My Thoughts on Apartment Station Ground (
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- Опубліковано 2 лис 2021
- Clayton, KE0TJW, lives in a two story apartment and has a grounding problem. He can't put in or feed a ground rod and he is currently mounting onto his metal balcony. Thoughts?
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Perfect timing for this video, I've been researching how to ground my station on the second floor of my townhouse. Also, The DX-EE is a great attic antenna for those in a HOA like myself (it's what I use). Although noisy in the attic due to all the ducts, cables, power, etc... I've made SSB contacts all over the states and FT8 contacts as far as New Zealand. -N6BFG
Just recieved my ARRL Grounding book today. Only skimmed through it, but it looks like it will answer all of my questions.
I've never tried this myself, but a fellow ham and friend of mine who lives in an apartment building, swears me the MFJ artificial ground.
He was denied any coax or ground rod by the building supervisor.
Perhaps it's work for you too.
If you're interested, I'll ask him more about his set-up.
Your video quality is very nice and the sound is spot on.
MFJ used to sell an Artificial Ground
They still do. Check MFJ-931.
Long awaited advice!
Would metal duct work be sufficient as counterpoise (if it is in contact with the ground?)
First, if it’s an RF issue, then try to address the cause. Given using unbalanced antennas, an “ugly Balun” of coiled coax is an easy start, or perhaps a more conventional balun to address common mode RF. “Grounding” is not really the answer regardless, especially from a second floor since you will have introduced another “antenna”. Modern rigs should not require a physical ground to address RF.
Some have already commented on bonding to ground for lightening protection, and none of those solutions is adequate for a lightening strike event. There’s plenty of literature regarding grounding and bonding but it requires one to study the content to be useful.
If it is a building that has steam radiators, then you could probably use one of those pipes as a ground.
I live in a second story apartment and have a total of 4 antennas outdoors mounted to my railing: a Clearstream 1Max OTA TV antenna, a Radio Shack VHF/UHF scanner antenna above it (Sputnik), a 4 ft Wilson CB antenna, and a UHF "tower"- a 10 ft section of 1 1/4" steel conduit with an Ed Fong antenna on top tuned to 465 MHz. The tower slips over a j-pipe mounted to the balcony railing (the type used for satellite dishes), and is only erected temporarily when transmitting on GMRS from home. *apologies for a long comment* I also live in lightning prone Florida. I ended up taking a "better to ask for forgiveness than permission" approach and maintain a low profile. I did drive a 4 ft copper ground rod near the gutter downspout behind the unit below mine mostly obscured by landscaping. I grounded all antenna masts and all coax runs through a utility box with polyphaser and transi trap lightning arrestors. For the connection from my unit to the ground rod, I used #6 stranded THHN building wire with black insulation so it looked just like all the RG-6 run by cable and satellite providers. Right now I am experimenting with a counterpoise made of .021 copper strap 1" wide arranged in strips 1/2 wavelength long for 11 meters (great price and service from GA Copper btw). So far so good for me.
Thank you, Dave. N0QFT
Keep it away from the wall so lightning doesn't harm the building?