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Re: [TowerTalk] Mot R36 related to NUMBER of installed ground rods

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Mot R36 related to NUMBER of installed ground rods
From: jimlux <jimlux@earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2017 12:21:34 -0700
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
On 11/3/17 11:22 AM, Clay Autery wrote:
Mmmmm.... the speed of light is REALLY REALLY REALLY fast...  The speed of current through big copper is still REALLY fast...  50 feet? Nah.... Rise time and duration for WHICH part of the strike event? It's not a single pulse...


the speed is slower than you think.. one way is to think of it as a wire immersed in a dielectric, for which the speed will be sqrt(epsilon).. if you use the ham favorite of 5/13 soil, sqrt(13) is 3.6 so the propagation speed will be 27% of speed of light, or about 3.6 ns/ft

Another way is to consider it as a transmission line with a inductance of about 1 microhenry/m, and a capacitance to ground of 10 pF/m (1cm wire 10 cm above the soil) (not a whole lot different than RG-213, which is, I think 13pF/meter)



And the 2x rod spacing is a guide...  rod spacing depends on the soil conditions...  And nothing says you can't space them closer... IN FACT, there are conditions under where it is likely advisable to do so...


I don't think the rod spacing depends on soil properties *if* the soil is uniform resistivity (on a scale comparable to the rod size.. whether it's sand, 3" rocks, or 12" rocks doesn't matter). It's a geometry thing and independent of the soil resistivity.

Table 13 in IEEE 141 gives the formulas, and rho (soil resistivity) is a single term.



Now, if you had a big insulating wall, then driving a rod on each side might be a good idea.
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