New shack
New shack
Ok guys persistence pays off, my wife has broken; I am moving the ham shack upstairs to the vacant bed room. First of all give me some ideas on what you guys think should be the first thing to do? And what are some cool ideas that you guys have been thinking about if you were started a new shack. The main question would be how do I construct my main station ground? With the station in the old shack, the ground rod was less than 8 feet from the copper bus, now I will be upstairs and about 20 feet from that rod so what is the best way to ground this system is 20 feet of #1 stranded wire wrong?
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Voodoo Guru
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Kuhl!!!!!
Man, A new Shack to be created in your image....woooow!
Yea, Grounding will be a problem.
Studio "X" is on the top story and Grounding was a major issue.
The most important thing is to follow proper grounding techniques for both RF and Electrical.
Star Grounding is of utmost importance for RF.
There are a few posts that talk about that type of grounding on this forum.
Here is one:
http://www.wz5q.net/talkvoodoo/viewtopic.php?t=116
You have to be very careful trying to ground at that length as the Ground will actually become a RF Resonant at certain Frequencies depending on its length.
One thing about RF is that it likes the lowest impedance to travel on.
Flat, wide copper strapping makes the best RF Grounding compared to any kind of wire.
We don't use a so called Shack ground here.
We use the Star Grounding technique using 1" wide copper strapping all units to the tuner.
Since Studio "X" is so far up and away from 'Ground' level, we opted to not try and run a Shack ground at all.
All our Audio Rack gear has its AC coming from a common point. It is a Furman AC Power Conditioner.
This conditioner and all the other AC components in the shack are connected to Modern Code, 3rd Chassis Ground lead Receptacles and AC Wiring.
All the RF Feed lines are terminated at a feedthru bulkhead, and then are routed to the base of the tower.
Here we have a weatherproof box that is full of ICE lightning arrestors that are bonded to a Grounding plate.
This plate is then grounded to the base of the Tower Grounding Halo.
It can be seen here:
http://www.wz5q.net/index/shack_data/antenna.htm
We also use a Collins type Choke at the bottom of the G5RV we use here.
As long as the antennas are a fair distance from the Shack, and you are not in any strong lobes of RF, we have absolutely no RF.
Every now and then we will change something and might get some RF on 10 meters, we start checking and tracking down what changed and then fix it.
We must also tell you we've added ferrite to all our Audio cables and AC chords for preventive measures.
Of course we are off the X-treme end here! hehehe
You can try the most basic things first, then if no problems your good.
If you ever increase power and start to have problems then you can goto the next level.
This is a hard thing to answer because every location is different.
All we can do is wish you good luck!!
And research, research, research!!
Take Care,
Man, A new Shack to be created in your image....woooow!
Yea, Grounding will be a problem.
Studio "X" is on the top story and Grounding was a major issue.
The most important thing is to follow proper grounding techniques for both RF and Electrical.
Star Grounding is of utmost importance for RF.
There are a few posts that talk about that type of grounding on this forum.
Here is one:
http://www.wz5q.net/talkvoodoo/viewtopic.php?t=116
You have to be very careful trying to ground at that length as the Ground will actually become a RF Resonant at certain Frequencies depending on its length.
One thing about RF is that it likes the lowest impedance to travel on.
Flat, wide copper strapping makes the best RF Grounding compared to any kind of wire.
We don't use a so called Shack ground here.
We use the Star Grounding technique using 1" wide copper strapping all units to the tuner.
Since Studio "X" is so far up and away from 'Ground' level, we opted to not try and run a Shack ground at all.
All our Audio Rack gear has its AC coming from a common point. It is a Furman AC Power Conditioner.
This conditioner and all the other AC components in the shack are connected to Modern Code, 3rd Chassis Ground lead Receptacles and AC Wiring.
All the RF Feed lines are terminated at a feedthru bulkhead, and then are routed to the base of the tower.
Here we have a weatherproof box that is full of ICE lightning arrestors that are bonded to a Grounding plate.
This plate is then grounded to the base of the Tower Grounding Halo.
It can be seen here:
http://www.wz5q.net/index/shack_data/antenna.htm
We also use a Collins type Choke at the bottom of the G5RV we use here.
As long as the antennas are a fair distance from the Shack, and you are not in any strong lobes of RF, we have absolutely no RF.
Every now and then we will change something and might get some RF on 10 meters, we start checking and tracking down what changed and then fix it.
We must also tell you we've added ferrite to all our Audio cables and AC chords for preventive measures.
Of course we are off the X-treme end here! hehehe
You can try the most basic things first, then if no problems your good.
If you ever increase power and start to have problems then you can goto the next level.
This is a hard thing to answer because every location is different.
All we can do is wish you good luck!!
And research, research, research!!
Take Care,
Voodoo Guru
From Deep in the IDD of the Sub-Harmonix Realm
From Deep in the IDD of the Sub-Harmonix Realm