fhaving listened to advice I think I have made a discovery

[kb9rqz]

and it shocks me

I followed the advice in rimanauls I got with my al 811 and groundded and finaly gorunded the hf (never found any change at VHF so don't realy bother there) and low and behold the rigs preformance improved just sitting there grounded, this is no the discovery

I then had the brainstrom of trying to gournd the radio I thought was not wroriking right my trusty old Ft 847, and low and behold the problems I was having bad went away esp the problems I was on 40 or 80 just geting it to transmit a signal and RF power output jumped back up where it should be acroos the Mf hf spectrum

Is braounding the rig enough of a change to cause a rig to "come back to life?" so to say?

[KC8TCQ]

and it shocks me

I followed the advice in rimanauls I got with my al 811 and groundded and finaly gorunded the hf (never found any change at VHF so don't realy bother there) and low and behold the rigs preformance improved just sitting there grounded, this is no the discovery

I then had the brainstrom of trying to gournd the radio I thought was not wroriking right my trusty old Ft 847, and low and behold the problems I was having bad went away esp the problems I was on 40 or 80 just geting it to transmit a signal and RF power output jumped back up where it should be acroos the Mf hf spectrum

Is braounding the rig enough of a change to cause a rig to "come back to life?" so to say?

a good ground is very important, both for RF, and for safety, If you have an external tuner this should also be grounded.

I am amazed though that some mf the HF rigs out there do not have ground lugs on the back, my 706 for example, so I just attatched a ground wire to the mount screw on the side of the rig

[N2RJ]

Grounding cures the symptom, not the problem, IMHO.

When you ground, you are heating up the worms in the earth. That power should go to your antenna and be radiated.

If you have RF in the shack, that means that the shield of your coax is radiating, which means it is being used as an RF return. That shouldn't happen at all.

You would be much better off curing the problem that causes the RF in your shack rather than grounding off the stray RF.

If you have a balanced antenna system such as a dipole or Yagi, you should not need a ground. The elements should be the same length and resonant, however, and a 1:1 current balun is recommended. Voltage baluns work too. You could also get an RF ammeter and measure the current in both legs and make sure they are the same.

If you have a vertical, you need radials, which is different from a ground.

Grounding for lightning protection is different too. That one is a bit more complicated, however.

What sort of antenna are you using?

[kb9rqz]

Grounding cures the symptom, not the problem, IMHO.

When you ground, you are heating up the worms in the earth. That power should go to your antenna and be radiated.

If you have RF in the shack, that means that the shield of your coax is radiating, which means it is being used as an RF return. That shouldn't happen at all.

You would be much better off curing the problem that causes the RF in your shack rather than grounding off the stray RF.

If you have a balanced antenna system such as a dipole or Yagi, you should not need a ground. The elements should be the same length and resonant, however, and a 1:1 current balun is recommended. Voltage baluns work too. You could also get an RF ammeter and measure the current in both legs and make sure they are the same.

If you have a vertical, you need radials, which is different from a ground.

Grounding for lightning protection is different too. That one is a bit more complicated, however.

What sort of antenna are you using?several anntennas but basicaly diploes and dioles like attneas and adding the ground did reveal/produce a massive feect esp on the radio I had thought to have serious problems

[N2RJ]

See this article. (http://www.w8ji.com/ground_systems.htm)

[kb9rqz]

See this article. (http://www.w8ji.com/ground_systems.htm)interesting article
OTOH I am still not sure just what is at play

same system changing only the presnse of a ground wire from the xceiver chassis produces queiter receive and shows better delevery fo power to the antenas (with full power being measured at 90 plus watts of 100 watt rating) while remove that conection and antenna noise jumps and power to the swr metter drops to 20 watts of less

are these symtoms of a problem? maybe that is why I am discusing this

I am also curious as to why why the efect on this radio is so pronouced on the Low bands and and unseen at VHF/UHF

the othe unit in the same condiction delveries it powere ok (watt reading with 10 percent of nominal rating) but shows some improvement in noise at the lowest bands