[Lowfer] SIW (WM) in CT

N8OOU n8oou at meekfarm.us
Fri Jan 13 20:59:54 EST 2017 

Mike tts,

I remember you writing about your grounding upgrade a while back. I was 
impressed with the amount of changes you made, and the result that you 
saw in your receive noise levels.

You make a good point that I barely gave mention to the ground system on 
the beacon web page. I will work on adding those details.

To give a simple answer, when I relocated the antenna to it's current 
position for the 2015/16 season, I drove a ground rod at the base of the 
antenna. I then plowed in just under the turf about 16 radial wires that 
run about 35 feet. I ran 4 wires (NSEW) that were over 100 ft. long. 
All radials are terminated by short 3ft. long ground rods.

In terms of improving the ground system, of course I could plow in more 
and longer wires. The water table for the farm is only 10 feet or so 
below the ground surface. I could sink 12-15 ft long ground rods to tap 
into that water layer. It would remain wet all the time.

73   de   N8OOU - Mike Meek

On 01/13/2017 04:23 PM, Michael Sapp wrote:
> Mike: Can you tell us about the nature of the ground system used on WM?
> I checked your web site but I did not notice any information about the
> grounding method used.
>
>         For years I thought I had a reasonably good AC service ground.
> It turned out that it was good enough for basic electrical safety, but
> not good enough to provide a low-impedance path to ground for really
> effective RF noise dissipation. I had four 8ft 5/8 diameter ground rods
> spaced 6 feet apart and bonded with #6 along the side of my house
> foundation and close to the service panel location.
>
> One would think that would be a reasonably ground. Now it turned out
> that my house has about a 2ft eave overhang and that roof extension was
> preventing rain water from getting to the soil near my ground rods that
> were perhaps 4 to 6 inches away from the foundation. So the soil near
> the ground rods never had enough moisture content to be a true
> low-impedance ground. Also, I always had lots of noise on my branch
> circuits in the house. I went through a few cases of ferrite cores and
> that did help some, but it was not the cure to the problem.
>
>         I also had some basement hydrostatic pressure issues with water
> seeping up through the cement floor. It is an older house and the cement
> is only a few inches thick. Heavy rains would create an unpleasant
> situation of having to mop or shop vac the water creeping through the
> cement.
>
>         So I got tired of this situation and decided to run a French
> drain along the east side of my house to  divert the water and provide a
> hydrostatic pressure break a few feet from the foundation.  In the
> middle of digging this 50ft trench (by hand) I realized my AC service
> ground belonged at the bottom of the trench.
>
>     So I spent some money on copper water pipe and ran a pair of  3/4
> inch copper pipes connected with T couplers for a 20 ft length. Each
> pipe is 3/4" * pi for circumference area with is about 2.35 inches each
> of surface area. (If you visit a broadcast transmitter site, the
> grounding straps are about 4 inches wide. It is the marginal cost return
> width for a low inductance path). That copper pipe bus went to the
> bottom of the trench and ground rods were driven at each end and in the
> middle.  Everything was bonded with #6 back to the service panel. I also
> ran some wide copper flashing (Home Depot 8 inch wide x20ft long roll is
> $40)  from the service panel into the trench in addition to the copper
> pipes and bonded together. I wanted as much low inductance as possible
> for the ground conductors and I also wanted them wide to maximize
> capacitance.
>
>     The result was I finally was able to shield a device like a wall
> wart with tin plate flashing, ground the flashing  to the service
> ground, and be able to hear the noise disappear. There simply was not
> enough moisture in the earth for my simple four ground rod and #6 wire
> ground system close to the house foundation to be a low impedance RF
> path....
>
>     I'm not suggesting you dig a big ditch, just think about ways to
