Grounding a base station antenna

[WRWE744]

What is the best way to ground a base station antenna so my equipment or house isn't fried by lightening?

[Doggorunning1]

Owe this is good stuff guys, So one grounds the pole itself heavy copper braid and the other lead comes from a lighting arrestor before entering the structure, 10 gage wire. have these two go to a single 8 foot grounding rod. Now...  I don't think its a good idea to use your existing grounding rod that your electric panel uses or is connected too houses electrical system, thats nuts. check out my picture I did  

IMG_3732.heic

[Doggorunning1]

Why right before, it's like a 4 foot difference, reason?  Owe thanks for your help 

[WRYZ926]

14 minutes ago, Doggorunning1 said:

Why right before, it's like a 4 foot difference, reason?  Owe thanks for your help 

It might only be 4 foot on your setup but it is not on my setup with my antennas up above the roof.

But hey, you setup things how you want and I'll setup things up how I want while sticking to NEC codes. Have a nice day.

[Doggorunning1]

Dam, just asking, you are like talking to an AE (Avionics dork) in the Navy, I was Airframes, we have muscles and girl friends.  Why are HAM guys so testy? lol  

I'll say it again, thanks for your help, why is all this stuff such a secret?  Why am I going to be the one to teach people and not you guys that seem to know more? 

Maybe I'll give you another chance, here we go....

WHY RIGHT BEFORE? is it that the NEC code says, ok then, I'll do it right before then double back on my 10 gage wire, I just though it would be cleaner looking coming straight down the antenna.  

[OffRoaderX]

17 minutes ago, Doggorunning1 said:

Why are HAM guys so testy? 

...why is all this stuff such a secret?  Why am I going to be the one to teach people and not you guys that seem to know more? 

You must be new to the exciting and dynamic radio world where dorks think they know everything... You will quickly learn to laugh at and then ignore "some people".. Or just make fun of them like everyone else in their lives do.

[Doggorunning1]

Love your channel, figured since I used your music, which I purchased for $1 in my last video that you would try to get me for a content strike, I seek out negative attention due to my Daddy issues. 

I'm doing the KG1000G Plus Base station thing, I asked Two Way Radios to sponsor me, they said no problem.  This after I explained, that I didn't live up on a mountain and the average man could relate to me better than Salton Sea Randy.  

[SteveShannon]

4 hours ago, Doggorunning1 said:

Dam, just asking, you are like talking to an AE (Avionics dork) in the Navy, I was Airframes, we have muscles and girl friends.  Why are HAM guys so testy? lol  

I'll say it again, thanks for your help, why is all this stuff such a secret?  Why am I going to be the one to teach people and not you guys that seem to know more? 

Maybe I'll give you another chance, here we go....

WHY RIGHT BEFORE? is it that the NEC code says, ok then, I'll do it right before then double back on my 10 gage wire, I just though it would be cleaner looking coming straight down the antenna.  

This relatively simple article does a good job of explaining what is required. There are also some pretty good YouTube videos that I can recommend if you want. 

https://reeve.com/Documents/Articles Papers/Reeve_AntennaSystemGroundingRequirements.pdf

The most important thing is that everything is grounded together and to a single point. That helps prevent current flow along other paths, such as your coax and house electrical system. 

And you certainly should also ground your coax at the base of your tower and then connect that ground to your system ground using at least #8 awg. But you should still want to install an arrester right before your cable enters the house. Why there instead of four feet away?  Because if anything happens in that four feet, such as a power line landing on your coax, having the arrester right at the entry to the house is your last opportunity to divert it to ground.

Arresters aren’t perfect.  They simply represent your last best chance to keep the surge out of the house and divert it to your system ground.  You certainly can disconnect your coax to prevent lightning from following it inside,  but if you do, do it outside, not inside. Putting it in a mason jar on the inside is silly.  If that lightning jumped a few miles in the air, bringing it inside and then putting it in a glass jar will do absolutely nothing, except create glass shrapnel for the firefighters to wade through.

 

[WRYZ926]

Like I said in my first reply, this can be an argumentative topic at times. It can be as bad as asking what type of oil to use in your vehicle or what type of lube to use on your firearms.

Read the NEC concerning antenna towers/masts, etc along with the link provided above, watch some videos and then decide what YOU want to do.

