It is a gray day and I have things to do

The deer are outside checking things out and feeding on the easy pickings spring has brought us.

The coffee's on and I just weighed in and I'm close to where I like my weight. I gain at sea and lose it at home.

Yesterday I drove two ground rods into the ground because my wife asked me to bring the electrical panel up to current code even though it has been grandfathered. 

One of the rods was to bring the panel board up to code and the other one went into the base of my vertical antenna for lightning diversion purposes.

Shortly after I licensed for ham radio I installed a couple ground rods. I spend over a day on a ladder pounding one into hard earth and finally decided to rent a jackhammer after I found out that there is a hammer bit especially for ground rods. 

When I got the jackhammer home it took me less than a minute to drive one in a full eight feet. Right tool for the right job and all.

Code now requires a pair of ground rods about ten feet apart tied together with a heavy copper wire. 

When we moved here there was a ground rod sticking out and bent over. Looking at it I understand what happened. Some idiot put it in too close to the house and when it got partway in it hit the concrete footing and bent. He said 'close enough' and attached the wire to it.

Some years ago I cut the bent rod off and replaced it with a proper one the full eight feet in.

As for the antenna rod, it's part of a plan to reduce damage if there is a lightning strike. An electrical engineer friend of mine came by and we came up with a logical plan. I'm putting lightning arresters on my antenna lead ins and a few other things.

It's actually just wishful thinking because as the EE said, we're trying to outguess a lightning bolt.







To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY