HOW TO EARTH MY CB RADIOS ??? HELP NEEDED

[Transwarp]

Grounding radio equipment and antennas used to be reasonably straight forward decades back, and I'm being basic about this. However today with modern tech and all the hash it generates on the radio spectrum, grounding, which imo is really for safety, can cause other problems. How I approached it is that my radio gear was connected to a ground bus that run to a brass spike in the ground at one side of my home, and antenna run to another one on opposite side of my home. I've recently moved and have not bothered setting up my radio equipment, but if and when I do I may not bother with grounding at all as it can sometimes introduce hash and other noise. However in respect of antennas and lightning, plus static charge build up on, I've always approached it by only grounding the masts they're attached to (for wall or chimney mounted) In the real world if an antenna took a full on direct hit, then most likely half your home would be demolished by it anyway, no bit of cable into a ground spike will stop that amount of energy from causing some serious damage. I've usually found that doing this though reduces static noise picked up (hash) by antennas.

Also in respect of unplugging coax from radios, TV's, sat boxes and the like, well yes if the stuff outside gets a hit then it's gonna come down the lines and into your room and that ain't a good thing, so if going to do this either dangle the ends of outside windows or make up a box connected to a ground spike and connect them to that when lightning is happening, that way if you're unlucky to receive some of Zeus's bolts down your lines, at least the won't come into your home.

[paulears]

Frankly - no I don't care about the equipment, it's replaceable and the expensive stuff is insured - which is covered on the policy.

My point is that if insurance companies have fairly low premiums and no warnings to unplug equipment, then their risk assessment works for me too.

My computers are all connected 24/7 and never switched off - so no doubt following the same reasoning we should disconnect our network cables too - in case the phone line gets hit?

Pull the mains plugs out too because with PME grounding, that TV aerial cable is connected to the same house wiring as everything else.

I've no problem with people doing what they feel comfy with at all - but I find it a bit strange promoting it as science and some kind of best practice.

If lightning hits your house, the radios will be the very least of your problems - the cross sectional area of lightening conductors is designed to conduct a huge current - antenna coax melts very quickly - isolating the room from a continued discharge - radio is toast of course, but they're cheap nowadays.