[Elecraft] Confessions of grounding

[Victor Rosenthal 4X6GP]

My shack is only about 6m below my antenna, and although there is a 
concrete roof between us, I had problems of RF pickup in my computer. My 
antenna is balanced, I used a lot of ferrites on the cables, and bonded 
all of the equipment together with copper straps. But the biggest 
improvement came when I bonded the three main parts of my metal office 
desk together and to the equipment.

73,
Victor, 4X6GP
Rehovot, Israel
Formerly K2VCO
CWops no. 5
http://www.qsl.net/k2vco/
On 12 Oct 2018 23:00, Gary Smith wrote:
> I too have paid attention to Jim, K9YC's
> advice. Nobody knows it all but he's
> proven to know enough to be an authority
> on the subject so I listen to what he has
> to say.
> 
> To that end, I have put in a lot of effort
> to have the Antennas, roof tripod and
> breaker box tied together with #4 solid
> copper wire. Antennas & Rx antennas are
> connected via Polyphaser to the 8' ground
> rod outside the shack.
> 
> The #4 ground wire snakes in under the
> door jamb and terminates on a piece of
> flat stock 6" long. I drilled 8 1/4" holes
> in that and have SS 1/4" bolts nutted down
> tight and use the 8 bolts as anchor points
> for the equipment.
> 
> I have #6 insulated copper wire attached
> to the K3, P3, Alpha amp, 6M amp, NCC-2
> and Green Heron Controller. I yet need to
> ground the computer, antenna switch, HI-Z
> controllers and the Iota DLS-55 power
> supply. I also need to find the best way
> to ground the control wires to the rotor,
> the HI-Z cables and the remote coax
> switch.
> 
> Braid is much easier to use but since
> things don't get moved much, I bent the
> copper wire to fit the device to the table
> and being ground wire, I like the idea of
> solid wire & I wanted shielded so it
> doesn't inadvertently touch improperly
> down the line and create a ground loop. I
> could have used coax as ground but it
> wouldn't bend well and would always be a
> PITA to deal with.
> 
> One thing for sure, I like how consistent
> things seem to be when everything is
> grounded. More, I feel much safer now.
> 
> 73,
> 
> Gary, KA1J