Hello John,

Tuesday, October 13, 2015



I  have  no direct RF ground on the rig, as my shack is upstairs and I
found  on  HF  the long ground lead was radiating. I found much better
results  without  a  separate  RF ground to the rig, so unsure whether I
should add it back on for HF. It only tripped when on high power, but I
am  fairly  sure  the  repair  I  did to the mains toroidal could be to
blame.  I managed to drill into the primary winding when adding rubber
feet  to  the  cabinet when I should really have called it a night and
gone to bed! I repaired the winding with care, using a new single turn
well insulated and protected with Kaptan tape as well, but I do have a
new  replacement for it, so, as it also seems to run hot, I will renew
and  add some air spacing. Further comments on an isolated ground very
welcome, thanks.


> Chris,

> Make sure that your radio earth and your mains supply earth are
> properly isolated from one another, preferably with a double wound
> RF transformer. Until I did this, I found that the RCD equivalent
> would trip within an hour when I was soak testing a 30W transmitter
> on 136 kHz (losing domestic supply was guaranteed to degrade domestic 
> tranquillity!).

>  73 John F5VLF










-- 
Best regards,
 Chris                            mailto:[email protected]