Okay to not ground coax feed from dish?

[dishme]

I had an installer here yesterday to hook up a 942. I had two feeds from the dish, but needed a third. The installer ran the cable directly from the dish to the receiver. (One cable with now splices.) I asked if it needed to be grounded and he indicated that as long as one feed from the dish was grounded, the others did not need to be. Is this correct, or should I have them fix it (they will be out here again today, because the installer ran into problems that he couldn't solve.

TIA

 

[bhelms]

That's not per the code. Have them fix it! There's a LOT of debate in these threads on grounding. I think everyone agrees that a grounded system will not stop damage from a direct or nearby lightning strike (nothing that's practical and economical will!) but there are other reasons for the grounds, including bleeding-off induced spikes/noise, and to protect from that all lines into the house must be grounded...

 

[Van]

What he said, it has to be done.

 

[goaliebob99]

Yep definatly not grounded right.. All lines need to be grounded.. Call back dish and tell them that your system is not grounded and you want it fixed.

 

[dude2]

My installer did not ground my dish 1000 as he said every one that gets grounded gets hit by lightning and out goes the entire home theater.
Dish does not even give the proper grounding procedure. They say to use messingered cable and use the small wire that supports the cable as the ground.
Code requires 10 gauge wire and that small wire in the cable is not close to 10 gauge.
If your system is grounded using the sheath of the cable you are really asking for trouble as then lightning will hit the chassis of you all your equiptment.
Plus on the dish 1000 you would need to ground the oval as the lnbs are in a plastic housing.

 

[Van]

Your installer is an idiot to say such a thing, I had serviced about 2 dozen homes last summer that took direct and indirect lightning strikes and out of them all not a single tv or theatre unit took any damage at all. The single and dual messenger coax is only to be used to provide a ground wire from the satellite dish to the ground block, the 10 gauge is a seperate ground wire that the technician is supposed to run seperate from the coax.

On any dish assembly you are not grounding to the reflector wich is not approved, what is approved is a ground lug atached to the gap in the elevation adjustment plates, and a ground lug atached to any one of the four bolt holes in the upper portion of the mast foot plate.

Again your installer is a complete and total moronic idiot to say such a thing as grounding a system makes it get hit, if that were the case then I would have over 6k + jobs that had been hit by lightning. Call up dishnetwor and tell them your system isnt grounded and what the technician said and get your system grounded.

 

[bhelms]

Here's some generic information from Sadoun Satelite Sales, one of our sponsors...

http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Installation/Grounding.htm

 

[Claude Greiner]

You really need to individually ground each coax.

However heres the logic behind it. To properly protect your DISH agenst a direct lightning strike, you would need a wire the size of your thumb. Anything smaller cannot handel the current from a Direct lightning strike.

Now the main purpose for the ground wire is to provider static discharge. Techically if one of the coax cables are grounded and its a solid piece of metal at the LNBF, the 2nd coax line is also grounded for static discharge.

 

[dude2]

Does that mean to ground the insulation in the coax to a grounding block which is then connected to a ground rod 8 feet long, or are you to ground the dish and bracket from the dish and mast to ground with 10 gauge wire all the way, and not ground the coax insulation or do you need to ground the insulation of the coax and the dish and mast with a 10 gauge wire to the same 8 foot copper rod.

 

[mattb]

You really need to individually ground each coax.

However heres the logic behind it. To properly protect your DISH agenst a direct lightning strike, you would need a wire the size of your thumb. Anything smaller cannot handel the current from a Direct lightning strike.

And even with a wire that thick there is no guarntiee that a direct hit will not fry something, lighting is a powerful beast and you dont know what it's going to do until its done its damage.

Like others have said, grounding is for other reasons, beyond any type of lightening protection.

 

[Van]

Does that mean to ground the insulation in the coax to a grounding block which is then connected to a ground rod 8 feet long, or are you to ground the dish and bracket from the dish and mast to ground with 10 gauge wire all the way, and not ground the coax insulation or do you need to ground the insulation of the coax and the dish and mast with a 10 gauge wire to the same 8 foot copper rod.

Ok, the dish assembly must be grounded and the use of the messenger wire is permitted for this purpose. The messenger wire ataches to the ground block wich the coax is also atached to, the ground block ( if there are two or more they are linked by way of 10 gauge ground wire ) is then grounded to an approved ground source by way of a 10 gauge ground wire and an approved grounding device. The ground block(s) must be located within 5 ft of the ground source and within 25 ft of the penetration ( not quite sure on this last part ).

Ground rods if used must be atached to the homes main ground source by way of a solid copper or copper braid ground wire that is 6 gauge in thickness. A ground rod is a copper clad steel rod 8ft in length, not the pencil thin 3 foot jobs that the phone companies use and to many technicians seem inclined to use if they even ground at all.

