A Simple Project

It sounded simple. Add a common ground for the all of the radio equipment in the shack.

Some of my equipment, like the linear, had a ground wire attached to an eight-foot solid copper ground rod, but some items still needed a good ground connection.

My brother gave me a half inch copper pipe. I bought some ground rod clamps, mounting brackets, and the best copper wire I could find. There was not an easily accessible place to mount the copper pipe without re-arranging desk and equipment. So, under the desk looked to be the next best place that was close to everything and in an area where I could get to it.

After some measuring, I cut off about 10 inches of pipe, attached the clamps, and then began to fasten it to the desk. At this point, I was lying on my back, twisted under the desk. I didn’t have enough hands to hold the pipe, screw, and screwdriver all at the same time, and even if I’d had enough hands, I didn’t have room for them. Also, I couldn’t see the marks that I had made for the screws.

After a number of attempts, and a couple of new marks on the wood, I finally got the pipe attached. The hole in the wall is jammed with coax lines to the antennas, and it took some struggling to get the new thicker copper ground wire out to the ground rod. Once that part was done, it was easy. One end of the wire was attached to the ground rod, and the other end in the shack was attached to the copper pipe using one of the ground clamps.

It was now ready to connect to the equipment… but I used up all the copper wire.