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Old 12th Sep 2019, 11:23 am   #28
G8HQP Dave
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Solihull, West Midlands, UK.
Posts: 4,872
Default Re: Antenna recommendation for 40 and 80M bands

That setup will be injecting RF currents into your house ground wiring, assuming that the water pipes are cross-bonded to the electrical earth. It may be fine, or it may cause problems of RFI with broadband routers, TVs etc. What you are effectively doing is using the mains supply as the ground, which you could do just by connecting a wire from your rig ground terminal to the mains ground in the shack. The fact that you are running fairly low power will help.

If the water pipes are not cross-bonded to the mains earth then you are using water pipes as the earth, which may or may not be a good RF earth. Be aware that ease of tuning is a sign of a low efficiency antenna, as well as a sign of a good tuner. You will also have two earths in your shack, which may have quite different potentials under electrical fault conditions.
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