Re: Longest practical ground cable?

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <Mddeming-at-aol-dot-com>

In a message dated 5/3/01 11:23:02 AM Eastern Daylight Time, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com 
writes: 



>
> > Original poster: "Garry Freemyer by way of Terry Fritz 
> > <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <garry-at-ndfc-dot-com> 
> > 
> > What's the longest RF ground cable I can have? 
> > 
> > I've been thinking maybe I could drive a rod on the edge of my porch. 
> > Trouble is, the thing is 30' away. That seems to be too long. With ham 
> > radio, if I remember correctly, the ideal ground cable has to be 
> > shorter than a quarter wave of the frequency you are transmitting on 
> > or it could act as an antenna. 



Another effect of a long RF ground cable is its ability to elevate the bottom 
of your coil and everything else hooked to it above ground potential, 
increasing the number of places you can get careless fingers etc zapped from. 
The totally careful experimenter, of course, has no worry. ;-))) 
Matt D.