Thanks for all the responses, quite informative,,,About the power, although i am at 1500 watt no rfi to no other neighbors, and there is very close neighbors, and many,,only trouble with one, and again, i offered to help, and even purchased the filters for his phone and satellite he just doesn't want the solution

On another note....lets assume the worse case, and I get a police officer knocking on my door, besides showing my extra class license and my FCClicense, what can i specifically pull from the FCC web site that would spell out that more then likely it is the consumer responsibility if I am compliant.?

Why does the Yaesu FT 2000 weigh so much 35 lbs  while the Elecraft K3 is under 10 lbs. 

Hi, all

I have a few questions about ground bonding as required by the NEC. This is a follow-up to "Grounding Advice Needed," posted yesterday

1. I assume we'd be  using heavy-gauge (#6) copper wire to bind a ground rod outside the shack to the main electrical service ground rod. The run for me is about 75 feet. Is that too long?

No but #6 is the minimum.  I used #4 bare solid.

2. Must the bonding wire be fully outside the house?

Yes yes yes

 Is it OK if it runs on the ground (earth or concrete) or close to the ground?

Buried in the ground is best.

If an interior connection is possible, can the bonding wire come in from outside,  run through the basement and back out to the electrical service ground rod?

When you get a lightning voltage potential rise, from a strike or nearby strike, you'll be inviting lighting into your house.  I don't suggest doing that.  Keep it outside.

3. Can the bonding wire be painted (not including the connection points on the ground rods)?

Sure

4. I can install a lightning arrester on the coax and connect that to the grounding rod on the extreior of the shack. The closest I can reasonably get to where the coax enters the house is about 6 feet. Will this meet code?

Yes

And finally... 5. Does the 29-foot ground-mounted vertical antenna, surrounded by tall trees,  need to be grounded by being  connected to the exterior shack ground rod directly, or does it require a third ground rod, bound to the others?

The trees offer no protection.  The best would be for it to have it's own local ground rod and that rod bonded to your perimeter ground.  Less would be bond it to your perimeter ground.

Thanks for anyone who can help -- perhaps you have done this yourselves. 

73, ND6MM

I realize you can use about any wire, but I would rather not be replacing it often. What is a good wire to use for long wire and dipole antennas?

The hole you propose is much too small for such a tower. Take a look at a similar tower, such as one of the 72' U.S. Towers models. One of these takes a 5' x 5' x 6' deep base.

These towers were not designed to be guyed and guying them will likely impose compression forces that they were not designed to withstand.

Giving how anachronic Morse code has become and how few people still use it, shouldn't the band plans be revised to reduce the "exclusive" CW portions and open up more space for SSB phone and digital modes?  I think it would make a lot of sense to allow more spectrum for modern types of communication at the expense of a dying technology.  We could still leave a small portion of the bands reserved for those who want to continue playing with Morse code, but I think the vast majority of hams will be very happy to see more space available for other forms of communication.
Any thoughts?
S. Bucki
KD8KQH

Vince, the best thing you could do is put up a decent antenna and stop worrying (hoping) about sunspots.

You can not do anything about sunspots, you can improve your antenna situation.

Stan

...and the solar cycle.  I keep seeing on the solarcycle 24 site that the flux is in the 80s, but they continue to say that the "solar activity is low."  How high does the flux have to be to be considered moderate?  I ask this as the flux is at 89 today, and one would think that conditions would be greatly improved with a number like that (forgive me, but I am at work and don't always sit at my radio during peak hours).  And the site also says that there is no chance or is a chance for flares.  Correct me if I am wrong, but are solar flares something we do not want, as I was always under the impression that flares disrupt conditions, not improve them.  Also, where does the solar flux number have to be in order to hear dx signals (with a crap antenna like mine) on 17, 15, 12, and 10 meters, and on 20 meters at night during the winter? Per haps I am not remembering my propagation lessons, but I am curious to know answers to these questions. Thanks

V
KA3NRX

....In fact, I may be wrong, but I think the last one I received was back during the Snow-ma-geddon (Glo-BULL Warming... ..) of February....I may have received once since then, but I am not recalling it at all....Wonder what's going on???.....Hmmm...Been at this a while, so I do realize that it can be several months between bureau shipments, but this seems longer than usual, especially since I sent out a huge back log of QSLs this summer.....Not that I am waiting for anything important like a newbie, but I am just curious......

V
KA3NRX

Currently, each piece of equipment has a separate ground wire running through the wall to the ground bar just outside, where they all terminate (and the suppressors are located).

With more equipment being added to the shack, I am wondering if I can instead install a single copper grounding bar on the inside wall, have it bonded via a cable to the outside ground bar, and run a ground cable from each piece of equipment to the (new) inside grounding bar.

This sure would make it easier to ground new equipment, and remove some wire clutter.

But, I am concerned that this may not be as good a grounding system as running a separate cable through the wall as I have it now?

Just recieved my call yesterday (M6OZI) and I am thinking about where I should "go to" on the bands when I get my radio and start putting an antenna or two up. Bearing in mind;

1. I'm not rich.
2. The wife doesn't want "wires all over the back garden"
3. I'd be new to amateur radio (but not exactly to HF radio).
4. I live in a typical english syle duplex 1 storey with a loft conversion.

My intial thoughts were; 20m is essential because of its propagation characteristics, so I cant leave it out. 10m has always interested me. The WARC bands might be a bit less free of contests and general madness and therefore might be less stressfull for a new guy.

Maybe do some sort of dipole on 20 and a WARC band at the back of the house off the gutter (2 storeys up and plastic) and a separate andtenna in our "crawlspace" thats at the front of the house above the eaves..

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

all the best

Scott

This weekend for the Sweeps, we used a G5RV antenna strung between three poles.  Center was up 30' and ends up 20'.  The ladder line was strung out at an angle from the center support to a cedar tree with the end of the ladder line only about four feet off the ground.  There was a 40/80 dipole running perpendicular to the G5RV using the same center support pole.  We operated in a trailer with the operating position about 30' feet from the ladder line.  We had definite issues with SWR readings during the entire contest.  However, things really got bad once the wind started blowing.  My radio, IC746, kept shutting down to protect itself from high SWR readings.  This started occurring on almost every other QSO.  I eventually shut down entirely to prevent doing damage to my radio.  We have done this same set up with crossed dipoles previously with no problems. We DO NOT transmit on both at the same time and did not do so with the G5RV this time.  Any suggestions as to what was going on?  I am pretty sure we were getting feed back through the system as I could hear myself in headphones when transmitting.  I know that the ladder line the G5RV is part of the antenna.  Have other people had this problem with the G5RV or is the antenna tuner on my radio going bad?