Q: How to ground a dish?

[ahonamous]

I am just about to install my dish (on the roof). The location of the dish is going to force me to ground it inside the house (is that a bad thing?). The installation manual says (1) to use a grounding block and ground the coax as well as the mast, and (2) ground within 6 feet of the dish inside the house. My questions..

1. What does grounding the coax do?

2. How important is it that I stay within 6 feet (as opposed to going 20 feet)?

3. If the dish will be mounted lower than other parts of the roof and chimney, is it still necessary to ground it?

Thanks,
Anne

[SMOKER]

Electric current will follow the path of least resistance so if your ground is over 10 feet it may follow the coax if its the shorter run.You may just run your coax inside the house and use the ground block there, mounting it within 6 feet of your ground. The best ground will be the main ground strap of your electric meter or the ground rod it attaches to. Second would be a grounded thinwall conduet near the fuse box. Third would be a cold water pipe,(make sure its not a gas pipe) making sure there is no PVC in between the place you put your ground strap and the spot where the pipe is grounded to electric or is jumpered properly.If your running all of your wire externally , try to run it as close to the power meter when it comes off the roof so you have a good ground there.
grounding coax keeps the electric in the airfrom blowing the circuits in your IRD,vcr, Tv ,DVD and anything else you may have hooked up to your system.Electric comes from and not limited to the wind blowing past your dish,mowing the lawn lightening, ect.It may not survive a direct hit , but will help in most other cases.I've seen direct lightening hits fry wire up to the ground block and stop there and seen it go all the way to the TV.

[PERUCHO]

DO NOT GROUND TO INSIDE THE HOUSE
like smoker said try your power mask or your other option will be cold water pipe outside the house yes make sure is not pvc
just make sure your ground is always a shorter run than your coax cause if it is the other way around it will be like if you dont have any ground at all good luck

[Blaster]

Have you guys ever seen a "whole house" lightning protection system? Rods on all the higest points, thousands of feet of heavy copper braid, all interconnected, all INSIDE the walls?

As the installer explained it to me (I too thought, -wtf?), the "grounding" of the building (all this braid was connected to about a dozen 8ft rods around the house) is not so much to carry away the strike, but to "bleed off" the difference in potential, so a strike would not occur. He said "if it attracted lightning by offering an easy path to ground, who would put it on their house?" :)

I assume the same thing might apply to grounding a dish? Is it more to prevent a strike than to carry it to ground when needed? I've never been sure.

[mrrhinehart]

Grounding is not only for lightning, but also static electricity.
The green screw in the RCA bolt bag is for grounding the mast. Copper is better than the aluminum wire that comes in the mounting kit. If you use the existing power meter service ground, be sure to scrape off the tarnish/patina first to get a good "bite" on the wire.