without rods. Copper strap radials have been proven successful on bare mountain top solar powered sites where ground rods could not be used. The strap edges helped disperse the strike’ s deposited charge to the tower by arcing onto the mountain surface, saving the solar powered radio equipment at the site.

Adding ground doping material to your radial trenches and rods can be helpful. Stay away from gels and other chemicals that can shorten conductor life. All add-on conductive earthing materials do little except make your copper conductors larger (more conductive surface area). This gives some percentage of improvement but it still must interconnect to conductive soil where it has both salts and moisture. If the soil is dry around the

After doing all this work, Mother Nature still has a way of making anything we do temporary. Once a ground system is in the ground it will start to age. Copper and other metals are attacked by acids, while aluminum is attacked by bases. Other chemicals may be present in the soil causing decreased effectiveness of the grounding materials. This is why maintenance testing is important. While some ground systems last 30 years, others don’ t even last two years! There are two ways of finding out if your ground system is in need of work. One is after a lightning strike-too late! The other is to measure the system. An old timer once told me that he tested a ground by disconnecting it from everything and connecting it to power "hot" through a 30 amp fuse. If the ground was good, the fuse would blow. It is strange this guy lived to be old! 

This is not the way to test a ground and it could change the soil conductivity by attempting such a test. The proper way is to use an earth resistance meter providing a fall of potential type test. Be careful when connecting a ground system to your electrical utility ground rod. Depending on ground conductivity, harmonic and other currents could flow causing a spark when connected.

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