Section 250 of the NEC covers 'Grounding and Bonding' and is a worthy read. The hardest part of understanding the NEC is knowing what applies to your work, and where you can find that in the NEC codebook. Understand that ANYTHING you do with wiring can be referenced in more than one section of the code book, so be very careful with what you apply to your work. The better thing to do would be talk with a Journeyman or better electrician and get their 'take' on your ideas and work.
Electrical current travels on the outer layer of the conductor and this can make a difference with what you use to carry large current. Thing to remember is that all wire has a resistance value to it, and this equates to 'heat' when you apply voltage to it. In the case of a ground for your home, it has to be sized to carry the load of the inbound current to the home. For lightning protection it is a different animal indeed. Best bet is give the lightning a good path to ground and make sure you have isolators installed between your antenna leads and your home equipment. Up here in the Pacific NW we do not suffer from the issues with lightning that the midwestern and southern states do. What can be an issue here is when people pound in a new ground stake and fail to attach it to the other stakes in the immediate area. If you add an 'earth ground' stake to your residence and do not connect it to the common home ground, then you migh be setting your self up for a 'shocking' experience. In effect it can create a potentail difference between the two ground stakes and thus act like a capacitor and give you quite the jolt if you happen to bridge the gap.
What I reccomend is use the shortest path possible to tie your antennas to ground, and if they are close to your home's ground stake connect the stakes together with atleast 8ga. copper wire. Also make sure you are grounding the radio(s) to earth as well and make sure this is also common to antenna and house (shack) ground rods. As far as the wire goes, In the past I have used Copper Piping behind the radio desk, solid core wire out to the 8' copper stake and connected that to the house ground with 4ga braided copper wire. My current antennas are far enough away that I do not have the problem with potiential voltages that I have seen elsewhere.
Good luck.
AC7NT
Electrical current travels on the outer layer of the conductor and this can make a difference with what you use to carry large current. Thing to remember is that all wire has a resistance value to it, and this equates to 'heat' when you apply voltage to it. In the case of a ground for your home, it has to be sized to carry the load of the inbound current to the home. For lightning protection it is a different animal indeed. Best bet is give the lightning a good path to ground and make sure you have isolators installed between your antenna leads and your home equipment. Up here in the Pacific NW we do not suffer from the issues with lightning that the midwestern and southern states do. What can be an issue here is when people pound in a new ground stake and fail to attach it to the other stakes in the immediate area. If you add an 'earth ground' stake to your residence and do not connect it to the common home ground, then you migh be setting your self up for a 'shocking' experience. In effect it can create a potentail difference between the two ground stakes and thus act like a capacitor and give you quite the jolt if you happen to bridge the gap.
What I reccomend is use the shortest path possible to tie your antennas to ground, and if they are close to your home's ground stake connect the stakes together with atleast 8ga. copper wire. Also make sure you are grounding the radio(s) to earth as well and make sure this is also common to antenna and house (shack) ground rods. As far as the wire goes, In the past I have used Copper Piping behind the radio desk, solid core wire out to the 8' copper stake and connected that to the house ground with 4ga braided copper wire. My current antennas are far enough away that I do not have the problem with potiential voltages that I have seen elsewhere.
Good luck.
AC7NT
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