Grounding a ham radio base station

[stryped]

I am so confused about how to properly ground a system. I will have a two meter and a 440 on the roof of my house. I will run the coax down to my sofit vents or whatever they are called and run the coax inside the vents to my shack. Behind the wall where my rquipment will be is a storage space that I can acess. (This is a finished attic). I will be using a mobile radio that has two antenna outputs, one for 2 meter and one for 440.

How do I ground the radio and does it need it? Should the coax itself be grounded and how? Do I have to purchase one of those surge things that screws into the coax?

Any advice is appreciated!

[bumtracks]

my dads a ham he grounds coax to a separate grounding rod (copper water pipe he jetted down - 10' I think) which is tied with a #6 or maybe even a 4 to the tower and loops to the same water pipe ground the elect service is grounded to. Seems he can't get enough ground ;) But we do have lots of lightning here on the gulf coast of Florida that still blows up things.

[Sam O'Nella]

Good on you for at least knowing you should ground it. There are countless resources on the web with this info, a simple one is

Google it.

[Percival P. Cassidy]

Check out the rfi and towertalk mailing lists at

Wiring and grounding of stations are frequent topics of discussion, and the archives should be searchable even without registration.

Perce

On 01/25/05 08:31 am [e-mail] tossed the following ingredients into the ever-growing pot of cybersoup:

[newsgroups01REMOVEME]

Not flaming, just notice how when someone grounds a metal object for lightning, they use wire like 6 awg, or 4 awg. But when someone grounds lighting rods, they used monster cables.

Does this mean even the 4 awg is too small?

later,

tom

[Mark]

Ground the coax before it comes into your house.

Also run a ground wire from the mast directly down to ground and put a ground rod there.

Also run a wire from the ground rod to the ground of your electrical panel.

The lightning WILL get to ground, one way or another. The idea is to give it another path that does not involve your house or radios. Also ask on rec.radio.amateur.antenna

73's Mark

[JerryMouse]

An amateur radio operator who's a bit confused over grounding antennas?

Are you sure you're not operating on the 11-meter band?

[w_tom]

Additional information for this and other similar posts.

Application note demonstrates the concept:

of how earthing is installed or enhanced: to install single point grounding can cause damage: is earthing for secondary protection. This is inspection for the primary protection: One discussion in a ham radio group: The basic scenario is to install a Single Point Ground System

Another's experience:

Well I assert, from personal and broadcast experience spanning

Lastly, what many c> [e-mail] wrote:

[DOUGLAS]

Get off your high horse.

There are a lot of newly licensed radio amateurs (hams) that could use this advise. Not everyone is born an expert.

Doug (Amateur Radio op for 30 years)

[J Kelly]

In "The Doctor" printed in the March 2005 QST, even the ARRL got it WRONG by saying not to bond to the electrical service. That is in violation of NEC, and is very wrong. Sorry, but most hams are clueless when it comes to grounding. I sure was at first, but after many years of working on tall towers in the communications and broadcasting industries I've learned a lot about proper grounding.

Ground the coax shield before it enters the house. Use as large a wire as is practical. No smaller than #6, I try to use at least #2, or 3" copper strap when I can. Make sure ALL grounds are bonded, Ham antenna, TV antenna, Cable TV, Power, Telephone, etc. Extra ground rods are a good idea, as long as they are all bonded together and to all the utilities listed above. Space them 16' apart if possible, if you put them to close together it limits the effectiveness during a lightning strike. Spacing them farther than 16' is not really necessary.

Visit

for lots of good info on Grounding.