Put up my new H24 in our cabin, and lighting came in on it. Did not knock out the tv, only receiver. I heard it pop and saw it. I had just hooked up to the new slimline. Is there anything I can do in the future so this will not happen again.
Lighting hit new Receiver.
- Thread starter davidmustang
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 9
- Views 2K
Proper grounding will prevent this type of damage (not from a direct strike where lightning actually hits your cabin, but from nearby strikes)
How does your cabin get its electricity? Is it on the grid or do you have solar/generator or some other solution? The first thing is to make sure your cabin's electricity, however that is generated, is properly grounded - and that its outlets are grounded and properly wired!
Next, make sure your dish is properly grounded. Finally, get a quality surge suppressor and put the TV and receiver on it. If it has a coax port on it do not use that it won't be rated for satellite and even if it is would probably cause more problems than it solves for a dish that's already properly grounded.
Thank you, we get out power from the power company. Any advice about helping grounding the Dish would be appropriate.
On my house the metallic conduit that feeds the meter has a grounding rod bonded too it. My OTA antenna and FTA dishes are connected to that. Make sure you use a substantial copper wire as the conductor. I believe I used bare #8 solid copper wire that was purchased from Home Depot. I measured out how much I needed and they cut the wire to length and charged me by the foot. Don't forget to ground your coax too as required by code. Click the link below for some visual aids.
DO NOT under any circumstances attach your dish ground to a gas pipe.
As mentioned above a direct lighting hit will destroy your equipment regardless of how it's grounded. Proper grounding only discharges stray electricity and static.
Installation Grounding Job Aid » Viasat Technician eGuide
Along with proper grounding mentioned by others you might add one of these inline where the coax connects to your equipment. I have them on all my satellite and antenna leads. A little extra protection can't hurt.
ASKA PT-1 Coaxial Surge Protector Suppressor Coax InLine Surgender | eBay
Here is a link to the National Electrical Code, Article 810 that deals with grounding of TV and satellite antennas. https://www.mikeholt.com/download.php?file=PDF/Radio_and_Television_2014NEC.pdf
If an installer put in the dish he should have grounded it to meet these requirements with a minimum of 10ga copper wire from the dish or coax grounding block to your AC entry point ground for the cabin. The run for the ground rod should not exceed about 30ft, otherwise you need to upsize the wire. You don't want to install a new ground rod for the dish, otherwise you must bond that new ground rod to the main AC entry point of the cabin with no less than 6ga copper wire and there are max length requirements on that before it must be upsized.
Can the OP estimate how far away the lightning hit might have been? If the dish was not grounded in any way and the strike was very close, then I suppose the coax run could have picked up enough EMP for the receiver to sustain damage. If it were a direct hit then most anything plugged in at the cabin would have been destroyed as mentioned. Is it a SWM dish with power supply feeding the dish via coax or older type dish wired direct to the receiver? For a SWM system I would expect the power supply to be more susceptible to damage than the receiver for a nearby strike.
If an installer put in the dish he should have grounded it to meet these requirements with a minimum of 10ga copper wire from the dish or coax grounding block to your AC entry point ground for the cabin. The run for the ground rod should not exceed about 30ft, otherwise you need to upsize the wire. You don't want to install a new ground rod for the dish, otherwise you must bond that new ground rod to the main AC entry point of the cabin with no less than 6ga copper wire and there are max length requirements on that before it must be upsized.
Can the OP estimate how far away the lightning hit might have been? If the dish was not grounded in any way and the strike was very close, then I suppose the coax run could have picked up enough EMP for the receiver to sustain damage. If it were a direct hit then most anything plugged in at the cabin would have been destroyed as mentioned. Is it a SWM dish with power supply feeding the dish via coax or older type dish wired direct to the receiver? For a SWM system I would expect the power supply to be more susceptible to damage than the receiver for a nearby strike.
To answer the initial question ...
IF you take a direct hit, then, No theres nothing that would have prevented it ... unless you disconnect everything when you think a storm may be coming ... but thats pretty impractical.
As mentioned above .... you said the recvr went, the Power Inserter would have gone as well in most cases, not sure if you checked that yet or not.
IF you take a direct hit, then, No theres nothing that would have prevented it ... unless you disconnect everything when you think a storm may be coming ... but thats pretty impractical.
As mentioned above .... you said the recvr went, the Power Inserter would have gone as well in most cases, not sure if you checked that yet or not.
The design of an unregulated switching power supply like the PI21/PI29 makes it (unfortunately) fairly resilient to surges, it will simply pass through overvoltage to whatever it is supplying which will take the hit in its voltage regulation.
Another possibility is that if the TV is grounded (an older one with a three prong plug, or connected to something like an amp that has a three prong plug) the excess voltage via ground differential reaches the Directv receiver via the shield of the HDMI or composite/component cables.
