[Elecraft] K2 grounding

[Don Wilhelm]

Jeff,

If you are using a tuner in your antenna line, ground that instead of the K2
0 the K2 will be grounded by the coax connection.

Grounding the case of ham equipment can be for one of 2 reasons - first
concern is an AC safety ground, but that is not required with DC powered
equipment, that safety ground should be accomplished in any power supply
that is connected to the AC mains.  The second reason is to establish a good
RF ground.  The tuner is the best place in the shack to place this RF ground
point, and not necessarily the transceiver - actually the best place to
establish the RF ground is at the antenna feedpoint (at the antenna itself).

For any who attempt to solve any form of lightning protection - the shack is
definitely NOT the proper place to do that - extensive buried ground rods
and interconnecting wires to dissipate the charge is the only real way to
handle lightning surges - couple that with surge protectors on the incoming
antenna lines.  Attempting to make a 'lightning protection' ground in the
shack is an exercise in futility and can present a danger to occupants of
the shack should lightning strike nearby.

In short, the K2 does not really need to be grounded.
If you want to add a ground, there is a hole in the top cover labeled GND
which you could use to ground the enclosure.  If you add the KAT2, that hole
will have a ground post installed as part of the KAT2 assembly.

73,
Don W3FPR

> -----Original Message-----
>
> Having just finished my first K2 (#5945) I'm looking for
> best-practices on grounding it properly in the shack.
>
> This is going to be used at home, rarely, if ever, portable.
>
> At first, I'm going to use a 12V battery to power it, and will get a
> Samlex PS in the near future for when I do the KPA100 in a few weeks.
>
> Anyhow, since the K2 doesn't have a ground lug I'm wondering how is
> the best way to ground this. I'm using a balanced antenna (vertical
> dipole) at the moment.
>
> I've looked through the manual and the list archives but don't find
> too much in terms of details of this subject. If anyone is willing to
> spell it out for me, that'd be great :)
>
> On my old TS830 I just had a ground lug on the rear, that went via a
> short wire to earth ground, however there doesn't seem to be such a
> provision on the K2 in it's stock form.
>
> Thanks for any ideas.
>
> Jeff
>
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