I am just begining to plan out setting up my first antenna, but have ran into a grounding issue. There is a concrete driveway blocking my path for the grounding wire to connect to the houses grounding rod. On the other side of the property there is only a 3 foot open area with all my utility lines. The house has a dirt crawspace that would lead to the grounding rod in the front of the house easily while avoiding anything. Is this something can be done? Physically that floor can be opened to install, but the ground will always be dry. Im also not sure what other potential issues may arise from this. Thanks for reading, 73
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Have you seen KE0OG’s videos on grounding? I thought they were helpful. I think that would work fine, from what I remember you would want to keep the wire as short as possible.
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I’ve bee studying grounding pretty extensively for the last several months in preparation for building out my radio room at my new QTH. I would say yes in response to your question. Sometimes we need to get creative when conditions are not optimal. I see no potential issues in what you propose. Best of luck!
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going from underground, to above ground, and then back underground is my real fear the connection to the ac would be the end of the line. How does that sound, cant seem to find any information directly related to that.
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I believe that any grounding is better than none. I highly recommend Grounding and Bonding for the Radio Amateur: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09R6T77Z2/
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I haven’t read that book, but a lot of what I learned was in a forum at the Huntsville Hamfest a few years ago. A ham named Monty Bateman, WB5RZX gives a couple of lightning talks. (Lightning Protection for the Radio Amateur : Monte Bateman WB5RZX : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive)
One thing I do know on grounding, be cautious with lengths. You don’t want a length to end up being a multiple of a frequency. Like a 17 foot ground wire would become resonant on 10 meters because it’s a half-wavelength.
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Good advice.
The book is an awesome compendium of just about everything one needs to know, and it contains a lot of photos and diagrams, which I find to be very helpful.
73, Jim, and thanks for being my teacher all the way through Extra.
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Glad to be of assistance!
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Ok, just remember you have 2 types of grounds, rf and electrical. I keep mine separate and this will cause arguments I know but I have over 20yrs installing communications equipment so life experience showed me this method. Electrical ground is for just what it says grounds on you equipment plugs leading to your main panel. Main panel has neutral and grounds tied together and to a ground bar outside your meter. Equipment RF ground I keep separate this can simply be called coax ground. Before coax enters shack use a PolyPhaser and its own ground rod this will take all that rf you don’t want that comes down you coax shield and put it to ground. I also run a ground wire from the rf ground rod into the shack linking all radio chassis grounds in series. Series in this case is my drowned from ground rod ones to radio chassis then to amp then tuner… one ground strap ( flat type 3/4” min). If you run multiple ground straps from each piece of equipment to a home run ground point your opening yourself up for ground loops.
I have my shack grounded like this for years and it dropped my noise level considerably.
The key for lightning protection is ground potential, by using the above PolyPhaser and separate ground rod it makes your antenna the same ground potential as your earth ground in theory. Meaning lightning dosent see a high point path of least resistance to hit. But as we all know lighting makes its own rules.
KB2LMN
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