Original poster: Jim Lux <jimlux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Anyway, if a grounding rod is good enough for the breaker
panel then why not good enough for a TC RF ground.
Lots of reasons. the breaker panel ground is designed for line
frequency grounding, primarily for human life safety....
I understand the safety reasons. The question is: how is a breaker
panel that is grounded via a rod in the ground any more safe than a
TC ground that also is a rod in the ground other than the
frequencies are different. Could it be that the heavy guage service
neutral that comes to the house is also grounded at the
distribution point and that is what really provides the line
frequency ground, and the rod in the ground at the breaker panel is
more for RF grounding???.
No, more to deal with the possibility of break in the neutral in the
service drop, and to account for voltage drop in the service drop
neutral, so the neutral (in the house) isn't something other than "ground".
The service entrance ground also serves as a common tie point for
other grounding systems (telephone and cable TV, notably), so you
don't get voltage differences between the chassis of a piece of
equipment (connected to ground wire ground) and the shield of the antenna coax.