is tied to neutral there. The inspector found a defect missed by the previous owner's subpanel inspection. The subpanel box was not bonded to its ground bus - ouch. Because it was a Siemens box, I ordered the bonding screw from a supply house for ridiculous, if still minor, expense ($1.25 + $14 shipping) and now have several lifetimes' supply of Siemens bonding screws - 9 remaining from a 10-pack.
In most of WA, electrical permitting is a state process rather than local, and it's pretty easy and not terribly expensive. Just read the applicable NEC carefully so you stay in compliance.
My old house I just moved from had the ground on a cold water pipe. There was no way to drive in a ground rod. You had about 3 inches of dirt over bedrock. The house was in an ancient riverbed (Long since dry). There was a near miss with the new owner when the connection on the pipe loosened up and went to sparking. There was almost a fire. The house was built in the 1920s. I had gotten the last of the knob and tube wiring out of it about 12 years ago.
Jim, you and I both have the same ground/bonding philosophy - KJ7E
Thank you for the truth and useful diagram. ❤❤❤
My question is what is the best way to connect that copper bar (common bonding bar) to the common point ground? Wouldn't the power supply, which has a 3 prong plug be providing this? I am sorry, just confused about that part.
This is first mention in memory of routing station ground back to panel.
Heard you on the air just now on 20M (I've spun the dial so I can't tell you where on the band) Thought I would check out your UA-cam
Appreciate the video Good information Thx
Glad it was helpful! 73 Jim W6LG
Jim I was an arrl member. I did not renew this year due to money.
I found out today from them that all the years I was a member and got digital qst ,I no longer have those copies. If you get the digital version you only can view while you are paid up so all the years I was are gone ,not available to me.
That sucks
That did not occur to me. That does suck and should not be the case. You PAID for them. I guess downloading is the answer. 73. Jim
Perfect. Totally agree with Jim 👌👌👌
Problem with ground is that it can cause good and it can cause harm. Lightning is not predictable. If you have your radio gounded to an outside point then your are inviting lightning to destroy you equiptment and more. Old timers would throw their coax outside the window when danger of a storm. I have seen lightning destroy the wiring in a home that was up to code. Towers should be grounded, but not your simple radio home setup. A copper pipe under you desk is crazy. If you have a strike, where do you think the surge is going to go? Yes, into the copper pipe ,but the ground will not contain 100% of the surge. You have been very lucky. Grounding is not a myth, but complete protection from grounding is a myth.
So Jim you're saying that I should connect my copper line coming from my common point ground bar to a nearby electrical box case to ground it? (my electrical panel box ground is about 50 feet away.)
Hey Jim, I have a question. If I connect my equipment etc. to a copper rod in my shack as you showed, and I drill a hole in my floor and connect a copper wire from that rod to the steel frame of my mobile home, is that enough? I think I only have a sub panel in my mobile home and not a main panel with a ground rod. My main panel is 50ft. from my mobile home and that has 1 or 2 ground rods. Thanks.
Just follow the advice in the video. 73, Jim
This seems to have been such a half-baked point taken by the ARRL. Glad you are there for the sanity check!
Thanks. Maybe we are just not smart enough to understand the ARRL. But, I do believe it is really bad advice by the ARRL as is so often the case in the last 4 years with the newest CEO who has been paid over a million dollars. 73, Jim
As you said, AC electrical grounding is the safety.
When an electronic device shorts, and they do fail at times, the resulting new path of electrical currant has to go somewhere. Better to the "ground" than in us.
Indeed.
I have a copper bonding bar mounted on the wall behind my desk that goes to a MFJ window passthrough to my ground rod outside. Why is the ground rod bad?
Because the breaker supplying power to the outlets your gear is plugged into will not trip if not grounded back to your main electrical service ground
Outstanding video sir. 73.......Mike - K2CDM
Thanks for watching
Hey Jim, where did your video about the Retevis email go? I was going to use it to show someone.
You are quite correct. The name of ARRL presentation should have been "Ground is often mislabeled" I spent 20 years as an electrical field engineer working for an electric utility. I was very disappointed by the presentation. Early electrical systems in rural areas only used one wire to provide distribution. The return was quite literally the earth. Of course some areas the soil is not very conductive and therefore a rod or two driven in to the ground does not give you a good ground. When we grounded transmission lines or substations we tried to achieve one ohm or less with a meggar.
RF grounds are a different animal. A radio wave transmitted through the air does not a have a return path. However, ground planes are real and are necessary for many antenna systems.
She makes the point over and over that Ground is a Myth. She is not saying it is mislabelled. Thanks, Jim W6LG
I'm still in the process of learning HAM radio (in the UK) and I got also confused with the grounding. They recommend an RF ground but at the same time explain that the main electrical ground could be at a different potential that the RF ground (rod of copper in the ground). Then it seems safer to me to only use (as Jim advices) the main ground, however I suppose you add RF choke on the wire to prevent noise to come from the house to RF equipment and the other way round too. Am I correct?
Kristen, K6WX, is a much-respected ham in the Bay Area, both for her technical expertise and her ability to run a radio club (she did a great job heading up PAARA, the Palo Alto club, for several years). I'd suggest getting in touch with her and discussing your concerns. I think you'll enjoy the conversation.
