Shack Earth

What have people installed?  I have spent a little effort establishing one here, using two 48" copper earth rods 48" apart outside the shack, and feeding this to a heavy duty Bus Bar, so that any radio that recommends an Earth can be connected to it.

It's important to regularly water these Earth's so have added guttering to the shack, and a down pipe is the plan to deposit rain water on top of these earth rods.

I have a lot of noise here on 160m and 60m for some reason, with 80m being quieter, and 40m virtually silent in comparison, so I'm hoping to improve reception, and isolate any feedback or local resonances.

Not connected anything to the Bus Bar yet, back is now telling me I've done enough today.

Might be a little OTT, but just wondered whether anyone else has been doing similar to reduce local noise levels.

Wayne
When i put this new shack up i posted a lot of pictures but never posted the one with the earthing system i am using.
Have you been round here at night as you have the exact same system as i have installed lol.
Same noise as well here on top and the 80m bands.

Alan Pilot wrote:

Wayne
When i put this new shack up i posted a lot of pictures but never posted the one with the earthing system i am using.
Have you been round here at night as you have the exact same system as i have installed lol.
Same noise as well here on top and the 80m bands.

I did the same, installed the Earthing System, and then covered it up without taking a picture, doh!

I may dig out the wife's shale dressing that covers it, if it doesn't rain tomorrow, ha.

Nothing. All RF grounding done at the antenna where it should be so you're not getting common mode RFI on the coax which increases noise.

All my antennas are also grounded.
Plus i have lightening arrestors fitted and grounded.
For what it cost to do it when putting the new shack together. 
2 rods and what was left of the 7 or 8mm ? cable i ran the power to the shack twin and earth all joined for earthing

I don't have any unbalanced antennas here, just Dipoles, horizontal (HF via SG-235 & Mobile Whips) & vertical VHF/UHF), and Co-linears (VHF/UHF).

The only unbalanced antenna will arguably be a Butternut HF-9V, which uses a 75 Ohm coax matching section, but will have extensive ground radials and its own earth rod via a Top Band Resonator.

The noise appears to be all atmospheric conditions, since there's been no noticeable improvement since adding the Earthing System using shorted coax feeder (coax because if there was an induced ground loop or loops I could easily add sufficient capacitance should it be necessary), however I appear not to be suffering from RF feedback anymore due to the length of the headset extension, which was puzzling in itself as the entire shack is shielded with bubble wrap type sandwiched foil insulation on the roof.

The earth rods were twenty years old, and the coax used was offcuts, so hardly an expense apart from a Bus Bar.

Belt and Braces here, my noise on HF is worst on 60m, Top Band being better, and 80m better still, 40m and above virtually quiet.  The wire dipole is 1:1 at 1.81 MHz.

I am doing nothing on 80m and 160m bar a little listening. The G90 matches up the 10m though 40m fan dipole for the two lower bands, but the effective power that would radiate on the bands I am guessing would be so small because of the losses I haven't bothered to try.

Only grounding I have in place is like described on THIS PAGE. I have had issues with noise in the past, but nothing major for a long time. Lower bands are actually quieter for me than the higher ones. All are usually between 0 and 3 on the S meter unless there's a storm, which I don't think is bad at all for an indoor antenna system in housing estate. 12m up though to 70cm I do get some odd rhythmic pulsing and a few odd narrow bandwidth spikes here and there since the neighbours installed a fortress like security system, but can live with that as it doesn't blanket wipe out everything.

If shack was on ground floor, antennas were outside, and I was using more power, then I would look to do something more for grounding. But happy as is for now.