Possible Dumb Question

[Dave Wt8R]

In a message dated 6/11/02 12:02:52 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
rayfri at networld.com writes:


>
> This may be a dumb question, especially from someone who has been a ham for
> over 30 years..... BUT here goes anyway.
> How important really is a station ground to operation of a ham station?
> I've
> operated with one, and without one in the past.
> Does it help with TVI and RFI, does it help with antenna operation, etc?
> To be honest, personally I havent noticed much difference, except for a few
> times
> I have been RF bitten in the shack....
> Ray  wa7itz
>
>

Ray,

       An RF ground is extremely important....and the absence of one is "the
reason" you have been bitten by RF in your shack.  Not having an RF ground
connected to the chassis of your rig is like not connecting the "ground side"
of an RF bypass capacitor to circuit ground.

       In my 45 yers of ham radio, I have never seen a reference which stated
that a ground was NOT necessary.  The only down side to having a ground wire
is if it is "too long" and looks like an antenna to your radio.  By too long,
I mean if it (ground wire) is about a half wave length at the frequency at
which you are operating.

       When I was a Novice and General class operator, my shack was in a
second floor bedroom and my ground wire was much too long for operation on 10
& 15 meters.  I often was bitten on the lip by RF from the microphone and it
was because my ground was ineffective, i.e. that I really didn't have one.  I
tried to tie it to a water pipe on the second floor but that didn't help much
either...........it was too long before it actually reached ground.  To say
that there is little difference between operation with or without an
effective ground is naive.

       A ground certainly is important with respect to RFI much in the same
way that it is like trying to load a dipole antenna fed by coax cable and NOT
connecting the shield side of the coax.

73 de

Dave, WT8R

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