I am certain she is well liked and respected. Clearly she is brilliant. I have never taken a course in electronics at any level. I would not be able to debate her on the subject because I just don't know enough. Having said that, the title and subject that ground is a myth just upset me so much that I had to say ground is not a myth. I am sure she has seeen my little video. The Vice President of the ARRL could make a second video in response to the comments made here. My advice to the ARRL would be to remove the video. Thanks for the advice. I will likely start another round of chemo on Sunday. As you can tell in my video, I feel terrible and struggled with my presentation. 73, Jim W6LG
Each of your points here are in alignment with the ARRL presentation. She discussed the fact that she was talking about RF ground only. She kept saying that grounding for lightning and safety are still very important, but running a shack ground wire down two floors to get an RF ground is fruitless. I am sorry you thought you were in disagreement; however, I did find the ARRL title a bit misleading, but I think it was to get the attention of those that still search for RF grounds in a ground rod. Both of you make the same points. The best you can do with RF is to keep all equipment at a "common" potential with heavy bonding wire. For me, braided bonding has worked fine indoors, away from the weather. Once I started bonding my equipment together and added line chokes to the coax, my rf-in-the-shack problems went away. Oh, yea, going QRP portable helped convince me as well. No ground rods, no rf burns, great fun. --Mark, KE6BB
Then I missed the point or perhaps the title should be changed to RF Ground. Thanks, Jim
Yes, a wide flat braid has a lower inductance per unit length than a cylindrical Wire 🙏
Great Info.
Basically because it takes more work to create a rotating magnetic field around a wide flat wire as opposed to a cylindrical conductor.
Very interesting. I have not heard that. Thanks for the education. 73 Jim
@@ham-radio A great experiment you can run, is to set up a number of different gauge wires all of the same length (maybe 50cm or 100cm) along with wide braided conductors and also even Copper Tape of the same lengths and check them all out on your LCR meter, particularly looking at the L (Inductance).
The results will be enlightening
⚡🙏⚡
Keep up the great work my friend.
You are doing a fantastic Job 🙏
73 from 🇦🇺
I will and thanks, Jim
I personally knew, an Aviation Electrician, who died grounding himself. He was at home, and while installing a regular TV antenna rested it (accidentally?) Against the power cable that ran into his house.
What is an ARTIFICIAL GROUND for example MFJ-931 and when do I need one? 73, OH2KAJ
Thank you
You're welcome
You're welcome
Jim, great presentation. I live on the 7th floor of an apartment building. I was told by a sales person at DXEngineering to buy 6 guarge battery cables and connect each piece of equipment with a direct run to a copper bus bar. I am not close to the breaker box for my unit so I cannot ground it as you recommend. Also, I would be affraid to touch the box other than to turn on/off a circuit breaker. All of the equipment is plugged into a TrippLite Isobar. I did not connect my Delta-2 antenna switch to the bus bar. Do I need to do that? if so, where is the connector on it? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks 73 KE0WNL
A complex subject which is not easy to get your head around! One point I would like to make regarding earth loop 'hum' - with amateur radio equipment it is normally designed to work off of battery or separate mains PSU, so it is 'doubly insulated' - it does not use the mains earth to provide safety or bonding. Earthing the way you illustrate with a star connection is exactly what is needed - no earth loops and everything has a common reference. I used to live on 13th floor and you could light a traditional bulb between the electric earth and the water earth! Earth is an inaccurate description, as would 'ground'. They are concepts whereas bonding is a reality and is what we need to exercise. Take a look around a high power transmitting station (especially a LW or MW one). You will find lots of copper connecting things together to create a common bond. Even then you can still light bulbs between earths! A standard 'trick' when in the antenna field to check if the transmitter was on air was to create an arc between the barbed wire fence and the 'earth' wand (bonded to the station 'earth'). If you got an arc, the transmitter was on.... I would not trust the opposite statement though!
Best way I have read/heard someone explain it to me is RF ground is 'the other side of your antenna'. Applies to most antennas we come across like dipole, verticals or their variations. A poorly balanced antenna will find that other half, hence why people get RFI problems with some un balanced antennas.
Safety earth ground, is somewhat different topic. reality is most modern equipment is safe with third prong slot on electrical plug into any home built in the last 65 years or so.
Then there is that whole other can of worms of grounding for lightning protection...
The other side of a dipole is NOT an RF Ground. Radials are NOT an RF Ground. I don't know where that comes from and it makes no sense at all. RF is AC. 73, Jim W6LG
Please don't ever use the ARRL as a reference for anything. They are a giant political organization with their own agenda to survive. They are obsolete and no longer have amateur radio operators best interest at heart
Mark, they, the ARRL needs to hear that because you are not alone with that opinion. 73, Jim
I watched about 5 minutes of the crazy lady and switched off.
Stupidest stuff I've heard in a looong time.
@@ham-radio I am of the current opinionthat the ARRL is just a branch of the federal government at this point. The size of the golum is of such a magnitude that it is virtually impossible to alter their direction by means of regular communication. The only way to change the organization is to have a massive stop in membership and their sourse of funding. This is the only sound they will hear.
Is their antenna book not worth the effort buying and reading?
@@marcveary4146Get one of the older editions. I’ve got the 1988 edition-purchased it for $9.00 online.
Jim I have a simple question. My basement station includes 3 transceivers a matching tuner and a few other associated devices all of them attached to a battery bank that is trickle charged by solar. My attennas are grounded via lightning protectors outside. I have the radio equipment tied together but no ground to the panel. Is this correct? I follow everyone of your videos. Thank you for them Brian VE3GUE