Tom,

Yes, it would be better if the wire was bare because the full length could 
provide some grounding but the ground rod of 4 feet in length or more would 
really provide most of your ground because the earth will be moister further 
down.

You should be able to buy bare copper wire, however, since you only need to 
strip about 17 feet you could run a knife blade down the length of the wire 
to remove the insulation.  Alternatively, you could buy a length of house 
wiring, remove the outer jacket and you will have two insulated wires and 
one bare wire, the ground wire in the cable.

You can buy just a single strand of # 10 or 12 and remove the insulation as 
mentioned above.  It is not as hard as it sounds.

 Several different sized wire should be available by the foot.

It would be best to buy the largest wire you can afford.

As to the landscaping,  the slot you cut in the ground will only be one half 
inch wide or less and after you push the wire down into the slot, just stomp 
on top of the slot and it will go back together and in a week you will never 
know it happened.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Brennan" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 7:48 AM
Subject: Re: mfj 931


> Howard, my concern was about having the ground wire actually in the ground 
> for
> all that length.  It would require my using an insulated wire and I had 
> read
> somewhere that you can't do that for grounding.  Is that not the case?
>
> There is grass all the way to the place I'd have to use but since they 
> want the
> wire two or three inches deep and also want me to relandscape the area 
> that I
> dig I guess I'm a little iffie about it <g>.
>
> Tom
>
>
> Tom Brennan  KD5VIJ, CCC-A/SLP
> web page http://titan.sfasu.edu/~g_brennantg/sonicpage.html