Re: apartment grounding (was: I'm a newbie coiler!- apartment coiling)

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Original poster: Jim Lux <jimlux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

At 11:12 AM 3/13/2006, you wrote:
> Original poster: smz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Original poster: "Mike" <mike.marcum@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >
> > A counteroise (sheet of chickenwire or aluminum foil under the coil)
> > works wonders, alot better than a 30-foot run of wire down the side
> > of the building would. Ideally a full  faraday cage would work
> > keeping rfi down as well as grounding, but I never liked putting my
> > pets in cages.
>
> This doesn't answer the question on how to ground the mesh...

The counterpoise/mesh IS the RF ground, so connect the mesh to the 
bottom of the secondary with a short wire. That's the primary return 
for the RF currents from the top of the TC.


One might also wish to connect the mesh to the "green wire" ground as 
a safety measure. An RF choke in this path might not be amiss, if 
you're concerned about RF getting into the building grounding system.




> Since I won't be doing too much VERY powerful stuff in my apartment, I'll
> most likely just use the mains ground.


Think about where the RF currents are going.. out of topload, into 
streamer, into air, and then where?  If you ground ONLY to the mains, 
then the "other end" of that RF path is the wires in your walls and 
appliances, where they capacitively couple to the grounding 
conductor, thence, to the grounding conductor feeding your TC, and 
thence back to the bottom of the secondary.


> Most likely I'll power up the coil
> (once it's done) somewhere else anyway. Without any experience, I'd like
> to have more room the first time at least, and a buddy who knows CPR
> around :)


It's generally a reasonably good precaution to have someone else 
around who can turn off the power and pull your twitching and/or 
smoldering body to safety.  Make sure they know how to turn off the 
power safely (i.e. a rope tied to the plug, an axe, whatever...)
Jim