static build up

[jcordle]

:headbang:headbang:headbang:headbang:headbang

Sometimes I get the feeling that while the light is on there is nobody home.

Thank you all for your answers! I don't have a multimeter
In the truck with me. but the radio does turn on with the
Ant. Unhooked. I'm sorry I am not a brilliant Cb guy. but I
Never had a radio that required all of this stuff before
And I am starting to think all of the radio shops I can get to only worry about the money.
I was thinking if I learned at least some of this I wouldn't be a slave to people who already should know it but appear to not know as much as they think they do.
So once again thank you for your answers! And sorry I
Don't know or have a basis for this to understand it faster

 

[jcordle]

And I have to ask?
How can a rubber strap ground out anything?
I am asking because every time I've ever had to do
ANYTHING around power lines power switches,
Or any thing else it's always were these rubber gloves.
If rubber insulated me from getting shocked how can it bleed power off of something?

 

[Lil'Yeshua]

Vehicle Grounding Straps? - AR15.Com Archive

 

[jcordle]

Vehicle Grounding Straps? - AR15.Com Archive

Cool who would have thought that

 

[Lil'Yeshua]

Yes they are cool.
Antistatic strap for cars - STOP static shocks! Stop Static Electricity in your vehicle!

 

[W5LZ]

Static straps! Haven't seen any of those things since I was a kid. I've also seen chains used for the same thing. In this state, don't let the DOT catch you using them if you drive a semi, especially one carrying flammable things. Think about it just a second, those things generate as much static electricity as they ever discharge. They really do. Ever notice a gasoline tanker always connects a static discharge strap to metal before pumping any fuel, or loading it at a terminal? You also see that at airports when planes are fueled, that static strap. That gasoline nozzle at a pump also has a ground strap built into it.
A static strap on a vehicle is asking for it! It was a useless thingy 50 years ago and still is now.
- 'Doc

Ever see those frayed braid straps on the trailing edges of a plane's wings? That is a static strap that does work. You'll never see one that touches the ground.

 

[Lil'Yeshua]

A static drain then doctor?
I just ordered one from www.mizter.com
http://www.eham.net/ehamforum/smf/index.php?topic=56439.0;wap2
http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/prevention/flammable_static.html
http://m.wikihow.com/Remove-Static-Electricity

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

You can drag a solid gold or silver sheet behind you and it still will not prevent the issue the OP has with his antenna. the problem is that while the coax shield is indeed grounded to the vehicle, the antenna shaft itself has no path to ground. Almost all mobile antenna do have a tapped coil to ground that prevents static from building up HOWEVER the Wilson 2000 does NOT. It is a series fed center loaded antenna with no direct DC path to ground. grounding the mount or the body panels will not help.

Antenna Static Charge Bleeder

Elecraft - static buildup on antennas

In the first link above the operator installed a TEE connector inline with the coax cable going to the antenna. He then took a standard PL-259 connector with a resistor soldered between the center pin and the shell. The resistance value is not critical and can be anything from several hundred thousand ohms to a million or two. This PL-259 is then screwed into the center tap of the TEE connector providing a high impedance DC path to ground for the static to bleed off thru.

 

[Lil'Yeshua]

You can drag a solid gold or silver sheet behind you and it still will not prevent the issue the OP has with his antenna. the problem is that while the coax shield is indeed grounded to the vehicle, the antenna shaft itself has no path to ground. Almost all mobile antenna do have a tapped coil to ground that prevents static from building up HOWEVER the Wilson 2000 does NOT. It is a series fed center loaded antenna with no direct DC path to ground. grounding the mount or the body panels will not help.

Antenna Static Charge Bleeder

Elecraft - static buildup on antennas

In the first link above the operator installed a TEE connector inline with the coax cable going to the antenna. He then took a standard PL-259 connector with a resistor soldered between the center pin and the shell. The resistance value is not critical and can be anything from several hundred thousand ohms to a million or two. This PL-259 is then screwed into the center tap of the TEE connector providing a high impedance DC path to ground for the static to bleed off thru.

Alright. Thanks. Something new under the Sun that I didn't know.
Transceivers,cb radios for an example have I think a cap bridged between the chassis ground and the antenna center lead on the back of the SO-239 connector. Is this similar ?
Also,would a discharge adapter work for a base station setup?



