Next it was time to build the grounding system. I wanted to surround the building as best I could with a ground. The building is 60×40 with 15foot extensions on either side. I buried approximately 250 feet of 4 gauge solid copper wire, connected to 15 8 foot ground rods driven into the ground. The inside of the shack has flat copper running out to the main/central ground rod. We’re also attached to the main electrical ground at it’s location where the electrical enters the building from the outside.
The inside has a grounding bar on the back of my main radio desk, as well as a bar on the wall so that the desk can be more easily moved away from the wall without disconnecting everything first.
I have a dry box outside with poly-phasors mounted for the antennas. It’s connected via the solid copper strap to the ground system. I route cables in through pvp pipe and have a disconnector set up inside as well. When I turn on my power supply it gets a small amount of current to activate relays connecting my radios to the antennas. When the power supply is off, the center connectors of the antenna lines are shorted to ground.
