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Re: bad ground....

Hi Sundog,

Florida is like the lightning strike capital of the world!  I wonder what
all the electric utilites, cable tv, phone, and such use for grounding?
They must do something and I would do what they do.  They may just sink
ground rods down 100 feet or some darn thing like that but look and ask
around about how grounding is done in your area.  They must have some trick
figured out.

Cheers,

	Terry

At 09:52 PM 03/27/2000 -0500, you wrote:
>    Well, I'm still gathering parts, (and the green stuff), but I'm
>piecemealing together things here and there.  A few days ago, I had a free
>hour, so I sunk myself a 10' copper pipe at the corner of my garage.  I'd
>just finished sinking it when it got dark.  The next day I hooked up a 12/30
>NST and checked to see if I could draw an arc to the ground.  Yep.  I got
>about a 1" arc going with no trouble at all.  But here's the
>problem....Today, I go out and tried again (was checking out a spark-gap
>idea and torturing the trashbag-cap, which hasn't died yet, btw), and I got
>the sorriest looking excuse for a ground signal you can see.  I don't even
>think it qualifies as a ground.  Maybe just a "difference in potential"
>Anyways, I don't know why it worked fine yesterday and not today.  I'll try
>again tomorrow, but don' t know if it'll change.
>
>  It *did* rain today for a little bit, but I thought that would *increase*
>the grounding ability (dry vs wet sand)  Oh, yeah, that's another problem.
>Here in florida, we don't have dirt.  everything is just sand.  Do I need to
>scrape up some more change and go get a few more 10' rods and sink 'em?  I
>don't have a waterpipe easily available for grounding to, and don't want
>to'cause I *know* that's the house ground.  Can't salt the ground out there
>(the poor grass is dying as is.....).
>    Ideas?  Questions?    THanks :)
>
>
>Sundog - blue wire...blue wire....BZZZT!  Oh, yeah, i'm colorblind!
>