6th Floor Apartment, SSTRAN, SSTRAN Antenna, How Do I Ground It?

Inside the apartment or out on a balcony?
Is there a slight chance that the cold water pipe might not be metal the whole length of the building? I am wondering if it might be metal pipe that has been replaced (spliced) somewhere down the line with pvc pipe, if that was the case it might not be running directly to earth ground.

Maybe a few ground radials under your antenna might get the signal up and out of your home? Might be hard to do though. You may have the same problem i have here in this mobile home. Limited Space.

If i had the room to do so, i would place 8 or more copper wires under my antenna and ground them to the antenna ground wire.

But i dont think my wife would like me taking up half of the bedroom with wires! lol

its on my balcony. The ground wires just jut out in a star pattern around the base right? I'll give it a shot tommorow. Do you think the hot water pipes may be copper all the way down? I'll experiment with it more.

My balcony is about 5 feet deep, and 15 feet across, but the antenna (the long radiator) extends up into the next balcony, so i had to put it to the side where its open space.

it looks so promising though!

any other ideas suggestions are welcome!

Since most water heaters these days have some plastic in them to cut cost and to make them lighter. I don't think you will get a decent ground from the hot water pipe. Cold water pipes usually run through the building and eventually to the ground buried a few feet below the soil which is why cold water pipes are good for grounding.

I think you mentioned they were copper? That's even better.

How close is the top of the radiator to the balcony above you?

Im wondering if there is some attenuation from the metal in the balcony above your antenna.
Each time you add something to the antenna system such as ground wires etc, you should re-tune your antenna the added components will change the impedance of the antenna system.

You have a unique situation there, im kind of jealous. lol
I had some mixed reactions from the owners of the trailor park here.

Their main concern was intereference, they have had renters here with base stations ( C.B. radio) that caused TVI and so to "cut down" on TVI they decided to limit the height of our antennas to 3 feet above the mobile homes. I laughed and told them that even a legal 4 watt cb radio could cause TVI and the low elevation of a cb antenna would get into telephones, T.V.'s etc just as easy as it would at say 60 feet.

I'm getting off the subject here.

Your on the right track and I hope I have offered some food for thought. As always, ask questions even if they seem silly to you they might be the question that bring you the answers you are looking for.

Good Luck

Thanks for the additional Idea. I tried connecting the ground to both pipes and retuned it each time. Im glad you mentioned that step, as I had the transmitter on 1700am, and was getting 12.1 VDC, and could get it up to 13. I moved it to 1640am, and now im happily 13vdc even when i tuned it.

The good news, The signal is awesome in my apartment now, no hum no static. The bad news, still cant hear it downstairs in the parking lot. I attempted to add a ground radial by laying the copper wires out across the balcony in addition to the copper cold water pipe thing. Retuned again, but still no luck.

It turns out my balcony railing is some sort of metal as well. Since that is bolted into the building I tired grounding to that too, it connects to all the other 6th floor balconies. My hopes were high, but the results were still awful.

I wouldnt say im frustrated, im having fun doing all this.

Any other ideas/suggestions :- ) ? (what im trying to avoid is running a cable down the side of my balcony down to the ground, past everyone elses windows)

P.s. I tried connecting it to the telephone ground, and it got rid of some more static and made the signal louder, but i have the same distance issue. Am I allowed to connect to that? Alongside the ground radials, and cold water pipe? or is that overload?

Thanks for explaining alot of this stuff very easily!

But what is the building made of?
I am assuming it is mostly brick as most apartment buildings are some are half wood brick with steel framework.

Im no building engineer so I cant say for sure.
Some building materials can have strange affects on radio waves.

I struggle with less than ideal conditions here myself, metal is my worst enemy since my home is mostly aluminum so the best i can hope for is 1/4 mile usable signal, at 1 mile my station is still there but mixed with static.
Then there are some hotspots like Bob's Big Boy at the intersection of 192 and Old Whitley Rd. , as soon as you are in front of Big Boy the signal jumps out of the noise and sounds about as good as it does at 1/4.

There are several hot spots or rf pockets where my signal just pops in out of nowhere and other members have had the same experience with their stations as well.

Other factors are weather, buildings, trees, wiring, environmental anomalies etc. It's hard to say without looking at this setup you have with my own eyes.
When you setup your sstran did you make the necessary changes to the kit for use with a coil loaded antenna and are the four switches to the right of the kit on the inside switched for a coil loaded antenna?

What about trying a neighbors or friends car radio or portable radio?
Would you be able to see the antenna from the parking lot if your listening on a car radio or is your antenna on the other side of the building?

Sorry for all the questions, I am just trying to get a feel for what you have to work with, looking through your eyes.

The building was made in the 1960's, and it has lots of "concrete" bolts holding the railings and so on together. I could assume it made of concrete.

I dropper a cable down the side of the building (color matches and tightly pulled to a corner) and ran it to the ground, with 2, 8 foot bare copper cables pressed about two or three inches under the dirt. its about 8 feet straight out to the sidewalk, so i made a sort of triangle pattern from the starting point out to the sidewalk.

Signal is now available downstairs in the whole parking lot, strong as a bull.

I'll take some pictures of my set up to give you guys some more of an idea of what im working with here.

There is no signal on the other side of the building 🙁

I think im going to put more cables into the ground (concrete foundation at 8 inches screws up the possibility of grounding rods 🙁 )

If I ran a cable (under the cover of darkness) around the extent of the building... does that make a difference in range or just a lot of work for nothing? It would be horizontal beneath the transmitter.

Thats the setup.

thats the range

Judging by the pictures, your antenna is too close to the corner of the building. If you could make a really short stand in the middle of the balcony then your probably going to get more coverage.

I have seen alot of cb'ers make this mistake with fiberglass whips mounted right up against the cab of the truck and they brag their reception (receive) is quiet.
Well of course it is because the metal cab is attenuating the antenna.
Almost like sticking their cb antenna into a lead vault. lol

But i can see what your going for now that i have seen the pictures.
You have alot of potential there with the elevation alone.

Try to get the antenna away from the corner and maybe set it up in the middle of the floor of your balcony that way its further away from the building. As for the ground wire 6 floors long, be careful there.
That would be considered longer than 3 meters by the fcc which is one violation they love to pick on the most these days.

I can see a tripod built for antennas would be out of the question since the antenna is so close to the balcony above you.
Perhaps a metal plate with a short pipe welded to it to mount your antenna to , then string some bare copper wires along the floor of the balcony for a groundplane effect.

Good work though. 🙂

Would an RF Choke at the transmitter end of the ground wire prevent the unbalanced dipole effect and possible enforcement for this application?

I seem to recall reading that it was necessary for the manufacturer to add an RF choke to the Talking House power supply so the ground connection wouldn't radiate.

Would that help those of us who live on upper floors who want to install a ground withuot creating an unintended dipole??