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How to properly ground my Ham rigs?

KB9NHA

Member
Jan 2, 2010
22
0
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Seems like most Hams don't bother grounding their rigs. Info on how to properly ground Ham radio equipments is hard to find. There's not much talk about it. I been looking for some articles on proper grounding of Ham radio equipments but most I got talks about grounding in general terms & not mainly about Ham radio. I been trying to find some answers on some grounding questions that I got.

1. Where do you place your lightning arrester? Close to your antenna feed line or in the antenna feedline inside to your house?

2. What type of grounding wire to use? Does it have to be a bare, twisted copper wire?

3. It is necessary to use a shorter ground wire or any length don't matter?

4. How deep you need to bury your ground rod & how many feet away from the wall?

5. I run a ground wire from the lightning arrester to the ground rod, can I use that same ground rod in grounding my power supply &/or run a ground wire connected to my power supply & into that same ground rod?
 

Don't confuse grounding your rigs for RF and grounding your antenna and feedline for lightning protection. Ideally they should be grounded to a common ground, but that isn't always feasible.

To do it right, your rigs/equipment should all be grounded to a common buss, which in turn is grounded to a ground rod. You can make your own ground buss (I did), or purchase one. A good ground is a wide surface. I used some copper flashing type of material that is about 2 inches (or more) wide. If you have multiple shelves of equipment with multiple "ground strips" at the back of the shelves, you should run a common ground buss between the shelves. If you can tie the ground buss to the electrical ground, that is good, too. Basically everything that you can ground should be on the same buss, or you risk creating ground loops. I have my computer, rigs, amps, tuners, switches (most of them) all on a common ground. I'm not sure I'm describing what I did very well, but hopefully you get the idea.
 
More or less I get an idea of what you're talking about Moleculo. Thanks for that man. I just need for you to probably provide me a picture of that ground buss that you're talking about so I can make a similar one.

The grounding for the power supply that I just mentioned is for RF interference. The instruction manual for the (Alinco DM-330MVT switching power supply) suggest that the equipment should be properly grounded to prevent unwanted RF noise. So am I right from what I read of what you said that it's safe to combine everything on same ground buss (lightning protection & RF interference)?
 
These are similar to what I use. I run all my equipment to the bus bar, then one larger wire (6awg) to the ground rod outside. Equipment has it's own ground rod, as does the antenna. Home depot or Lowes may have them. They should be located it the circuit breaker/panel isle.

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