Greetings,

To be honest, I'm a little embarrassed to even be posting this
question. I've been a ham for over 10 years, but I've been out of the
hobby for the past several and I'll freely admit that I'm one of those
"memorize the multiple choice" people. Anyway, times have changed and
I now own a house, and an HF rig, and have moved far from my roots. I
want to get an HF station together, but I find the prospect of
building/raising an antenna and putting together a grounding system a
daunting task.

So here's my question. Is it ok to have multiple shallow grounding
rods versus one longer grounding rod? For example, what's the
difference between 2 four foot rods versus 1 eight foot rod?

Also, I'd like to describe my potential station set up, as I strongly
suspect that it is not ideal, and I'd like any suggestions from the
elmering crowd. It's on the 2nd floor of my home, over the garage.
The power, cable, and phone connections are on the opposite side of
the house, and there is no way to directly go under the house to get
there (at least from outside the house). The home is nearly brand new
(less than one year old). I should also mention that I have an
unnatural fear of putting holes in the house, but I suppose I'll have
to get over that in order to get on the air ;-).

Thanks in advance and 73!

Dan, W4XJF