RE: Ground system for outside operation: Counterpoise?

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

Original poster: "Mccauley, Daniel H by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <daniel.h.mccauley-at-lmco-dot-com>



I have used a number of different grounds set-ups thus far to see if i can
improve performance on my coil, and thus
far, no grounding system has significantly improved coil performance, and no
grounding system has been proven to significantly produce more RF
interference over the other.

Just use the simple ground rod and you'll be fine.

Dan




While a single six foot rod will make the coil work fine, it probably 
does no good to the levels of RF interference created. Who cares? We 
all should. It is our responsibility not to cause interference and 
upset the general public. We don't want this hobby being outlawed. I 
am all for using a decent ground for my coil. 


Cheers,
Greg.

> 
> Why bother?  Just get a six foot grounding rod from your local
> Home Depot,
> pound it into the ground, and attach a thick braided wire from
> it to your RF
> ground on the tesla's secondary.  No need for fancy or heavy
> grounds.  Sure,
> a lot of people on this group think you need some serious
> ground with
> serious ribbon type grounding cable, but I operate my coils
> (currently up to
> 5kVA) with a simple set-up shown above.  Also, one coiler I
> know runs his
> coils (up to 20kVA) using only a 12 AWG solid ground cable to
> a similar rod
> and that guy is getting some serious output - no problems
> there.
> 
> Dan
> 
> 
> 
> > I'm wondering how well a counterpoise type ground would work
> as the main
> RF
> > ground for outside coil operation? I'm thinking of something
> very similar
> to
> > counterpoise ground used for amateur radio vertical antenna
> installations.
> >
> > Something like a counterpoise roughly 30' in dia with 30-50
> radials buried
> > just beneath the sod?
> > The beauty of this for me is that I'm planning to install a
> ground plane
> > vertical antenna for HF Ham operation in the same spot I'm
> thinking would
> be
> > a good site for  outside coil operation. Thus, the
> counterpoise may serve
> > dual purposes.
> >
> > I've got a hunch that such a large counterpoise ground may
> be superior to
> > multiple ground rods driven into the the ground for coil
> operation, though
> I
> > can't offer specific theory in the here and now. One notion
> I'm thinking
> is
> > that capacitive coupling to earth may be quite substantial.
> > Dave H
> > KA3STE
> >
> >
> >
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