I know Jim very well and he is technically correct of course. That
said, I can make the case that the goal of the manual is to communicate
to a very large audience on the set-up and use of the radio. For many
of them [most?], the term "ground" can mean the chassis connection, the
negative terminal of the power supply, a rod driven in the ground, a
wire laying on or slightly elevated from the earth's surface in the
vicinity of the antenna, or even the Pacific Ocean [if you happen to be
afloat in it]. I think consistency in choice of terms is probably at
least as important as the exact terms themselves.
The manual *does* need to be very clear on matters of safety. NEC
requires that all earth electrodes be bonded together with heavy wire
and bonded to the service entrance earth electrode. If the manual is
going to talk about an earth electrode, it probably should mention items
like this, perhaps in a footnote.
On a different but related subject, I host and power the neighborhood
RAP for the wireless company on my tower in return for free I'net access
at the backhaul speed [17-25 mbps or so]. They recently replaced their
equipment and used an SMPS in the UPS to power the radios and their
router. The SMPS was putting out raucous, 7-8 KHz wide signals every 26
KHz from below the AM BC band to about 60 meters. Peaks were running
about -40 dBm [S9+35] on 80 and 160. It's gone now, thanks to the info
in Jim's very detailed dissertation on RFI [http://k9yc.com/RFI-Ham.pdf].
We're all increasingly subject to RFI conditions with the explosion of
RF noisemakers out there. If you have such a problem, I strongly
recommend reading Jim's paper before trying to mitigate the noises. It
will save you a bundle of money, effort, and time. And, proper
"grounding" can be a big factor. :-)
Now if I can just get CalTrans to fix their street light down at the
interchange.
73,
Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2014 Cal QSO Party 4-5 Oct 2014
- www.cqp.org
On 4/25/2014 2:14 PM, Wayne Burdick wrote:
That may be. But we're thick-skinned around here, and we revel in a
good technical skirmish now and then. Jim is a worthy combatant.
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