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Re: Grounding Rod Troubles
Hi Adam,
>Original Poster: Adam <psycho-at-tradewind-dot-net>
>
>Today I tried to drive a 5/8" by 8' bonded copper ground rod into the
>ground. I tried digging, soaking, soaking, digging, cursing, digging,
>cursing, swearing, and soaking, and it simply would not go in far
>enough (only three feet). My soil is way too rocky for this.
Snipola.
Why not try it my way? I used zinc coated (for long life) T-iron. My
RF-ground is composed of 4 pieces of 5mm thick times 45mm wide
T-iron, each about 4 ft long. These are pounded into the ground
about 4 ft apart (length of the T-iron is the width of the spacing in
between). T-iron has two real advantages: It is nearly impossible
to bend. The "T" form is VERY strong and iron is stronger than
copper. You can smack away at it with a hammer and it WILL go
into the ground straight. It wonīt be affected by rocks (unless there
the size of a large brick). My backyard contains a lot of smaller
rocks and sand. If you use your good old angle grinder to sharpen
the bottom of the T-iron to a mildy sharp point it will almost slip into
the ground just by looking at it. (okay, okay, I admit: not quite) The
second advantage of T-iron is the surface area is much, much larger
than a piece of round rod (which is why I never understood why
coilers use rods at all). 3 of the four T-iron pieces are about 1ft
underneath the sod level and the last one is about 4" above ground
level. I painted it red for visibility and it has a sticker on it that
says: "RF-ground" Do not remove" You wouldnīt be able to
anyway. Once the thing is in the ground, there is almost no way
you will get it back out ;o)). A brass screw (plus a little bit of
grease to prevent corrosion) , fastend with a normal lockwasher
and nut makes my connection terminal. I use a wing nut on top
of this to connect my grounding wire (35mm^2 = AWG 0), which
has a normal (big) soldering lug on it. Forget about using a
single ultra long piece of rod. It is much easier, and from an RF
standpoint actually better, to use several pieces of shorter rod
(or T-iron for that matter :ö). It only took my about 2 hrs.
total to make the whole RF ground (including getting everything
together, the work, replacing the grass (so my mom doesnīt
start getting upset about her "ruined" lawn), and cleaning up)
system. My method: no sweating, no cursing, almost no digging
and it makes a pretty good grounding system, or at least my
coil seems to think so. (:o))
Coiler greets from germany,
Reinhard
P.S: Donīt forget to water before using. It will help your sparks
"grow" (no pun intended, you donīt need fertilizer, tho :ö)) )