HI, I am in the process of an addition and residing of my home. My Sat dish was mounted to a roof that is no longer so I must relocate it. My questions are

1. I am planning 8 down leads from 2 dishes (mounted close to each other) Do I really need to mount 8 grounding blocks on the side of my house or can I just ground the switch located in my wiring closet.

2. The best place for me to mount the dish is not the side where the ground rod is, Should I try to get the dish to the ground side or what other alternatives are there?

3. I read somewhere that grounding the dish itself actually increases the chance the dish will get hit by lightning, what are your thought's?

4. Wall mount or roof mount? Is there any advantage as long as the line of sight is equal? Any other things to consider when mounting?


Thanks RWI

This message was edited by RWI on 07/01/04 21:01.

1. According to electrical code, the cbles should be grounded before entering the building.

2. The ground wire should be as short as practcicable. A second rod should be bonded to the main one.

3. The dish will indirectly be grounded through your equipment. The idea is to bypass that path.

4. After traveling 22,300 miles (geosynchronous orbit), what's another 10 feet to the signal?

Larry
www.fineelectricco.com

Why 2 Dishes?

As long as your running new leads, I would run a dedicated antenna lead as well. Diplexing is OK, but a dedicated line is best.

I have dish network with a dish 500, upon upgrade to HD a second dish pointed at the 61.5 will give me CBS HD and some other channels. I have done some reading on the electrical codes, however I really don't like the idea of 6-8 grounding blocks and wire all over my new siding, nor do I want to dig a 100-150 ft trech for a bonding wire for a second ground rod. I guess what I am asking is if this was your home, how would you handle this.

Thanks for the help

Well, Electricity takes the path of least resistance.... One ground block per dish technically should be fine. I wouldnt do this............ But hey.........

2 Dishes and 8 feeds is insane..... Glad I'm on DirecTV........

I would only be using 6 feeds now, I was planning 1 couple of extra runs for the future

The grounding blocks do (or should do) more than ground the shields. They should also contain spark gaps for the center conductor.

Here's a pic of a quad grounding block:



Click on image for a link to it.

Larry
www.fineelectricco.com

This message was edited by Larry Fine on 07/01/04 21:42.