8ft Grounding rod: copper or galvanized

[Radiomatrix]

there is not much difference in price.
i will attach 10-ga solid copper grounding wire to this and loosely coil up my mast.
sound like a plan?

 

[Xracerx13]

I went with copper coated. All ground rods are steel. Galvanized coated may be better for corrosion resistance, but copper delivers the ground to earth better. Just my opinion.
The copper ones like at home depot say this:

• 99.9% pure electrolytic copper coating
• Molecular bond to nickel-sealed high strength steel core
• Copper bonded for superior corrosion resistance

 

[brandon7861]

there is not much difference in price.
i will attach 10-ga solid copper grounding wire to this an loosely coil up my mast.
sound like a plan?

Never coil up ground wires. When lightning strikes, the magnetic field going around the bend in the wire is often times enough to break the wire. Loading coils get torn to pieces! Try to keep all ground connections as straight as possible with maximum bend radius possible. Besides, coils or added length just add unnecessray inductance.

 

[Radiomatrix]

I went with copper coated. All ground rods are steel. Galvanized coated may be better for corrosion resistance, but copper delivers the ground to earth better. Just my opinion.
The copper ones like at home depot say this:

• 99.9% pure electrolytic copper coating
• Molecular bond to nickel-sealed high strength steel core
• Copper bonded for superior corrosion resistance

Thank you. That's where i will by the grounding rod...and the wire.

 

[Radiomatrix]

Never coil up ground wires. When lightning strikes, the magnetic field going around the bend in the wire is often times enough to break the wire. Loading coils get torn to pieces! Try to keep all ground connections as straight as possible with maximum bend radius possible. Besides, coils or added length just add unnecessray inductance.

Well then there is no need to get the 10-ga when I can just get the 8-ga straight down the mast to the grounding rod.

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

10 gauge? Might as well install a fuse since in the event of a lightning strike it will vapourize like a fuse anyway. Code requires a MINIMUM of 6 gauge for grounding. I use 000 gauge from each tower leg to a separate ground rod. Oh.....and NEVER coil up ANY ground wire. Never.

 

[John David Trolinger]

there is not much difference in price.
i will attach 10-ga solid copper grounding wire to this and loosely coil up my mast.
sound like a plan?

 

[John David Trolinger]

This is what I do for my tower and masts.

AME-25 Radio Tower project

 

[nomadradio]

Years ago I met a guy who installed lightning rods for a living. Turns out the electrical code specifies how much wire they have to use. They use a stranded aluminum wire that has the strands sort of woven, to keep them from unravelling. Tends to be about a half-inch diameter. Smallest strand size is number eleven. A solid wire that's big enough would be like bending rebar to fit it where it goes. Sure wish I could remember how many strands he said was the minimum.

73

 

[brandon7861]

Years ago I met a guy who installed lightning rods for a living. Turns out the electrical code specifies how much wire they have to use. They use a stranded aluminum wire that has the strands sort of woven, to keep them from unravelling. Tends to be about a half-inch diameter. Smallest strand size is number eleven. A solid wire that's big enough would be like bending rebar to fit it where it goes. Sure wish I could remember how many strands he said was the minimum.

73

Sounds like what was used on our lightning rods, woven and round. Not quite half an inch on ours though, but the three lightning rods we have (two on roof peak and one on chimney) are tied into the same wire that goes across the roof and down both sides to ground rods. The electrical has its own ground, but nowhere near as robust.
.

 

[Radiomatrix]

Whenever I see anything about grounding my A99 on the 20ft TC pole it is on, it seems like there comes a point of divergence. One school of thought is the obvious, I am "grounding" against a lightening strike....CRAP...which right now there is a pretty nice thunderstorm goining on right now. The shop I was at talked about, I guess, just grounding the antenna to reduce noise and they described copper wire down my mast to ground. When I think about a lightening bolt, I think of what it would really take to direct a lightening bolt to the ground. hopefully I can do both easily. I still think making a lightening bolt behave is a tall order hahahaha! I have seen these complicated grounding arrays that although desirable I don't have the luxury of wide open spaces to build one. Solid copper grounding copper wire, fastened to the bracket holding the A99 to the pole high aloft, running straight down Attached with zip ties to a nearby 8ft. grounding rod. (will painting the copper with forrest green shaker can pain be ok?)

