[HCARC] RF Grounding Counterpoise

[Gary and Arlene Johnson]

This article in hamuniverse.com on grounding seems to talk about something I have not heard of being necessary or even desired.  The part I am wondering about is the section of the quoted part concerning running wire completely around your Ham Shack to act as an RF Counterpoise.  I need your comments - as I said I have not heard of this, but have the wire to do it if neccessary.  I want my "BAAAAA" to be as loud and clear as possible.  The part in question is the part in red.

Gary J
N5"BAA"


http://www.hamuniverse.com/grounding.html

"Your ground run should go directly to the ground where you should have a ground rod for the connection point,  (which will be connected to all your other ground rods in the system as discussed above).  This run must be less than nine feet to be effective.  If you are on the second floor this will make this length impossible.  Use of a shielded ground* wire can stop radiation of the ground wire but you will still have a lousy ground.  Nothing can change this.  Ground wire tuners only turn your ground wire into a counterpoise for your antenna, meaning it WILL radiate.  This will only ensure that the low voltage point of your antenna will be at your radio.  Next we need to form our  RF counterpoise outside at our ground system.  You will next need to add some bare copper wire at the RF feedpoint where your shack ground wire connects to.  I prefer to use bare 8 gauge copper ground wire here.  It is single conductor, bare copper and easily bent and run around house.  Single strand is best but it should definitely be bare even if you have to strip insulation off wire.  Run it around the house or anywhere it will stay out of the way fo lawn equipment but not buried deeper than 1/2 inches.  This is CRITICAL.  RF will not penetrate soil deeper than this at these frequencies.   Those bonding wires you have between ground rods and ground rods do not exist to the RF!   Burying this wire under wood chips or similar non conductive landscaping, etc is the way to go.  This counterpoise should be as long as the wire antennas you have in the air.  For most hams this will be about 130 feet.  Longer is better.  I run all the way around my house.  I have found the eight gauge will push into the spacing used between driveway and foundation when persuaded with the proper tool, (READ HAMMER).  You can connect the loop back on itself at the feed point.  This can add several S units to the receive signal and dramatically reduce noise on the signal, though nothing will help all the noise on 80 or 160 meters.   Years ago I installed a long wire antenna that was about 250 feet long and about 50 feet in the air.  This should work fantastic you say.  I had three ground rods outside window of shack with single ott solid copper ground wire direct to tuner. Ground wire length was only six feet.   All three rods were spaced about eight feet apart with connecting bare wire interconnecting them....in other words, a really good surge ground.  What I did not realize at that time was how lousy my RF ground was.  We could not tune the antenna on most frequencies and we kept getting zapped from the radio or microphone when we transmitted.  Also, our signal reports were lousy.  SO, after consulting some experts, I added 250 feet of counterpoise around the building consisting of some bare 6 gauge copper wire I had.  The radio was on while I rolled it out and a friend was listening to the broadcast on 40 meters, (OK it was night time---best time to do antenna work right!)  Anyway he reported the broadcast was only about S 4-5 on meter.  As I rolled out the counterpoise it rose to 40 over S9 and came in much clearer.  We were able to tune everything easily now and SWR was rock stable.  When we did a signal test, the station we had talked to before accused us of running a contest amplifier.  We could not convince them it was only 100 watts, same as before and the same antenna! "