[Antennas] How important is the ground?

Sat May 21 10:12:38 EDT 2005

Buck,
>From a picnic-area with a dipole, there would seem to be no benefit from
shield grounding or grounding the rig. And from your car, you might even be
adding noise to ground the chassis to the car, testing will answer that one.
Jack
Va Beach
-----Original Message-----
From: antennas-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:antennas-bounces at mailman.qth.net]On Behalf Of Buck - N4PGW
Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2005 9:15 AM
To: antennas at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Antennas] How important is the ground?
I have an IC-706 mkii that I operate as a base, mobile and portable. When I
moved it from my car to my house last night, I followed my usual routine of
hooking up the antenna tuner, two-meter antenna, power and ground. It
suddenly occurred to me that when I have been operating portable, I haven't
been using any kind of ground.
For portable operation, I have been using a dipole antenna fed with an
antenna tuner. The radio is powered on the same marine battery I use at
home for a power supply. At home, however, I have lots of RFI from
computers, appliances, etc. that give me an s-5 noise level if I don't
ground the rig. Because of the noise level without the ground, I cannot
test to see if the ground makes a difference on the received or transmitted
signal or not.
Would I be better off to carry along some form of ground rod for use when
portable? I have been setting up on a picnic table and operating with no
consideration of ground since the dipole doesn't need one.
Thank you,
Buck
N4PGW