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Wednesday 29 August 2012

RF Earth - How about this then?

I've been fiddling around with the RF earth in the shack today; mainly because I was very aware how totally pants the existing arrangement was.

So to start with I have driven three four foot earth rods into the ground just outside the shack window. These rods are soldered together at the top using a piece of old copper pipe - I did the soldering using a blow torch and plumbers solder & flux.

This is fed by a 10mm squared cable into the shack by the shortest route and this in turn is also connected to a piece of copper water pipe. This pipe is not part of any water system but simply used as a distribution bus for the earth:


So in total I have soldered (using the blowtorch method) seven separate connections onto this pipe and secured it underneath the desk using pipe clips. The main earth coming into the shack is the connection you can see on the left hand side and each of the other six points are fed by separate earth cables to the individual pieces of equipment.


This seems like a much more sensible arrangement to me than I had previously and I think this qualifies as a decent RF earth. Cat didn't seem too bothered:

Good though, egh?

3 comments:

  1. A lot of work. But does it help? A RF earth is something else as a safety earth. I don't know what the length of your 10mm cable from earth rods to this coppertube is? But it should be as short as possible. If you got the idea that it helps, then it works! Good night the the cat ;-) 73, Bas

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  2. Hey Bas, thanks for the comments; it's about six feet from the "bus" to the earth rods - should work well as an RF earth.

    M

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  3. Mark, The earth cables from your equipment to the earth pipe should all connect at the same point, otherwise earth loops are created between the series connection you have made.

    Best regards, Stewart GM0GTU

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