[Elecraft] Grounding & Receivers

[Stuart Rohre]

Dudley,
If you review the Elecraft achieves, I think some who have the K2 and then
bought the K1 noted the receiver is not quite as good as the K2.  The K1
sells at a lower price point and does not have all the features of the K2.

Grounding the K2 is only needed as a safety measure to operation around
storms.  But, far better is to not ever leave it connected to an antenna if
storms are even 50 miles away and approaching.  Antennas in wind can build
up high voltage static charges, and discharge thru a front end even on a
grounded receiver, even if no storm is near.  You can mitigate this on
dipoles by having a discharge resistor across the end of the feedline of say
150 k ohms.  You can, on a second story, address any RF in the shack issues
if they arise, by use of quarter wave counterpoises attached to the rig
chassis.  You do not want, from a second story, to run a single ground
conductor all the way to earth, as its RF length will be resonant on the
higher bands. This could add to RF in the shack.   RF in the shack is mainly
a problem of improperly matched to the antenna, high powered, rigs.

RF in the shack is not much of a problem with balanced antennas, beams, and
loops.  It is a problem with shortened verticals that are end fed, end fed
wires, Zepps end fed, or any unbalanced antenna arrangement, such as random
wires.
I have never had RF in the shack from a resonant horizontal dipole, or half
wave center fed vertical dipole.

72, Stuart K5KVH