quotingI have shocking news.
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Refresher on my electrifying #hamradio adventure. Last night I noticed, by getting shocked, a 60vac difference between my antenna feedline and #hf amp chassis. The voltage is on both the pin and shield, which is alarming.
Backstory, I disconnect my antenna and put a dummy load on my amp when not in use in case of thunderstorms. The dummy load is in case I'm a dummy and forget to reconnect next use so I don't blow my amp or radio up by transmitting into nothing. I got zapped when I attempted to reconnect my antenna feed, so this voltage exists on a feedline connected to nothing but my outdoor antenna and ground system.
Today I did more testing to try to find the problem.
Compared to my shack outlet, the voltage between the coax and ground is 60vac, between coax and neutral is 0vac and between coax and hot is 120vac. This looks like a big clue!
I ran an extension cord from another outlet so I could meter each wire to the shack outlet and compare. Ground on the shack outlet measured 60vac to all 3 wires on the other breaker.
That took me a minute. Then it clicked. They are both 110. The other outlet uses the other hot in the panel.
So the shack outlet has ground and neutral reversed somewhere. I switched to neutral on the shack outlet and it measures 0vac to the extension cord ground.
It was fine until you put chassis ground devices from different breakers next to each other. Or the antenna which has a dedicated ground rod outside for a true ground.
I had noticed touching my laptop on the shack outlet and s19 miner on a dedicated 220 outlet at the same time was no fun before, but the measured vac between them was low so I thought it was static from the fans on the miner.
This is what confuses me now. I had noticed voltage between the feedline and amp before but it was transient and low single digit voltages so I thought it was static or induced by a nearby AM station. How was a ground neutral reverse a sub 5v transient issue? Was my 8ft shack ground rod making a poor ground conductor somehow? We have had a fair amount of rain and a high water table lately that could explain the improvement last night.
Now for the bad news. Any older house I've worked on seems to have 90% of the house on 3 breakers and the rest of the house on a 1 breaker per 1 outlet or light policy. My shack outlet was on one of the 3 breakers that does everything (I know I know), so a large part of my house has this issue. Because any 2 chassis ground devices pose a threat, I have to fix the entire issue.
What say you #radio nerds and other #diy and #electrical wizards of nostr who actually read all that, how would you fix it? My nodes, shack, personal and work computers, lights for multiple rooms, and a wifi AP are all on that breaker so I can't shut it down for days and sort it out later.
Bill Cypher on Nostr: Working through identifying outlets and moving things off the breaker with the issue. ...
Working through identifying outlets and moving things off the breaker with the issue. It is a 15a breaker. Just found one of the outlets is a 20a outlet.