Station Grounding

[KC8FAS]

I have a question about station grounding. I know you station ground wire to rod should be as short as possible. My ham shack is about 15ft away from my home eletrical service ground rod. Would this be ok to run my wire to this location or should I put a new ground rod just outside the shack. I have read if you do this both ground rods should be boned together. What would be the easiest way.

[cabletech]

Just run a #6 or #4 wire from the main ground rod to a point inside your radio room for the common connection for all your equipment and you will be fine.

The bigger the wire the better and yes you need to go directly to the main ground rod.

[sloop]

There are basically 4 reasons to ground your station and grounding for each one is slightly different. There is grounding for 1. AC protection, 2. lightning protection, 3. RF grounding, and 4. antenna grounding (to create the other 1/2 of the antenna such as a vertical). The best thing is to go to American Radio Relay League | ARRL - The national association for AMATEUR RADIO select 'websearch' and type in "station grounding". The site will list information on how to do each of the above types of grounding. Best of luck.

[Wyandotte]

This website has a lot of good info on grounding and other things. Page 2 has a pdf just on ham radio station grounding.

White Papers and Technical Notes

[majoco]

Wyandotte - very interesting web page - reading this should be compulsory for the rabid electricians who scream that "every ground must be bonded to the service ground at the entrance point" when ever this subject crops up!