My grounding system

Bill-W9OL

I built this house almost 40 years ago. I installed copper tube with a manifold system in the gravel of the basement prior to pouring the concrete floor.
I also have a heavy copper grid around the house and of course tied to the neutral of the house wireing.  Radials buried under the sod, tied to the tower base/ground rods. On the wall behind the desk is a 2" wide, 8 foot long **** of copper. I put copper bolts, washers through the **** and finished it with soldering before putting it on the wall. That serves as the ground strap for rigs, amps, tuners, etc.
But with the tower adjacent to the back wall of the house, the antennas when retracted, result in the house being in the rf field. (yes my kids do have extra toes and glow).
I had to live in this town, and this was the best property I could get at the time.
So I've fought the battle of rfi for many years. What works for one rig; (my 5K doesn't suffer from rfi) may not work for another.
That just the reality of rfi. It's sneaky and mean spirited.

The funny part about rfi, sometimes DISCONNECTING something fixes the problem. LOL

So will be back at it tomorrow...
73 and "Good night Mrs. Calabash wherever you are."

If your old enough to know whose closing line that is...your old enough to remember spark!

Ken - NM9P

Never did spark, but love Ole' Red...

Bill-W9OL

Ken, could you be thinking of Red Skelton?
If so...it was a different comedian, song&dance man who closed each show at the piano, with that closing line.

Ken - NM9P

OK, not as old as I think I am....Then it must be Jimmy Durante.  I was probably thinking of Red's "Helen Hunt" joke....  BTW, I am only 20 miles east of Vincennes, Indiana, Red Skelton's home town.  There is a very nice Red Skelton Center for the Arts at Vincennes University.

W4EY

Ken:

Do you remember the Wood fired **** belly stove and listening to The Lone Ranger on the crystal set...

Bill-W9OL

Yes Indeed, Jimmy Durante

Ken - NM9P

Born in '59 here.  No crystal set except for a science fair project.

I do remember only 4 channels of B&W TV on a pair of rabbit ears in the attic with aluminum foil flags to help them receive better.

W4EY

You were lucky. I had to move the CAT whisker around on the crystal rock to find a Radio Station.  When we found a radio station, if the program was not what wanted to hear, we had to keep moving the CAT whisker across the crystal rock until we found another station. Beginning of DX..

Bill-W9OL

That was easy...
I had to find a hollow log that tuned to about 950 Hz and then two stout limbs to beat the log with, or......drive away those pesky sabertooths.

Bill-W9OL

W9BRD (Rod Newkirk) of QST "How's DX" fameand W9DY (Elmer, "Bud" Frohardt) the person Rod used as the basis of 'Elmering' worked at the IL State PD radio station.
They had a 1600 foot long wire that ran from the station up to a 650 Communication tower.
Wrapped a few turns around a flourescent tube which served as their wattmeter. 5K made it flash a irridescent blue. (and scare the h... out of me)
They would copy license registration  by ear @ 67wpm and type it onto old underwood manual typewriters.
And at the same time....teach me Novice Theory and then General Theory.

Rod passed away a few months ago.
Bud is now in a retirement center where they don't allow Ham Radio.
Even at 89, he can still put me to shame copying cw.

One of the reasons I went 6.5K, was so that eventually he can operate remotely from his computer up near Madison WI to my station near Ohare.