> achieve a lower impedance ground path with the resources you have
> available....
>
>     73, Mike wa3tts
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "N8OOU" <n8oou at meekfarm.us>
> To: "Discussion of the Lowfer (US, European, & UK) and MedFer bands"
> <lowfer at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Friday, January 13, 2017 4:19 PM
> Subject: Re: [Lowfer] SIW (WM) in CT
>
>
>> Mark,
>>
>> Thanks for your report, I'm glad to hear that my signal is still
>> traveling your way.  I just checked the WM lowfer meters and from my
>> end, the juices going in to the beacon are normal.  Our weather here
>> has warmed the past couple days, the snow is gone, and ground has
>> thawed. I may have more ground losses than a few days ago when
>> everything was frozen.
>>
>>
>> 73   de   N8OOU - Mike Meek
>>
>> On 01/13/2017 10:17 AM, lmlangenfeld wrote:
>>> You're in up here this morning, Mike, but not great (well below usual
>>> daytime GW copy). Thus, I am inclined to agree with Jay that
>>> something out of the ordinary is going on with WM.
>>> GL,
>>> Mark -- WA9ETW/WI2XHJ -- EN52fs
>>>
>>>
>>> Sent from my U.S. Cellular® Smartphone
>>> -------- Original message --------From: N8OOU <n8oou at meekfarm.us>
>>> Date: 1/13/17  9:50 AM  (GMT-06:00) To: "Discussion of the Lowfer
>>> (US, European, & UK) and MedFer bands" <lowfer at mailman.qth.net>
>>> Subject: Re: [Lowfer] SIW (WM)  in CT
>>> Jay,
>>>
>>> Thanks for the capture showing the WM beacon. I am personally happy to
>>> see that you were able to acquire enough to bits to make an ID.
>>>
>>> I am not taking your comments as throwing stones. For that past couple
>>> years I have seen that WM can not compete with the signal strength of
>>> others in the band. I know there are several contributing factors in
>>> that equation. My current configuration is running about 75 mA of
>>> antenna current, and I can light only three bulbs of an NE-2 tree.
>>>
>>> I will be the first to admit my lack of LF technical expertise, and test
>>> equipment to put a first rate station on the air.  Also contributing is
>>> the amount of funding for this hobby.
>>>
>>> A third factor is the physical location of the beacon. A look at the FCC
>>> ground conductivity map shows the beacon is located in a grade 8 portion
>>> of the state, compared to other areas of IL which are 15.  Two thirds of
>>> my farm is river bottom ground where the Wabash river run long ago, the
>>> rest is a 30+ foot higher sandbar created by the river which is where
>>> the transmitter/antenna are located.
>>>
>>> I have been trying different configurations of antennas over the past 2
>>> years to improve the signal including using an Ashlock Loop with his
>>> hardware. I am currently working to construct the next antenna revision.
>>> There is a possibility that no matter what I construct, or how much
>>> money I spend, I will never have a strong signal compared to my peers
>>> because of my location.
>>>
>>> Thanks for listening.
>>>
>>> 73   de   N8OOU - Mike Meek
>>>
>>> On 01/13/2017 06:35 AM, jrusgrove at comcast.net wrote:
>>>> Nice quiet morning with SIW peaking 20 dB out of the noise. Full
>>>> capture at
>>>> http://www.w1vd.com/grabber.html .
>>>>
>>>> Note the difference in signal level between SIW and WM ... WM not
>>>> visible for
>>>> the most part. SIW is 787 miles at a heading of 276 degrees ... WM
>>>> is 798 miles
>>>> at a heading of 260 degrees ... an inconsequential difference. This
>>>> leads me to
>>>> believe
>>>> there's a problem at WM. Perhaps the transmitter is not developing
>>>> full power, the antenna isn't
>>>> really at resonance,
>>>> there's a problem with the antenna coupling system or the ground
>>>> system resistance is extraordinarily high. I've
>>>> received all of the midwest beacons that have been on the air over
>>>> the past 16
>>>> years ... most with similar signal levels to that of SIW.
>>>>
>>>> Not throwing stones here ... just trying to point out a potential
>>>> problem at
>>>> WM. I'm looking forward to seeing a more robust WM one of these days!
>>>>
>>>> Jay W1VD  WD2XNS  WE2XGR/2
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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