The real challenge is getting the bonding wire run from the LV cable entrance to the system bonding terminal.

What gauge wire would that bonding wire be?

In most cases a 10AWG solid copper wire is fine.

Do you have a copy of the NEC? Local jurisdictions can have their own regulations as well.

Typically the LV cable drop is located next to the electrical service drop. In my area a ground rod is used as a supplementary grounding electrode and is driven near the service entrance and meter enclosure. The system electrode grounding conductor is right there (coming out of the house and going to the ground rod). The electrician often times will attach a terminal to that wire with something like this:

[Link: aifittings.com]

The reason to Bond your devices as opposed to ground/earth is you are providing one path to ground.

lets say you have a satellite dish and you install some type of grounding device (plate, rod, post, etc) and ground your dish to the device. You have the sat receivers inside the house that are electrically grounded to the building ground rod, plate etc. A surge comes in and rather than going direct to ground it now travels through the cabling (coax, HDMI, CATX, etc) and goes out to the dish ground.

Electricity flows in the path of least resistance. Although having to travel through multiple boxes and cables there may be less resistance to get to the satellite ground than going to the building ground.

Now if you were to Bond the satellite dish to the house/building ground then there would only ever be one path for the surge to go reducing the risk of the surge to go through all the devices in the rack first.

That's true, but sometimes it's got to be perfect to get to the right answer the quickest way.

Beside that, I don't think this forum is just for people who know 99% of what's needed; I think it's for people early in their careers, too.

Earth and that ground rod contact with earth have a much higher resistance compared to copper on a terminal strip. If there is a lightning strike near one end of the house, there will be a huge voltage drop in the earth as the strike leaks away. If you have separate ground rods connected to your system at each end of the house, they are no longer at equal potential and your system must absorb this difference. Since quite a lot of energy is available from that strike, your system is overwhelmed. The bonding wire will have less resistance than the coax shields of your wire and the bond will absorb most of the energy.

There is also a personal safety risk at the instant of the strike. If you are touching an element of your system and a water pipe at that instant, there will be a voltage drop across your body. Good bonding insures that your system elements are at the same potential as that water pipe.

Well... the bonding wire will have less resistance than the coax shields of your wire and the bonded path will (more) safely carry the energy to your single ground.

The bond itself is the point where wires electrically connect together, and bonds do not absorb the energy. They allow the energy to be safely carried to ground.

OK, I'm very sorry for the misuse of definitions. The bond wires only enable the system to be at equal potential (less a few relatively minor voltage drops) -- regardless of the less than ideal connection with earth.

That was for clarity, not because any apology was needed.

I’m not sure I follow this. Can you describe the proper protection that should be in place for, say, an outdoor speaker? Assume without protection you simply have a 14/2 cable running from the speaker back to an amplifier in a rack. What exactly would you put in place for proper surge protection and grounding of this speaker?

Many options have been provided to properly bond the speaker wire to the house.

internetraver provided a couple options Others have as well

What I was referring to and Buzz has re-iterated is that you don't want to just add a ground rod or use the pole the device is connected to as a grounding means. Ideally you should be pulling a bond wire to every external device. We don't work in an ideal world so companies like Panamax have provided solutions to help with this.

You want to ensure you are only providing one path to ground to help reduce the risk of equipment damage.

Let's use the Panamax as an example. The instructions say:

"If the cable has a shield or drain wire, connect it to the modules bonding-strap
connection located on the upper right portion of the module."

Let's say a drain wire is run from the speaker back to the module - what would it attach to at the speaker location?

The Metal bracket for the speaker (assuming a surface mount outdoor speaker). Using a spade/ring connector either tap a screw onto the speaker bracket or place it under the screw that secures the bracket to the house.

Edit* If you have a drain or bonding wire there really is no reason to use the Panamax device. Connect that wire to the bond screw in the equipment rack using a ring/spade connector. You are bonding your racks and equipment within the rack to the electrical ground?

It would seem to follow that all LV wire run from outside a structure needs to be shielded, correct? This makes me wonder why direct burial cabling seems so often to come without shielding? In fact, my main bulk cabling supplier does not even carry shielded direct burial category or speaker cabling.

Frankly I would have my doubts that braided shielding (intended for noise rejection) would be able to carry any significant current and would most likely just vaporize close to the point of surge/lightning injection.

A shield for speaker wire would offer minimal protection from a nearby strike. Think of it as a high energy ground loop that will introduce a current in the protected wires anyway.