Dish Not Grounded

[BigEd]

Well, I had to get under the house for something else and while I was there saw my dish was not grounded. They installed a new grounding block and the ground wire from the dish is attached, but there is no wire going to ground. Should I call D* and ask them to come back and ground it? What are the chances that they will?

[RobertE]

Should D fix it. Yes.

Better question would be. Is it worth your time to wait to someone to come out who may or may not fix it? Especially if you can take care of it yourself.

[HDTVsportsfan]

As Roberte stated, D* should have. If you don't feel comfortable doing yourself, it probably would be easier on you if you paid an electrican a few bucks to do it. Obviously they would be familair w/ code and should do a good job.

[Tom Robertson]

As these fine gentlemen have said, it should have been done. I'll leave it up to you as to who you want it done, I can't add anything to their thoughts as to who.

But, a good reason to have it done. I was talking to the installation supervisor here in Salt Lake City, clearly someone who's done quite a few installs of more than just DIRECTV equipment. One tidbit he passed on to me is that the dishs can develop quite a large amount of static electricity as the wind blows across the face. If that static potential is not discharged via the ground loop, it can build up enough to burnout receivers.

Cheers,
Tom

[BigEd]

I have a couple of pumps nearby that are grounded to the electrical ground for the whole house. Is it ok to tie into that or does it need it's own ground? Thanks for the advice.

[HDTVsportsfan]

I'm not an electrician. Don't take this as gospel.

I'm pretty sure you don't want to have seperate grounds if at all possible. You want to tie into your house ground. Perferably your existing grounding rod. Easier said then done sometimes.

I don't know if it's OK to tie into your pumps.
Do a search on grounding. This comes up quite a bit. In a previous, not to old thread, is a link to the NEC code.

[dallascontractor]

As long as their are few bends of wires in ground to rod. Bends are OK for shock ground, but not for lightning. Lightning will want to travel in straight line, so if you have 90 deg bend-s it can miss going to earth ground. Make large loops if possible.

[dave29]

I have a couple of pumps nearby that are grounded to the electrical ground for the whole house. Is it ok to tie into that or does it need it's own ground? Thanks for the advice.

try not to ground it into the pumps if at all possible, but that would be better than nothing. or you could install a grounding rod by your dish if it is easy to access

[BigEd]

Maybe I should have been clearer. There is an electrical box nearby and the pumps are grounded off of that. I was thinking of tying in at the box. Would this be ok?

[jbci]

As these fine gentlemen have said, it should have been done. I'll leave it up to you as to who you want it done, I can't add anything to their thoughts as to who.

But, a good reason to have it done. I was talking to the installation supervisor here in Salt Lake City, clearly someone who's done quite a few installs of more than just DIRECTV equipment. One tidbit he passed on to me is that the dishs can develop quite a large amount of static electricity as the wind blows across the face. If that static potential is not discharged via the ground loop, it can build up enough to burnout receivers.

Cheers,
Tom

Where, exactly, would the dish store this built up static electricity?

[Tom Robertson]

Where, exactly, would the dish store this built up static electricity?

In the same manner that a Vandergraph generator does. It doesn't "store" per se, but rather builds up potential until the wind dies down and it dissipates or until a grounding path is created (hopefully not thru your receiver!)

Cheers,
Tom

[GirkMonster]

I have had D* since 1996 and until my HR20 last week, I always installed the equipment myself (even in this case, I followed Ironwood onto the roof the following day to 'fix' the install) and NEVER, EVER grounded a dish. I have had a half dozen different receivers and never 'burned' one out for any rreason. To properly ground a dish, you need a very heavy gauge wire, the shorter, the better, the tiny think on D*s twin coax is not only laughable, but cannot carry any significant load.

I also know many others who have had grounded dishes blow out their LNBs. More than the zero problems I know of with ungrounded dishes, to be sure.

I wouldn't ground it and I wouldn't call for service unless you were sure you really needed it.

[glennb]

It seems hard to believe a charge stored up on the dish from the wind would travel all the way down the coax into the house and blow out a receiver. Wouldn't this "charge" on the dish zap the LNB way before it got to the receiver ?

[GirkMonster]

if you believe that, then you should run out and buy the most expensive HDMI cable you can find! I mean, the digital signal couldn't possibly be made of 1s and 0s...

D* grounds the dish because the NEC says so, the lawyers feast on improper (i.e. not up-to-code) installations...even though the NEC is intended to apply to transmission antennas on 100 ft poles.

I don't worry about electrocuting my kids or burning my house down. ever.

[butch65]

I've had four receivers, and an lnb blown out by lightning over the years,all with a ground attached. A friend, who worked for the power co. said the charge was hitting the ground and going up the ground wire. I've disconected it and not had any problems since