 

[Doggorunning1]

Bless you brother but if you cant explain it you dont know it well enough and are just repeating something you've heard or not read good enough.  I have a gun channel and inspected weapons systems for a living along with other highly technical items, it's ok to not know or not teach well thats fine.  Referring people to a reference also helps, and allowing them to read for themselves is also a good idea.  The instructions that came with your firearm for instance tell you exactly where to oil and not.  Issues only arise when those that have not read these instructions think they know better than a manufacture.  Fuddlore  is hard to explain I get it

[Doggorunning1]

Thank you,  my first comment was designed to seek help, worked great, now I really know what's up.  See we need to burn down the weeds before planting sometimes.  

[Doggorunning1]

I guess you missed my post where I asked a simple question?  Seems you are a bit of a Sad Ham as Randy would say, Its a loving and enduring term, my Electrician friend.  Life's busy I dont always have time to read through every post or dive into the historical archive. As for razing folks as Randy does, this is how real men bond. My Electrician friends in the Navy it was an awkward process at times.   Asking a simple question would get you these odd responses that seemed to come from an angry place or even defensive in nature....because of this we razed them.  WHY? to break through that shell, its better than disliking you or getting upset or sad.  It's all meant to find some common ground and come together as men.  My initial comment above was a cry for help, but also phrased in a way to elicit a response, it was a great opportunity for a big brain ham to practice his mentorship among the little people. 

Now I did build my own home from the ground up, also wired it myself, including 2 sub panel's, but thats what I do.  Because of this I know just how complicated Electric work is and I had advice all the way through from 2 licensed Electrician's.  Life's complicated being humble is important, when Im done I will do a video that explains a simple way of grounding and mounting an antenna, I like to help my fellow GMRS users.  

now I will babble a bit

I will ground as per NEC code but the difference between 20 feet up and 15 feet up is a huge pain in the ass.  So I think I will try mounting a J bar w/ a 48 inch rise on my eve, rather than pouring a concrete foundation and spending another $300 on a telescoping antenna base.  These 20 foot antennas look very getto,  so we will see if thats high enough, Im also to close to my power lines for a 20 foot mast for safety.  15 feet up is high enough?  Most homes are one story here, so Im making it over roofs.  Thats a pretty simple question, but I usually get the answer higher always best, so what the hell does that mean lol

 

       

[SteveShannon]

On 1/23/2024 at 1:52 PM, Doggorunning1 said:

I guess you missed my post where I asked a simple question?  Seems you are a bit of a Sad Ham as Randy would say, Its a loving and enduring term, my Electrician friend.  Life's busy I dont always have time to read through every post or dive into the historical archive. As for razing folks as Randy does, this is how real men bond. My Electrician friends in the Navy it was an awkward process at times.   Asking a simple question would get you these odd responses that seemed to come from an angry place or even defensive in nature....because of this we razed them.  WHY? to break through that shell, its better than disliking you or getting upset or sad.  It's all meant to find some common ground and come together as men.  My initial comment above was a cry for help, but also phrased in a way to elicit a response, it was a great opportunity for a big brain ham to practice his mentorship among the little people. 

Now I did build my own home from the ground up, also wired it myself, including 2 sub panel's, but thats what I do.  Because of this I know just how complicated Electric work is and I had advice all the way through from 2 licensed Electrician's.  Life's complicated being humble is important, when Im done I will do a video that explains a simple way of grounding and mounting an antenna, I like to help my fellow GMRS users.  

now I will babble a bit

I will ground as per NEC code but the difference between 20 feet up and 15 feet up is a huge pain in the ass.  So I think I will try mounting a J bar w/ a 48 inch rise on my eve, rather than pouring a concrete foundation and spending another $300 on a telescoping antenna base.  These 20 foot antennas look very getto,  so we will see if thats high enough, Im also to close to my power lines for a 20 foot mast for safety.  15 feet up is high enough?  Most homes are one story here, so Im making it over roofs.  Thats a pretty simple question, but I usually get the answer higher always best, so what the hell does that mean lol

 

       

You just acted like a hors’s ass to one of the nicest and least pretentious members (WRUU653) of this forum. 
Thank God for the Ignore list. 

[Doggorunning1]

30 minutes ago, Sshannon said:

You just acted like a hors’s ass to one of the best members of this forum. 
Thank God for the Ignore list. 

 you just had to interject yourself now didn't you Cowboy, as a new member of the site I must say my assumptions are ringing true.   Hope you take that onboard, as Premium members you all should have nothing to prove, Ive said thank you in almost all my post, asked questions; being humble and respectful to other members.  Me pointing out that HAMs tend to be a bit testy .... well your post is just a little ironic is it not?  I appreciated your post earlier, even thanked you, and thumbed it up, I still appreciate it.  The work that I will do on my property will reflect your inputs thank you once again.  

Little advice, what seems simple and what you may see as an ignorant post may be someone just asking a "simple question" these deserve answers and not ridicule.  As I mature on this platform I hope I may serve as an example of this.  

