Re: RF Ground, House Ground, Ground....

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

Original poster: "Ed Phillips by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <evp-at-pacbell-dot-net>

Tesla list wrote:
> 
> Original poster: "Allanh by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<allanh-at-starband-dot-net>
> 
> I've never seen data to indicate that ground conductivity in the U.S.
> approaches 1.5 ohm. I'm wondering if you are measuring between the ground
> rod alone( no wires connected to it) and the power company ground. If you
> have any wires, other than the meter, connected to the ground rod, you have
> a false reading.
> 
> allan

	I'm in the Pasadena, California area.  When I installed my 50 foot
tower I managed to drive 4 six foot rods into the dry ground at its
base.  Took a long time to get them in, and when I did the DC
resistance  measured with an ohmmmeter between any pair of them is over
600 ohms!!!!!  Didn't get decent operation until I tied into a 2" copper
water line running from the street to the back of the house.  I've tried
to measure the equivalent RF resistance of the ground system by
resonating the antenna with a high-Q loading coil, removing the antenna
lead and substituting an HV variable capacitor and adjustable resistor. 
I end up guesstimating the antenna capacitance is almost 380 uufd, and
the equivalent series resistance is about 35 ohms.  With that much loss
it's a waste of time building such a high-Q coil.

Ed