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Please disregard the post I sent on this issue I was able to sign into my account without changing my password

The rule of thumb is that the distance between ground rods should be twice the length of the ground rod. Anything less results in minimal additional protection. The wire is used for bonding, equalizing the potentials of the different ground rods, not carrying the full current of a surge. The nearby ground system takes the brunt of the current surge. A water jet might be able to do it, but maybe cutting the asphalt is easiest.

Okay. For some reason, I was thinking 8'. That's still a lot of ground rods for a 200' run. The code is a minimum. My thought was that for such a long run, a heavier wire might be preferable. If so, I'm okay with absorbing the extra cost. I can't think of any way to go under 30' of asphalt without cutting it.

Exactly. Best is to disconnect it before it enters the house.

If you use 8’ ground rods they should be driven every 16’. There’s no benefit from placing them every 8 feet. Code doesn’t require 4 gauge. It requires 8 awg. I wouldn’t cut the asphalt, but I would go under it. Burying the ground wire is fine, even preferable. Look at this document: https://reeve.com/Documents/Articles Papers/Reeve_AntennaSystemGroundingRequirements.pdf

My question really is whether it's safer to leave the antenna connected to the radio or to disconnect it. I assume a direct strike may fry the coax even if it's properly grounded. I can replace an antenna and coax; it's my house and myself I'm concerned about.

200' of 4 awg copper wire is about $300 which isn't prohibitive, but if you have to add another ground rod every 8', that's going to get into some serious cash, aside from the work of driving 25 ground rods. In my case, I have to cross about 30' of asphalt. Is there any reason I can't cut a groove in the asphalt, lay the bare wire in it, and fill it with asphalt patch material? Is there any disadvantage to burying the wire where it crosses grass?

Less risk, but not no risk. The coax might still be at risk. What’s the breakdown voltage for the insulation of the coax? A long piece of coax exposed to a high voltage pulse at one end but disconnected at the other end can still be damaged. And what about the center conductor? It isn’t grounded unless you have done something to ground it. Depending on the design the antenna radiator elements are not usually connected to ground.

So, what happens if the antenna is adequately grounded and you disconnect it from the radio? I have assumed the electricity would follow the path of least resistance to the ground and the coax would be at minimal risk. Is that incorrect?

I got myself an H3 Plus to add to my stable of H3s and my Wouxun KG-935G Plus. Looks like a nice unit but I'm having trouble upgrading to the newest FW. I get a "Initializing device zone: app_dir_head" message on the Odmaster web GUI, and the upgrade never gets past that spot. I'm using the official Tidradio cable, I've tried all of the available USB com ports on my laptop, and even tried using the manual upgrade tool Tidradio provided via their FB group. Anyone know of a solution?

The hood is aluminum IIRC. Hopefully that will be adequate if we mount it on a fender or hood lip mount. A lot of people seem to get good results that way. Since I already have the SG7900, it will cost nothing to find out.

I would expect strict U.S. export controls on anything electronic that is to be sent to Iran…

Anyone looking for help with Programing with Fresno, California Areas please feel free tonreach to me and il see what I can do. You cam also reach out to me Via My Facebook Page GMRS Programing

By "two lined version" are y'all both referring to plain UV-5G? Holding down "8" while turning on does nothing on my plain UV-5G. Holding 3 still works though to give the firmware number (and it isn't what Chirp shows).

Welcome! Feel free to ask whatever questions you might have. That’s how everyone starts. We don’t do much one on one consulting because whatever questions you have, someone else is likely to have, or perhaps has been asked before and we can point you towards the answer.

Hi there I am WSIR0309 i am new here if anyone would like to talk and maybe help me learn gmrs I would appreciate any help ican get my email is joeynypizza@gmail.com. please reach out to me thank you have a good night

Thank you for your response, I will see if i can contact the owner. I was not sure what to do. WSGT972 PAUL

That won’t protect the radio at all. Electrons don’t stop instantly and between the antenna connector and the power input there’s a lot of components that are at a different potential than the coax shield and center conductor. Yes, it’s not cheap. Tying all of the legs to a single ground rod requires changing the path of the discharge. Having a ground for each provides a straight path to ground, plus having more rods reduces the impedance going to the ground. In an engineered ground system such as a substation you might even see a ground mat, chemicals, and other things done to minimize the resistance and create a large bed of equal potential.

I’ve reported this to Rich.

It was all about EMF and loops that absorbed it. Any luck involved was whether the loop was tuned/angled to the wave that passed thru it.

Yes, there is always going to be a difference. You bond because coax connectors are NOT high current rated. The circular mills of the shield conductor is also not sufficient to minimize the resistance of the conductor. This is why you don't use split bolts and crap to do your grounding. It's all CadWeld or 15 ton compression lugs / connections.

Lighting is just like tornadoes. Destroying one while barely touching the one next door. Could have been grounding, or just dumb luck. People struck by lighting can survive or become crispy kritter piles of dust.

