CC Sign From Above?

an isolated ground. this would be an 8ft ground rod pounded at least 7-1/2 ft in the ground and only connected to the t8 or cp15 couplers neutral connection point and then connect one of the line connections to the neutral on your AC grid. the reason it did not function is you connected to the cold water pipe which is bonded to your AC ground and neutral in breaker box. you need a totally isolated from your electrical grid ground.

I don't think you will get control over coupler matching without a meter. The meter allows you to see in extreme detail how the SWR looks, the "Standing Wave Ratio," which shows how much power is being reflected back into the transmitter. That number needs to be minimized as much as possible to get a match.

I would not use the water pipe as a CC ground, because it is tied to the power panel ground.

I have one 8' copper rod located about 5-feet apart from the electric system's ground rod.

Your description seems to indicate that you are feeding one side of your electric "grid" or "hot" side, unless you mean something different by "grid ground."

ALSO, forget about "radials" with CC. You are NOT trying to radiate a signal into the air as you would with an antenna.

You ARE trying to send an AM signal on the power lines. A certain amount of radiation will occur, but THE MAIN SIGNAL will be on the power lines, and you may be going farther than you think.

One good reception test if you can't get into other people's houses to try their radio, is to get very near a power pole and try to pick up a signal coming off of the ground wire that runs from the top of the pole down into the earth.

I.  The standard connection method is to connect the N at the coupler output to the panel ground of your power panel. NOT the neutral in the power panel. We are assuming you have 220VOLT AC in the panel. Lines 1 & 2 from the coupler output should feed into the 220V HOT wires, good idea to have a circuit breaker on both lines in addition to the fuses in the coupler.

II.  A simpler method is to feed only one leg of the AC, that is, a single 110VAC branch. This is actually a little more confusing. The power cord ground point of the transmitter should be connected to your personal ground rod. The N at the output of the coupler should connect to the NEUTRAL side of your AC 110V line. If everything is done according to code, NEUTRAL is run on WHITE wiring, and connects to the WIDER flat blade of an AC plug. Finally, the L1 output from the coupler should connect to the HOT side of the 110V line, WHITE wire and NARROW BLADE of AC plug.

III.  Neutral injection avoids any connection to hot AC lines. The N output from the coupler connects to your copper ground rod, apart from the AC panel. The L1 output from the coupler should connect to power panel neutral.

In my system, for unknown reason, putting the signal into the hot wires would not tune up whatsoever and I was left to try neutral injection, which works well for me.

Your house power transformer is out on a neighborhood power pole.

Some smart meters work without transformer bypass capacitors, although I am not sure how they do it. Some people claim it sends a wi-fi signal.

"The power cord ground point of the transmitter should be connected to your personal ground rod."

Can I connect to the 6B chassis?  I think this grounds to it?  

All this is great advice Carl - thank you.  One more thing...

" A simpler method is to feed only one leg of the AC" - is there a way to neutral load this way?

Yes, I believe the AC cord's ground is connected straight to the chassis of the CC transmitters. Check it out to be sure. I have seen Studer add an optional ground choice to their old tape decks..... the user could ground the chassis with the AC plug ground, or they could "lift" the chassis by way of a heavy capacitor. I think their reason was to allow engineers to avoid ground loops which placed hum on the audio lines.

So far as I know the neutral injection method depends on that separate ground rod in order to work properly. Maybe someone has other information.

Hi Guys:

When I was doing CC experiments and

trying to make homemade couplers - I

grounded the transmitter to the bleed

valve of the old fashioned radiator that

is in the room where the set-up was. 

(When I was a boy - my dad and I

used the radiator as a ground for

the crystal radios we made.)  It

worked, and the signal stayed in

the AC line.   But I'm just offering

this info for educational purposes only.

(My own education?)

This was a "quick and dirty" solution,

because I was just experimenting.

I was only running 500 mW into the

neutral, via an experimental coupler.

There must be some reason why this

grounding method is NOT a good idea,

or other people would have tried it.

Maybe I got away with it

because I was running very low power.

Perhaps it is really a dangerous approach

and I was just lucky not to fry myself.

I'm not an engineer, but a lot of you guys

are.  I would be interested in knowing what you

think.  I'm beginning to think this

would be a bad idea if you were running

5 or 10 watts, or 30, or whatever. 

So:  Because I didn't really know what I

am doing: if you try it, you do so

at our own risk.

(Sorry that sounds so official.)

Best Wishes,

Bruce, DOGRADIO

I said by mistake, "If you try it, you do

so at our own risk."  That should have

read:  "If you try it, you do so at YOUR own

risk.

Best Wishes,

Bruce, DOGRADIO

If the good people of this board feel

that the above two messages aren't

useful - feel free to delete them. 

It has been very very busy here,

and I think some of my messages

haven't been useful because I

haven't thought about them well enough.

From now on I'll think more before I type.

I love this board, and I want to add to it,

and not take away.

Best Wishes,

Bruce, DOGRADIO

Some of the hard to find Carrier Current Application Sheets from LPB, the long-time CC specialist, are posted at Radio Brandy. Scroll down to the lower right side...

http://www.radiobrandy.com/RBpart15am.html

Thank you guys - this info is awesome.  Getting the coupler serviced by Radio Systems and will let you know how it goes when it is back...

Got our RS coupler refurbished.. thought you guys might like a copy & paste of the bill (especially you Robert).  $165 aint too bad.........  gonna be checking the mailbox daily.  🙂

000000072311 7/29/2013 RMA 2654
PREPAID
ITEM NO QUANTITY UOM UNIT DISC % EXTENDED
DESCRIPTION PRICE PRICE
CREDIT CARD
UPS GROUND
7777

1.3 HR 104.00

RS REPAIR LABOR - PER HOUR - $80.0000

REPAIR OF CP-15 COUPLER S/N CP-6045

METER BAD

DIODE DI CUT OUT

CAPS C3-C6 LOOKED BURNT (OVERHEATED)

TERMINAL STRIP NEEDED SCREWS

CHANGED RESISTOR R6-R6 TO 2.4K FOR NEW
METER

INSTALLED ROMEX CONNECTOR TO NEW SPECS

REPLACED PARTS LISTED BELOW

TESTED UNIT TO MEET OR EXCEED FACTORY
SPECIFICATIONS

2896 1.0 EA 34.98

METER DC MICROAMPERS
34.9800

MOUSER 541-OMS-DMA-001
15339 2.0 EA 5.90

DIODE 1N270
2.9500
SH CD270
8814 2.0 EA 1.90

RES 2.43K 1/4W 1%
0.9500
2938 1.0 EA 1.85

CONNECTOR 1/2" ROMEX
1.8500

2909 1.0 EA 4.30
CAP 3900PF SILVER MICA
4.3000
2882 1.0 EA 2.90

CAP 1000PF SILVER MICA
2.9000

2890 1.0 EA 4.63

CAP 2000PF SILVER MICA
4.6300

2910 1.0 EA 4.25

CAP 3000PF SILVER MICA
4.2500

DM15-302J

TOTAL 164.71

Appreciated seeing the Coupler Refurbish bill, may be the next to have it done.

My CP-15 coupler was part of a batch buy of used CC equipment, and the case of the coupler looks like it was in Katrina flood waters, but the circuit card looks clean.

I've never checked it out for performance, so maybe it's in usable condition, but if not, you have shown the way to go.

Thanks bandit.