 

[brandon7861]

Whenever I see anything about grounding my A99 on the 20ft TC pole it is on, it seems like there comes a point of divergence. One school of thought is the obvious, I am "grounding" against a lightening strike....CRAP...which right now there is a pretty nice thunderstorm goining on right now. The shop I was at talked about, I guess, just grounding the antenna to reduce noise and they described copper wire down my mast to ground. When I think about a lightening bolt, I think of what it would really take to direct a lightening bolt to the ground. hopefully I can do both easily. I still think making a lightening bolt behave is a tall order hahahaha! I have seen these complicated grounding arrays that although desirable I don't have the luxury of wide open spaces to build one. Solid copper grounding copper wire, fastened to the bracket holding the A99 to the pole high aloft, running straight down Attached with zip ties to a nearby 8ft. grounding rod. (will painting the copper with forrest green shaker can pain be ok?)

Two things..

Lightning rods are designed to dissipate charge to PREVENT the strike, not to give it a target. The same principle applies to antennas. The more pointy or sharp edges it has, the better it discharges atmnosphere to ground charge separation. An antenna with a ground plane can make a great lightning rod and serve that exact purpose without the lightning ever hitting it.

Grounding the antenna may lower noise in some situations, but I think the real goal there is to dissipate stored charge. Both to mitigate pattern distortion and to protect your gear. When a coax is disconnected from the radio, the antenna can pick up static electricity quite fast and the coax, being a capacitor, can store it. Thousands of volts can build up in just seconds. Grounding prevents that so there is no charge when you connect the coax to your radio. Grounding also prevents static buildup that can distort the radiation pattern, a problem common to isolated radio/antenna systems.

The heavy gauge ground wire is just in case it does strike so your thin little "pretend" ground wire doesn't turn into an electric match and light your house on fire.

 

[BJ radionut]

https://reeve.com/Documents/Articles%20Papers/Reeve_AntennaSystemGroundingRequirements.pdf

https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/b71dd8d2-7beb-48b4-b648-742997624994/downloads/1bmfiebvg_433459.pdf

 

[Radiomatrix]

Two things..

Lightning rods are designed to dissipate charge to PREVENT the strike, not to give it a target. The same principle applies to antennas. The more pointy or sharp edges it has, the better it discharges atmnosphere to ground charge separation. An antenna with a ground plane can make a great lightning rod and serve that exact purpose without the lightning ever hitting it.

Grounding the antenna may lower noise in some situations, but I think the real goal there is to dissipate stored charge. Both to mitigate pattern distortion and to protect your gear. When a coax is disconnected from the radio, the antenna can pick up static electricity quite fast and the coax, being a capacitor, can store it. Thousands of volts can build up in just seconds. Grounding prevents that so there is no charge when you connect the coax to your radio. Grounding also prevents static buildup that can distort the radiation pattern, a problem common to isolated radio/antenna systems.

The heavy gauge ground wire is just in case it does strike so your thin little "pretend" ground wire doesn't turn into an electric match and light your house on fire.

How can the 8-ga copper grounding wire interact with antenna coax? Is it sufficient to bolt the copper to antenna bracket that is attached to the antenna pole/mast?

Cerrowire 25 ft. 6-Gauge Solid SD Bare Copper Grounding Wire 050-2200A - The Home Depot

Find the Cerrowire 25 ft. 6-Gauge Solid Bare Copper Grounding Wire 050-2200A, cable wire is ideal for use in grounding and is UL and CSA listed at The Home Depot

www.homedepot.com

 

[brandon7861]

How can the 8-ga copper grounding wire interact with antenna coax? Is it sufficient to bolt the copper to antenna bracket that is attached to the antenna pole/mast?

Cerrowire 25 ft. 6-Gauge Solid SD Bare Copper Grounding Wire 050-2200A - The Home Depot

Find the Cerrowire 25 ft. 6-Gauge Solid Bare Copper Grounding Wire 050-2200A, cable wire is ideal for use in grounding and is UL and CSA listed at The Home Depot

www.homedepot.com

If the grounding interacts with your coax, you have a common-mode current issue. Although tower grounding can have an affect on an unresolved common-mode issue, it shouldn't be a consderation when grounding the tower. If this is a tower, you can just ground the tower legs, no need to run all the way up the if the antenna is bolted to the tower. If the mast is not metal, thenrun all the way up to the bracket for sure. Just keep the bends to an absolute minimum.

Solid is meant for 60Hz home electrical grounding. Lightning ground wire is braided. It is easy to assume lightning is DC, but due to the fast rise time of the strike, it resembles RF and has strong HF characteristics. Having a single solid conductor may take some of the strike, but it may not take it all and you could see lighning follow it. I'm sure there are dozens of people here that use the stuiff you linked to for tower grounding and have had no issues, but I wouldn't put my stamp on it.