 

[Van]

And even with a wire that thick there is no guarntiee that a direct hit will not fry something, lighting is a powerful beast and you dont know what it's going to do until its done its damage.

Like others have said, grounding is for other reasons, beyond any type of lightening protection.

Last late june and early july we had some rather nasty storms roll through souther michigan that had some of the worst lightning I have ever seen in my life, every other second there was lightning and thunder cracking all around. Anyways I spent the next month or so repairing systems that had been hit by lightning directly and indirectly.

One system took an indirect hit through coax that was buried 4 foot down in an old loading dock on a farm, the system was not grounded and the lnb's, switchs, and a receiver took a hit so I replaced almost the whole system.

Another system took an indirect hit through the house, the lightning tapped the top of the chimney then jumped away and then came in through the side of the house right next to the fireplace blowing a dinner plate sized piece out of the carpet and missing the gas main by 6 inches. This system was grounded but the lnbs and switchs were fried as was the receiver wich was on a surge protector. The garage door opener took a hit as did the comp and several lights and the phones.

 

[dishme]

Thanks for all the feedback. I talked to my installer's supervisor yesterday, and he confirmed that the line should have been grounded. He will be out today to fix this.

Thanks again!

 

[Van]

Excellent,

 

[dude2]

I have the tech coming on monday to properly ground my system. It took some talking to the csr to get it done as he said all he could do was authorize a service call but not guarantee it would get grounded.
I told him that if dish is paying the bill and they have hired this guy to do the installs and he will not do it right, he should be fired.
He then put me on hold for about 2 minutes and when he came back he had called the place my installer works for and verified that the system will be grounded.
I imagine I will have a bitchy installer come back and chew me out for calling but that is life. He is very good at intimidating the customer to his way.

 

[bhelms]

No question the overall system should be grounded correctly. There are several resources to tell you what that comprises, not to mention the extensive braintrust in this forum, some of which you have already sampled. When the tech is "done", have him show you what he did and explain it. If you're not satisfied that it's finally done correctly you have the option to complain again or do it yourself, if you have the ability and knowledge to do so. I'd opt for the latter. You can fight these things forever. Sometimes it's better to just DIY...

 

[Van]

I imagine I will have a bitchy installer come back and chew me out for calling but that is life. He is very good at intimidating the customer to his way.

Keep a tape recorder handy and have your big uncle Lou " I can make you disapear " Ondiamo come over and share a beer with you while the tech is there. Seriously though keep a tape recorder on you and turn it on when he shows up so that if he makes any kind of intimidating threats you can call back to dish and play it for someone, I can garuantee you that dish will take his actions very very seriously.

 

[dishme]

I'm happy to report that my system is now properly grounded. The installer's supervisor came out to fix the problems caused by the original installer. At least two of the ends that he had crimped were shorted out... no wonder the receiver wasn't getting the satellite feed correctly. Thanks again for all of the help here.

 

[Van]

Good, glad to hear that its all worked out and that the super fixed other problems as well.

 

[jjmaster]

Need help grounding

My neighbor asked me for some help regarding a sat install done awhile back for one of his apartments (2 family house). He is an older guy in his 70's but was savvy enough to see a potential grounding issue.

I went and looked at the install on the side of the house and saw a dual grounding block with 2 coax lines attached to both sides of it. A messenger cable was attached to the top screw of the grounding block that came from the roof and the dish. A green copper wire was attached to the bottom of the grounding block which then connected to a clamp attached to his electrical service pipe. At first look it seemed to be grounded properly. The cable company grounds to the elctrical service also.

Here is where the sharp eye catches the 1st problem. Apparently the sat installer did not install his own clamp and green copper wire to the electric service for ground, he disconnected it from the grounding block of the cable TV connection that goes to the other apartment and connected it to the sat block. So he grounded the sat by un-grounding the cable! What a jerk!

Problem 2: We went up on the roof to see what was setup there and what do we find? The dual coax connects to the LNB at the dish, but the messenger cable is just rolled up and lying there... it's not connected to the dish or anything!

I told him we will fix it ourselves and it should be simple enough, however I need some advice from the experts here.

1) I will reconnect the green wire to the cable TV grounding block and re-ground that. Now how should I ground the sat? I think I need an additional piece of green #10 ground wire and another clamp to go around the electric service pipe. Does this seem correct? Do I really need another clamp? Can I just attach the new ground wire to the existing clamp even though it is also connected as the cable ground? Can I buy the correct wire and clamp from home depot?

2) What do I do with the hanging messenger cable at the dish? Do I loosen one of the lag bolts and wrap it aroung it and re-tighten? Or do I need some special sort of connector/clamp to connect it to a particular location of the dish?

3) How would you connect the messenger cable if you had a disqc switch and say two or more dishes?