That right there should protect the radio. But I know nothing will protect with a direct hit. Dissipating charge should be accomplished with the wire sizes as they are. I'm just thinking about my situation. The main electrical connection to all 4 bays in the building I'm in is at the opposite side of where my antenna is. That's 170' of conductor needed to make the connection from where the cable enters the building to the bond where the electrical box is. 25'+100'+45'. And as to having a ground rod for each leg of the tower why can't the 3 or 4 legs be connected by copper wire and then go to a single ground rod? The ground loop around the tower is doing essentially just that but just increasing the cost substantially. And would that change between a steel tower and an aluminum tower since aluminum conducts better?

Another, and a bit more in depth explanation / fact with lightning grounding and bonding. And the reason you ground EVERYTHING. Wires are NOT a perfect conductor. No matter the wire size or length, copper wire does have a resistance. Meaning that a voltage applied at one end of the wire will NOT be the same as the voltage at the other end of it depending on the voltage and current in the wire. More over, and this was mentioned before. The ground, no matter the number of rods, plates, screens or whatever you bond together in your grounding field. That connection to the ground is NOT perfect either. So, when a strike happens, a direct strike. The voltage (potential) of the equipment with reference to earth ground (0 volts) rises with the strike and then falls. Now this can be thousands or possibly tens of thousands of volts. So, that being said. If you DON'T bond everything together and the tower takes a strike. The radio is connected to the tower. The power supply is connected to your safety ground for the utility feed. Between them is a potential voltage of thousands to tens of thousands of volts. The radio and the power supply are sitting next to each other and the radio case voltage is 50KV, and the power supply case potential is 0 volts. Guess what happens. Bang. Flash. Smoke. If everything is bonded, it all goes to 50KV or whatever voltage, and then back to zero. And you are protected from that spike. Because it all went up and down. It's the difference in potential that causes issues. And a crappy ground field and good bonding practices are far SAFER than a great grounding system and half the gear not being connected to it, and in truth, its worse than nothing at all because it really creates the possibility of the difference in potential in the radio room. Now, no one has discussed the reason we ground to begin with. And the primary function is NOT to handle a strike. That's a secondary function. The primary function of a grounding system is to keep everything connected to it at ground potential and at 0 volts with reference to ground. The CB guys will tell you about their coaxes popping while they are in a glass jar and disconnected from the radio. This is the MOST DANGEROUS situation of all. Reason being is that antenna is going far above ground potential by thousands of volts until the air breaks down as an insulator and it arc's off. Lightning will always take the path of least resistance. To understand that, you need to understand the whole 'potential' thing. The short version is that lightning will strike the place that has the highest charge on it. If your antenna has several thousand volts on it and the tree next to it don't and the ground don't then boom, the antenna gets the hit. The higher in the air something is and the higher the potential that thing has, is gonna be the point that the strike happens. So then we introduce grounding and bonding to the mix. When you ground the tower, feed line, antenna, obstruction light, and all the rest of it. All of it's at the same potential as the ground that it's sitting on / in. All that static build up, which is what causes the coax to arc off in the storm, is run to ground and that keeps the potential low. For the radiating elements on a non-grounded antenna like a long wire or a dipole for HF work, a surge suppressor is used. And they have multiple things internally that help keep the potential low. First is a resistor that has enough resistance to NOT effect the SWR or impedance of the antenna system. Now the second part is a gas discharge tube. These tubes are rated to 'fire' or short when a voltage above a certain point is reached. This is where the power or wattage rating comes from on these. Because we know the resistance / impedance of the circuit (50 ohms) the voltage across that 50 ohm load will result in some power level. So the firing voltage is some percentage above that voltage. It's why hams running mismatched antenna's will fire their surge suppressors when running reasonably low power levels but the antenna instead of being 50 ohms is 700 ohms or something like that and they are using an antenna tuner to lie to the radio and show it a 50 ohm impedance. The impedance doesn't change in the antenna and cable past the tuner, it's still high. THe tuner is what matches it. BUT, 100 watts is 100 watts. IF that's what you are putting into the antenna when it's operated in it's bandwidth and presents a 50 ohm impedance then the voltage is X. But if the antenna is 700 ohms and the power is still 100 watt's the voltage is NOT X any more, it's far higher. And that surge suppressor will fire at that point. But back to the point of keeping everything, but mostly the tower, at ground potential is this. If the top of the tower is the same potential as the ground around the tower, then the lightning will go find a tree somewhere to hit. Or it will hit the ground because the top of the tower doesn't look any better to lightning than the ground around it. Don't bleed off that static charge and that tower will take hits. And a tower that's been hit a couple times will get to the point it looks REALLY good. Reason is that the ground rods will encase themselves in glass or whatever dirt is around them as the get hit. The more often they get hit, the more buildup happens. In sandy soil, they will encase themselves in glass. And at that point you have no more ground. The whole system will need to be dug up and replaced. I have seen this.

Disconnect/open loops because EMF. Lightning strike between my house and neighbor's house took out 2 window AC's and 3 TV's at the neighbor's house, but just a light ballast and the power filter board on my HF rig. If I had had the HF rig disconnected from the power supply it would have just been the light ballast. Power poles are your friend.