P.S. My base station equipment is grounded to a 8' ground rod drove into the ground just outside the base station. The reason I do this is because the 1958 mobile home I live in doesn't have modern wiring thus no ground.

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

Alright. Thanks. Something new under the Sun that I didn't know.
Transceivers,cb radios for an example have I think a cap bridged between the chassis ground and the antenna center lead on the back of the SO-239 connector. Is this similar ?

No. The capacitor will not pass any DC build up.

Also,would a discharge adapter work for a base station setup?

"A discharge adapter" Do you mean a static discharge device? They will help in the event of a lightning strike but as for normal static build up no. The flash over voltage is too high,usually a few hundred volts,to prevent damage from occurring before the device functions.

P.S. My base station equipment is grounded to a 8' ground rod drove into the ground just outside the base station. The reason I do this is because the 1958 mobile home I live in doesn't have modern wiring thus no ground.

You mean it has standard two wire outlets? The electrical service panel must have a ground connection. That is the law. It must be grounded back to the utility service.

 

[Lil'Yeshua]

It's got the two prong plug in's and is grounded at the service panel. It might be just me but until I grounded all my equipment together it felt like I could feel electricity buzzing to my fingers.

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

Could have had what is called a hot chassis. Before standard polarized plugs with a U-ground pin came out there was really no standard as to which blade of a plug was hot and the other neutral and sometimes the hot side of the line was the wire that was connected to the chassis. This is the reason why you could get lifted while leaning on the fridge and stirring a pot on the electric stove. Reversing the plug by turning it around would usually solve the problem. Nowadays the wider plug is always wired to the neutral and the narrower blade is the hot lead. If wiring your own plug always wire the black hot wire to the brass screw and the neutral white wire to the shiny silver screw. The ground of course goes to the green screw.

 

[Lil'Yeshua]

I have one outlet with the three prong configuration with a ground wire leading to the outside to a ground rod. That's because I want my entertainment center electronics grounded. The power company's new substation regularly interrupts the power going to my home. $$$$



The outlet supplying my radio equipment plugs into a three prong outlet I've installed but only uses just the same two wire circuit. I have a makeshift ground wire tying all my radio equipment together and is tapped into the entertainment center's ground which goes to the ground rod outside. The only thing I'm missing is a bonding wire from the ground rod to the service panel's ground rod. I think that would require a 6 gauge wire.




The tower has it's own ground rod which doesn't have a bonding cable either.

 

[Lil'Yeshua]

Could have had what is called a hot chassis. Before standard polarized plugs with a U-ground pin came out there was really no standard as to which blade of a plug was hot and the other neutral and sometimes the hot side of the line was the wire that was connected to the chassis. This is the reason why you could get lifted while leaning on the fridge and stirring a pot on the electric stove. Reversing the plug by turning it around would usually solve the problem. Nowadays the wider plug is always wired to the neutral and the narrower blade is the hot lead. If wiring your own plug always wire the black hot wire to the brass screw and the neutral white wire to the shiny silver screw. The ground of course goes to the green screw.

Thanks. So if I look at the two wires in that circuit is there a way to tell which one's hot?


I do a basic wiring book

 

[The Jerk]

In place of the static straps (which I needed on the last two Dodges 2500s but not this Silverado 2500HD for whatever reason) you can install a piece of steel cable and allow it to touch the ground. I used a vinyl-coated steel cable for one main reason...those static straps don't like being frozen to the ground and the car driven away. I went through four or five straps before I did the cable trick...they might be cheap, but they get expensive when you're replacing them all the time.

This will help with static shock when leaving the vehicle, but you will still get the static "whine" in the radio during bad storms. And that must be an "out west" thing as I only ever experienced that in Texas/Oklahoma/New Mexico and once during a severe snow storm (read: blizzard with lightning) in Wyoming. I've never experienced it on the east coast.

For the record, I was told the same thing with regard to static in the receiver (pull the coax from the radio) when it was occurring, it was to protect the radio supposedly. I never pulled it, and listened to it buildup and discharge for a lot of miles without any noticeable consequences to the radio.