24 hours ago I saw a Mason Jar as a method of grounding, I have now graduated and will be using lighting arrestors and 8 foot grounding rods.  Yea thats a good quote 

 

 

[Doggorunning1]

Appreciate the help guys Thank you

[WRQC527]

1 hour ago, Sshannon said:

Thank God for the Ignore list.

Dude has only 10 posts (at the time of this post) and he's already on multiple ignore lists. Is that a record? 

[OffRoaderX]

2 hours ago, Sshannon said:

You just acted like a hors’s ass to one of the best members of this forum.

Wait, did he say something to me that I missed?

[Doggorunning1]

you warned me lol and I though it was just you 

[Doggorunning1]

no ones ignoring anyone, Im the most exciting thing thats happened on this forum in a month.  

 

 

[Doggorunning1]

Receipts  

[SteveShannon]

4 hours ago, WRQC527 said:

Dude has only 10 posts (at the time of this post) and he's already on multiple ignore lists. Is that a record? 

It might be!

[SteveShannon]

3 hours ago, OffRoaderX said:

Wait, did he say something to me that I missed?

I can’t tell anymore.

[WRKC935]

Grounding is the most argues topic I can think of for hobby radio.

The discussion ranges from folks that are commercial radio guys that would see a HALO around the tower and building with ground rods every 10 feet and thousands of dollars in wire being buried in the ground to the glass jar guys that don't think any of that stuff is needed.

And while I am a commercial radio guy and the commercial / public safety towers I work with have all that, I am a realist about what a guy is goig to be willing to spend and how much effort they are willing to put towards a grounding system.  And the safety / electrical ground system is NOT an RF ground.  It might be resonant on some RF frequencies, but certainly not all.  And the halo's and legs are not ever cut to any resonant length on purpose. 

BUT, an RF grounding system for HF and a safety grounding system does need to be bonded together so that the voltage potential on both stay the same in all situations.

 

But discussing the 'proper' way to ground, and all that typically turns into a mess.  I offer what I know of it and leave it at that. 

 

Now, there was also a question of height and antenna's.  And here's the low down on that.  The numbers used for reference for calculating the 'realized gain' of the height of an antenna are a 6dB increase in signal for every time you double the antenna height.  Now, That goes both ways.  And applies ONLY when it's a doubling of height.  So if your antenna is at 40 feet, and you move it to 50 feet, the change is not real noticeable.  If your antenna is at 10 feet and you go to 40 feet, which would double the height TWICE 10 to 20 and 20 to 40, then it's gonna have a pronounced effect.  When the FCC does calculations for radio station ERP, height is taken into account this way.  ANd if you don't thing that's the case, let me remind you there are UHF repeaters that have a 2700 square mile footprint that are running 2 watts.  Of course they are in low earth orbit attached to satellites, but those are 2 watt transmitters.

Back to the increasing antenna height.  If you are 15 feet in the air, and are above the roof tops, unless you can go to 60 feet, it's probably not worth bothering with because it's simply NOT gonna have that much effect on your signal level overall.

There are some calculations for what your horizon is as well.  That has to do with the fact the earth is curved, and RF at UHF goes in a straight line.  As you increase your height, you increase the distance to the horizon.  Sailors can tell you all about that.  I just know it exists and I have run those numbers a couple times dealing with Microwave shots, but I don't remember how many feet it is UP to increase the horizon by 1 mile.

 

 

[Doggorunning1]

You are awesome! Thank you for that, I think it boils down to most not knowing what they are talking about or have the inability to communicate like yourself.  I'm not speaking about the gentlemen here,  that have helped me a great deal and I wish to make that crystal clear. They do get a little testy and I tend to push back as a few of my suscribers have felt this and dont understand why, are we not welcome, or are GMRS users looked down on.  I like how you explained the difference between commercial, cost and such; very real world realistic. I was an NDIT inspector, very complicated stuff, it was my job to explain to a NON inspector why there 1 billion dollar aircraft is broken, because I said so never would fly.  

So because of these fine gentleman and yourself.... the grounding rod is in ground now, and I just purchased a fascia mounted antenna holder rather than doing a $300 pole "tower" 

I was a sailor the formula for horizon distance is  R≈1.23×h   

whin reference to horizon 

[Doggorunning1]

lol I like the Mason jar idea lol  I was going to do a video on that theory 

[Lscott]

On 1/22/2024 at 5:26 PM, Doggorunning1 said:

on a stormy day just disconnect and place your coax in a mason jar 

People on this forum have been severely roasted for suggesting this idea.