Oct 3, 2026, 8:10 PM#HamRadio people: How do I adequately ground my station if I can't drive a ground rod anywhere?
I'm looking at moving my station into my house from the shed in the back yard and I have no ground rod accessible to me and nowhere I can drive one into the ground because of a concrete driveway and patio adjacent to my office.
What are my options for proper grounding? Am I stuck trying to use a "virtual ground?" Maybe grounding to the electrical ground?
Oct 3, 2026, 8:53 PMGeeze, renting a concrete drill and a roto hammer with a ground rod bit is looking more and more like the easy way to do this.
Oct 3, 2026, 9:11 PMI found a thick bundle of copper wire coming up out of the foundation of the house over by our power meter and where our comms stuff enters the house. I think it's supposed to be a grounding point, but I'm not certain. Once I can figure out how to confirm it's actually grounded appropriately I can just run a ground wire over to there. No drilling needed.
Oct 3, 2026, 9:31 PMI'm unsure if this is supposed to be bonded to a ground rod or if this is supposed to be a grounding point.
Oct 5, 2026, 6:19 PMI sent this photo to an electrician and they think that this is where my ground rod is supposed to be. Gonna cost several hundred US Dollars to get my panel appropriately grounded, but then at least my house is less likely to burn down I guess?
It's a mid 1990s build, it's got to be grounded somewhere right? We knew what grounding was in the 90s?
Oct 5, 2026, 7:23 PMFalse alarm! My house is grounded to rebar in the wall in the garage. The home is appropriately grounded.
What this bundle of grounding wire sticking out of the side of the house is supposed to be for, I don't know... but I'm not missing a ground rod.
It's probably for deprecated telecom connections.
Hook it to the water pipes.
Oct 3, 2026, 8:13 PM@munin@infosec.exchange I'm not sure those are accessible to me either! I'd have to check where they come into the house. Probably all the way on the other side of the house from my potential station...
No bathroom sink nearby? you can usually find the feed pipes underneath pretty easily
Oct 3, 2026, 8:15 PM@munin@infosec.exchange My new station would be on a floor with no bathroom. The only plumbing is the washer and I think that's fed with PVC.
This 90s house sucks for radio. I miss my 1950s build back in Cleveland.
Oct 3, 2026, 8:18 PM@munin@infosec.exchange Some choices were made when building this house, for sure.
Yeah... I was going to suggest a water pipe, but I forgot that newer construction is all kinds of plastics.
You might consider something like an ufer ground -- perhaps as a first attempt, put some wire radials tucked into the corners around the driveway/patio?
@julie what about central Heating system? Pipes are often copper.
Oct 3, 2026, 8:45 PM@DO8EW@social.darc.de Fantastic idea, but we don't have central heating/cooling. Each room has a mini-split heat pump.
This house is even more of a challenge than I realized.
Oct 3, 2026, 9:01 PM
Oct 3, 2026, 9:16 PMThat definitely looks like there should be a ground rod nearby.
If that's just hanging out loose, you might want to call an electrician.
Oct 3, 2026, 9:38 PM@IrrationalMethod@social.coop That's a good call. I'm wondering if my house is not actually appropriately grounded at all now.
@julie I had a ground rod installed right at my coax box, looks just like that, but attached to something. there's also a smaller solid wire one connected to where the cable TV coax enters the house, but the electrical is all grounded to the pipes.
I'm told this kind of wire isn't ideal for RF purposes, but it's cheaper than the 2" solid copper ribbon.
(Image of mine, in case you want to know what to look for.)
Oct 3, 2026, 9:54 PM@IrrationalMethod@social.coop Yeah, I'm thinking my electrical is fuxxed.
eek? good luck?
I don't think that is too expensive to fix, especially if there's a ground rod already in place.
Oct 3, 2026, 9:59 PM@IrrationalMethod@social.coop There's no rod. That's what started this whole journey! :merida_sad:
Ah yeah, I guess I was thinking you might find one about a foot out from your foundation, buried a couple of inches under the soil.
But if there's nothing at all, definitely worth having an electrician come take a look.
Oct 3, 2026, 10:01 PM@IrrationalMethod@social.coop I mean, I suppose there may be one under the driveway?
Ah, that's not loose soil on the ground? If there is, it's clearly disconnected now!
Oct 3, 2026, 10:05 PM@IrrationalMethod@social.coop Nope, that's all concrete. Lovely, rock-hard concrete.
@julie Hiya, im a telco installer. That looks like your bonding wire for the protectors on the twisted pair or coaxial coming into your home. It should be bonded to your houses ground at some point. Different jurisdictions have different rules. Contact your Telco if you have phone or adsl. If you have cable contact them let them know you are not properly bonded at your protector. That demarc looks like phone company to me.
@julie if you have fiber optics you might not need to be bonded anymore as the drop wire has no metal but normally we leave the bond attached to the old protectors.
Oct 3, 2026, 11:26 PM@OtterMatic@woof.group I don't have phone service or cable service. My Interweb is fiber and comes in on the other side of the house. I'm gonna have an electrician take a look since this is literally right behind my electrical panel. It doesn't look like it ever ran up into that telecom box and it's just been sitting there dangling for god knows how long.
Oct 5, 2026, 6:24 PM@julie a lot of older builds just ground to water pipes if the house has copper/lead pipes
Oct 5, 2026, 6:24 PM@julie for example when i was living in columbus that is how they did it
Oct 5, 2026, 6:28 PM@ariadne@social.treehouse.systems My 1950s build back in Cleveland grounded to the water pipes. I'm not familiar enough with code to know what year we started requiring ground rods vs that.
Oct 6, 2026, 1:11 AM@julie ufer grounds are the good stuff. How close is that rebar connection to the intended shack? Also for RF (and lightning), it's the inductance that counts, so use flashing instead of same cross sectional area of wire. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Sandell-Flash-Guard-8-in-x-20-ft-Copper-Step-Flashing-FG030820/202090786
Oct 6, 2026, 7:34 PM@AMS@infosec.exchange About 20 feet along the same exterior wall. It's definitely promising.
Oct 6, 2026, 7:35 PM@AMS@infosec.exchange I don't think I can run a ribbon like that because there's an exterior door in the way that I wouldn't be able to route around, but I'll figure something out.
Oct 3, 2026, 9:31 PM@julie it's worth assessing whether you actually need a radio ground, pretty standard in the UK for us to teach that grounding can present danger under our electric grid.
Things like a dipole/balanced antenna shouldn't need dedicated grounding, and longwires/verts will generally be fine with a counterpoise or counterpoise network not including a ground rod!
Oct 3, 2026, 9:33 PM@red@woof.tech I had such a problem with my station before I grounded it. Any time I'd TX on 20m my computer would freeze. Getting a ground rod installed fixed all the weird noise issues in my shack. I'm afraid of having that happen again when I move inside.
