On Mon, 01 Jan 2007 15:10:07 -0600, Diana Satyr
wrote:

For those few of us whose radio happens to be located just a few feet from the
main ground rod for the house, why don't we ground our radios by just pluging a
bit of thick wire into the grounding hole of a standard 3-wire AC sockek?
Looks like the house ground would be a decent RF ground when the run is just
about 5 feet from the socket in question to the ground rod.

Anyone know any drawbacks to this?

Anyone know what guage of wire would fit snugly into that hole?
(It's not #10. I tried that. I don't have any thicker wire to try.)

Moonman
1/01/07

I agree with the other reply. What I would do is buy another clamp for
the ground rod. Clean the area on the rod and attach your new clamp
and ground wire. I would not trust the connections in the electric
panel especially if the panel and ground setup is 5+ years old.

Also, this is the approved way of grounding it. In the event of a
lightning stirke to the mains, that connection to the panel even
though it is a short distance away from the ground rod may develop
quite a high potential.

Jim