Adding another grounding electrode to your electrical system will do nothing useful for your VHF transceiver. Read up on RF theory and antenna design/installation. The equipment grounding conductor and electrical service's grounding electrode are basically incapable of being useful for a VHF transmitter. Why? Consider the length of the grounding conductor between the transceiver and the ground rod. It is many wavelengths long, follows a twisting path, and is completely non-impedance-controlled. To a 100MHz-plus signal it is an open circuit and a long-wire antenna, not a ground connection. If you need a grounding connection for a VHF antenna, the grounding connection must be AT the antenna, and carefully designed to RF considerations. A grounded antenna mast is a good example - it is straight, vertical, relatively short, and has low impedance to the earth. Even taking advantage of a grounded mast requires careful planing though, since the portion of the mast near the antenna functions as part of the antenna itself and affects the impedance and radiation pattern. For VHF, the better solution is to use a balanced antenna, with a balun at the antenna to convert to a coax feed from the transceiver. Assuming you do the impedance matching properly, no grounding connection is actually necessary since the system is completely balanced (there is no net flow of charge into or out of the antenna/feedline/transceiver system). This is how all properly designed and tuned transmitter installations work, with the exception of HF systems that use the earth as a charge reservoir for a single-ended antenna because the wavelengths are too long to make a dipole practical. The emphasis on grounding in some amateur radio literature (and tradition) comes from the olden days of tube-powered HF gear, when it really did matter because there was RF current flow through a station's grounding system in normal operation. Modern equipment on shorter wavelengths has rendered that obsolete, and it remains a source of confusion for hams who try to troubleshoot from the old school methods without actually learning the RF theory that describes how their stations really works.
In short: It's probably the antenna system, and definitely not the grounding system.
DE KC0LLX
Thanks for the very helpful reply. I will copy and paste it into my journal where I keep my progress (or lack of) on my 2m project.
I wish that I would have remained "radio active" since my HF days, but I lost interest in radio, and in electronics and RF in general, although was employed in the field (electronics, not RF) for many years.
I still have the thinking of a 20 something year old when it comes to a lot of this, but I find that re-learning everything I knew when I was experimenting on HF is much more difficult now.
What you said is logical in my mind. I sometimes clutch at straws (or ghosts) when I have a problem I cannot solve.
I am trying to study up on RF theory, but having trouble finding the right books. I thought about buying the 2013 RA handbook from ARRL, but maybe I can get it (or last year's) from my local library and see how useful it would be before buying my own copy.
At this point, my interest in grounding the antenna is mainly for lightning protection. Every article I have read on the ICE #302 says that it should be installed as close to the GE as possible, so I think I should relocate mine. That would at least reduce the possibility that a lightning hit will bring high currents into the house on the coax.
As for RF grounding, I still remember the laws governing XL, XC, R, and Z, so I understand that a long length of wire is a very high resistance at 144Mhz.
Balanced antenna for VHF? I don't think I've seen one recently.
Too bad I don't have an HF rig set up, or I would try to contact you.
I don't want to cross post, but we should get together in one of the Ham forums to discuss this further.
If you have any suggestions on reading to better my education in RF principles, please share.
Thanks
KE2KB
