Does my ground rod need replacing?

Wait, why would I think it's DC? Brain cramp. So any clamp meter should work. Think I'll try it.

It's not free, it's still flowing through the meter.

Since the ground rod in question is one that is apparently solely for the alarm panel which is typically fed from a wall wart, the current should be zero and whatever it is, it's largely irrelevant to the impedance, which is the main issue. It's there for lightning induced surge protection.

He said the main breaker is off, so how can it flow through the meter ? I really wonder how there can be any current at all or maybe close to the .3 amps that is on the one at the transformer.

Still with 3 amps on the grounding electrode conductor, I wonder what is wrong ? That current that should not be there is comming from somewhere.

Somewhere I am not getting the big picture . I would think the ground at the transformer at the street and the ground at the house would be connected with a wire that has a low enough resistance not to allow that much current. Must be a bad/loose or no connection.

This is just the result of wye distribution. The neutral current is supposed to go back on the strand but there will always be voltage drop and the difference will attempt to get back via earth. I have a far better ground than that bare copper wire stapled to the bottom of the pole.

This is a 2 ga primary @ 13.5KV with 20 pole pigs on it over about a mile of wire. This is the map

As I said I was not getting the big picture. I was thinking a normal house with the transformer about 100 to 200 feet away, not a mile.

Good point, I missed that. It would not be metered then.

It would have to be flowing via the neutral from the transformer to the house, then to ground.

That wire would be the neutral and it;s low resistance. But current will take that path, plus a smaller amount will go through the ground rods. Suppose the neighbor has 30A flowing on one hot. Most of that, let's say 29A will flow via the neighbor's neutral back to the transformer. But there is the parallel, higher resistance ground path and let's say

You have the low voltage service drop but you also have to add in losses in the medium voltage primary that will feed a whole street or even a small neighborhood on one conductor plus the grounded conductor that serves the primary and secondary.

I suspect I am seeing most of the stray current from the primary side.

I forgot about the primary. There have been cases here where homeowners had outside metal, eg pools, fences, energized with enough stray current that you could get a small shock. The power company typically claims they can't find anything wrong either.