Re: Ground system for outside operation: Counterpoise?

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <dhmccauley-at-spacecatlighting-dot-com>


Why bother?  Just get a six foot grounding rod from your local Home Depot,
pound it into the ground, and attach a thick braided wire from it to your RF
ground on the tesla's secondary.  No need for fancy or heavy grounds.  Sure,
a lot of people on this group think you need some serious ground with
serious ribbon type grounding cable, but I operate my coils (currently up to
5kVA) with a simple set-up shown above.  Also, one coiler I know runs his
coils (up to 20kVA) using only a 12 AWG solid ground cable to a similar rod
and that guy is getting some serious output - no problems there.

Dan



> I'm wondering how well a counterpoise type ground would work as the main
RF
> ground for outside coil operation? I'm thinking of something very similar
to
> counterpoise ground used for amateur radio vertical antenna installations.
>
> Something like a counterpoise roughly 30' in dia with 30-50 radials buried
> just beneath the sod?
> The beauty of this for me is that I'm planning to install a ground plane
> vertical antenna for HF Ham operation in the same spot I'm thinking would
be
> a good site for  outside coil operation. Thus, the counterpoise may serve
> dual purposes.
>
> I've got a hunch that such a large counterpoise ground may be superior to
> multiple ground rods driven into the the ground for coil operation, though
I
> can't offer specific theory in the here and now. One notion I'm thinking
is
> that capacitive coupling to earth may be quite substantial.
> Dave H
> KA3STE
>
>
>
>
>
>
>