While we're on the subject of grounding...
Sad to report that my two DP301s were apparently "zapped" a couple of days ago by a severe electrical storm. The receivers power on, menus look okay, etc., but neither sees the satellites now -- AND Check Switch on both receivers now reports "no switch found". I tested with a borrowed DP301 and check switch runs fine on it, so it must be receiver(s) problem -- not a problem with dish/LNBs, or cabling. I removed covers to take a look inside, but don't see anything obviously "wrong" (charred or bubbled!). Obviously, that still doesn't mean that some component didn't get zapped -- which must be the case here.
This is a relatively new house, and yes I originally purchased the grounding blocks (etc.) for my dish install, but just HAD to go ahead and wire everything up (to watch TV) until I could find the "few hours" for my "proper grounding" project. One week led to one month -- one month led to a few months -- you get the picture. Time passed, and I never grounded my dish(es). Now, I'll pay the price (two DP301 receivers, two wireless routers, HDMI input on my 4-week old 42" plasma TV, power supply on my Media Center computer, and probably some yet-to-be-discovered things).
Lesson Learned. Now I must ground, and ground CORRECTLY!
Both of my dishes (Dish 500s) are 200-300' from point-of-entry at my house (I am surrounded by tall trees). One dish (single cable) enters the house thru same access "hole" as phone line (which is right beside my electrical main/meter). FWIW, I also have an outdoor wireless (802.11b/g) antenna that must be grounded (I have an arrestor block for this also) -- it also enters the house at this location. So I have 2 cables here that must be grounded. Can I simply attach these ground blocks (using #10 solid copper wire & a bolt clamp/connector) to the thick copper wire (visible) that runs down the wall (the assumption would be, of course, to GROUND) from my phone box? Or must I connect both of these (individually & directly) to the same thing that the phone ground wire is connected to (which I assume I'll have to dig to find!)?
The other side of the equation is that my other Dish 500 (2 cables - dual LNB) is on the other end of the house. Those 2 cables currently enter my crawlspace/basement on THAT end of the house. I had originally intended on driving a grounding rod (at least 4' -- this is very rocky red clay...I've read that clay is very conductive and shorter rods will work okay) on that end and using a dual grounding block -- then just let it run on thru the crawlspace/basement to my cabling "hub" (where the other cables enter the basement). But now I'm reading all of this about "you must connect all earth grounds", so I'm thinking I'm about to do something wrong? Must I connect my grounding rod to the other end of the house? If so, can I just run a long piece of #10 copper wire along with my 2 coax runs and connect it to the ground on the other end of the house (basically, go in the basement and come out the other end of the house)? Or should I just run the 2 coax cables straight under the house (no grounding block at point of entry) THEN out the other end of the house, ground them (along the 2 mentioned above), and then BACK into the basement (for connection to various TVs etc.)? On the surface, that approach sounds a bit dangerous ("inviting" the lightning charge to run thru the length of the basement and hope that it will exit nicely!).
My questions may sound a bit confused -- if so, it's because I'm NOT an electricity/lightning expert!!
Basically, it boils down to two questions -- (1) can I connect to the phone line copper ground wire (using the wire clamp) and accomplish proper grounding? (2) how is the best way to ground the 2 coax cables coming into the opposite end of the house?
THANKS MUCH!!!
Kevin
