This ground rod took forever to pound in.
I had the opportunity in the spring to pick up free of charge 2 copper-clad 8-foot ground rods free of charge as long as I picked them up. It was about an hour's drive for me but free ground rods were well worth the trip. Also, I was able to meet one of the hams from our contest club and have a coffee and a nice chat. As things go I had many things to do around the house and installing ground rods was low on the list. Well, September was here and I did not want to wait any longer and the decision was made to pound in two ground rods.
I did some online searching for ways to install ground rods and one way was to rent a tool that basically pounds them in. It's like a concrete hammer drill but for ground rods. I contacted the local building store who rented them and I was told for 1/2 day it was about 250.00!!!! Well, it first was time for plan B to see how that worked out. Plan B was to put the ground rods in on my own steam! Online there were many videos of folks who lifted the ground rod and slammed it into the ground. They kept doing this and added water into the hole as they went along. When the ground rod was close to the surface they used a hammer for the rest. Another common thread in the videos was best case was to do this job after a few days of rain as this also helped out. As plans would have it did rain here for a few days and just after the rain I thought "It's a nice day to pound some ground rods in". Out I went with my trusty water bottles, work gloves and lots of ambition. I have to say the first ground rod at the base of my Hustler 4BTV went in very easily. So bubbling with confidence I moved to the second location which was for a ground rod that was to ground my station.
This spot was not as smooth going, the first attempt came to an abrupt stop at about the 4-foot mark. The only thing I could figure was I hit a tree root from one of our Maple trees. The second attempt was a charm BUT it was not easy going. I added water and slammed the ground rod down and it did go in but very very very slowly. Finally, success and both ground rods were in and connected to the antenna and the other to a ground bus in my shack.
4 comments:
Hello Mike, be careful with groundrods connecting ground in your shack. Many HAMs do that but it has no use if you use utility ground. It only gets more dangerous actually. What you can do is connect that groundrod to a ground just outside the shack. When a thunderstorm arrives lightning will go to the ground at least outside. Just my opinion. Have been writing about grounding a few times on my blog and still have an article waiting. But grounding is not as easy as you think, it is very complicated. 73, Bas
Good morning Bas, very true grounding is a challenging job and one thing that helped was reading Ward Silvers book on grounding. Overall I hope I am going down the right path.
73,
Mike
VE9KK
Well done on getting that task finished. 8ft is pretty darned big. I managed to get a 6ft rod into the ground about 4 feet away from my shack. It rains A LOT here in the NW UK, so the ground was thankfully soft and I luckily missed any obstructions.
73, Tom, M7MCQ
www.m7mcq.com
Good morning Tom always nice to hear from you, yes mine is about the same distance away from the shack. Yes when you first look at the 8 foot ground rod before install it does seem like a huge task. I was shocked how well the first one went in but as you read the second one was more work.
73 and have a great week.
Mike
VE9KK
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