Q Michael, KD5BBC, asks, “I live in a second-floor apartment, so attaching a ground wire to a ground rod is out of the question. Since I can’t connect to a ground rod, should I still connect the grounds of all of my equipment together? I don’t seem to have a problem with RF feedback in the shack, and transmitting on 40 through 10 meters with 100 W doesn’t seem to affect either my computer on the other side of the room or my TV in the next room. I have what appears to be an active ground on the 3-plug electrical line (according to the tester I bought at RadioShack). Should I try to ground to that, or would that also be asking for problems?”
A Yes, absolutely connect all the equipment in the shack together and then to the ground on the wall socket. A good way to accomplish this is to check that the screw holding the cover in place is grounded. You can do this by first turning off the circuit breaker to the plug and measuring between the screw and the ground plug with an ohmmeter. Then strip the braid off some old coax to make a nice flexible ground strap between your station and the screw. That takes care of the safety ground. You’ll still need an RF ground, which often takes the form of a counterpoise wire. See my answer to W6RLF earlier in this column.
Also, check out “Antennas and Grounds for Apartments” on the TIS Web page at: http://www.arrl.org/tis/ under Antennas/Grounding.
From QST September 2000
