About to ground my antron.

[123kid]

Ok so i drove a 8foot rod into the soild about 2 feet from my house.The antenna is 25 ft up on the chimney and my plan now is to run the wire to the antron mount screw and down into the single screw connector on the clamp.I bought 6 awg shielded stranded wire 35 feet.I wanted single copper but all they had was stranded and they had unshielded but i seen what happens to exposed copper in these new england elements.Now is it best to clampo the wire to the ground rod directly or use the little 1 screw spot on the clamp?And is this stranded 6awg good enough being shielded and all.I know that in reality it probably wont be protecting me from lightning but it should help my recieve a bit.I plan on adding one of those coax protectors later on.

 

[mr_fx]

at 25ft away from ground I would not expect too much help from this ground as far as RX goes

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

at 25ft away from ground I would not expect too much help from this ground as far as RX goes

Agreed, not unless there was a HUGE problem with something like precipitation static and then only when it rains or snows.

I trust by "shielded" 123kid means "insulated". Never saw shielded 6 ga ground wire before. All the insulation does is keep the copper shiny.

 

[123kid]

ahh

Thats what i meant insulated.I already payed for it anyway im sure it will work fine.My recieve is no problem just grounding for peace of mind i guess.And my swr is a little cookkyy....Radio doesnt wanna swing full power on channel 10 and bellow 1 yest my outboard swr meter tells my match is good down there.I go above channel 10 and it swings full on ssb and the outboard meter tells me the swr is 1.4 past channel 20 or so.Figure a ground should fix it.

 

[Robb]

Have any pictures of your antenna setup that we can see?

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

Thats what i meant insulated.I already payed for it anyway im sure it will work fine.My recieve is no problem just grounding for peace of mind i guess.And my swr is a little cookkyy....Radio doesnt wanna swing full power on channel 10 and bellow 1 yest my outboard swr meter tells my match is good down there.I go above channel 10 and it swings full on ssb and the outboard meter tells me the swr is 1.4 past channel 20 or so.Figure a ground should fix it.

Sounds more like the PA section needs a bit of an alignment to broadband it a bit or at least re-center the point of maximum output.

 

[hookedon6]

Sounds more like the PA section needs a bit of an alignment to broadband it a bit or at least re-center the point of maximum output.

or the meter needs to be re-calibrated when he changes freq.

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

or the meter needs to be re-calibrated when he changes freq.

I guess I was assuming too much then. I figured he would have done that.

 

[123kid]

not stupid

yes i recalibrated before checking swrs im no newby believe me when it comes to radio im just not a scientist.

 

[oldslowchevy]

yes i recalibrated before checking swrs im not a newby believe me when it comes to radio im just not a scientist.

no need to get defensive, it has nothing to do with you being new or not, it has to do with the fact that everyone forgets stuff from time to time while in the middle of a project so so chill a bit.

 

[123kid]

Wasnt being defensive lol