[Elecraft] OT: Grounding Question

[Fred Jensen]

My apologies to all for inadvertently starting yet another pedantic 
thread.  When I still had a tower, copper was expensive [maybe still 
is], and I could get about the same effective conductivity and cost with 
1" copper ribbon as #4 solid wire, only the flat copper was quite a bit 
longer which mattered. In any trade-off between engineering purity and 
economics, economics always seems to speak at least as loud.  And, had 
my tower taken a direct hit, everything electric in the house would 
likely have been gone, ground or no ground, and I'd need new 
polyphasers. [:-)  Again, I'm sorry, perhaps this can end quickly.

73,

Fred ["Skip"] K6DGW
Sparks NV DM09dn
Washoe County

On 4/25/2018 12:27 PM, hawley, charles j jr wrote:
> I gave the reference. 4th edition of Terman, Electronic and Radio Engineering. Page 22. The chapter on skin effect. The rf current is pushed to the outside edge of any conductor because the rf current is distributed in such a way as to make most of it flow where it is encircled by the smallest number of flux lines. And that’s the outside edge of any conductor. The rf current in the center obviously would be encircled the most. Terman gives a very clear description if you can source his text. He states that it is not the amount of conductor surface, but rather the way in which the conductor material is arranged. And I do realize that this is a very misunderstood subject. I’m not saying that flat ribbon doesn’t have skin effect, but just where the rf flows. Much of the outside surface in the middle of the ribbon has a high resistance to rf. So if you are using a ribbon of wire, it would have to be much larger than a round wire to have any advantage.
> I have the Radio Engineers Handbook also and it does not have the same chapter on skin effect.
>
> Chuck KE9UW
> c-hawley at illinois.edu
>