(Richard Casady) wrote in
:

And BTW
tarnished silver is the best, even better than gold.

The tarnish doesn't do anything good. On a relative scale,
silver is
250, copper 225, as is gold. Aluminum is 175. Stainless is
about like
lead, 6 or 8. Plain carbon steel is 25. Thermal conductivity is
closely correlated with electrical conductativity for what that
is
worth. Better at one is generally better at the other.

Casady



You boys worry about this WAY too much. Take a little reality
trip down to your favorite AM radio station and ask the engineer
if he'll show you the ground system at the base of one of the
towers. Don't touch the tower. It has kilowatts on it and the
arc will burn you. Notice how the bridge cables that have been
buried for 40 years look a little "tarnished" where you can see
'em. Half of 'em underground are just copper sulphate by now...
(c;

Your "tarnished" silver-plated ground strap is fine....mine, too.



Larry W4CSC and other fine old calls since 1957
--
You can tell there's extremely
intelligent life in the universe
because they have never called Earth.

On Sun, 14 Oct 2007 01:31:49 +0000, Larry wrote:

Your "tarnished" silver-plated ground strap is fine....mine, too.

It is well known that copper is somewhat soluble in sea water. After
all it was used to cover ships bottoms to retard marine growth. Had to
be in solution to be toxic. Silver is not very subject to attack. They
use it for medical work: I have silver wire in my jaw.
So, silver may well outlast copper in the ground. Life of either
should be long enough, in any case. They often ground electrical
transformers with a six foot or so copper rod driven into the ground
at the base of the pole. Fairly heavy conducters running down the
poles. I wonder if people steal them. They do get killed trying to
steal energized wire. You are supposed to ground your end of the
neutral, but whatever.

Casady