AT 9 Dish Not Grounded!

[MercurialIN]

I wanted to thank the forum posters for helping me out. I had the AT 9 dish installed last fall. I read posts on this forum about what a properly grounded dish should look like. I checked mine and was suspicious that it was not properly grounded. Finally managed to get a reliable installer out at my own expense, in other words it wasn't a D* installer. But a certified professional installer that works for himself. Anyway I asked him to check the grounding of the dish and he came back in and informed me that the D* installer had not grounded the dish at all! So he went ahead and grounded it properly.

I was not shocked but disappointed to find out my dish hadn't been grounded since last fall's installation. If it wasn't for the posters on this forum posting pictures of properly grounded dishes I wouldn't have even suspected something might be wrong. So thanks very much to this forum's posters for alerting me to a possibly dangerous situation.

[JonW]

If it's roof mounted, it's supposed to have dipoles attached too, or else it can shift around in the wind and lose lock.

[glennb]

My 2 cents.

My AT9 dish ins't grounded. None of my DIRECTV dishes have ben grounded.

I've never had any problems.

[hilmar2k]

If it's roof mounted, it's supposed to have dipoles attached too, or else it can shift around in the wind and lose lock.

Where in the OP's post did he mention monopoles, or the lack thereof? His post was all about grounding.

[DrZ]

When I got my new 5 LNB dish last month I was told my 3 1/2 year old dual LNB dish was never grounded. Despite that fact I never had any issues at all (and we get some big thunderstorms in our area)

[rminsk]

See if you can ask DirecTV for programming credit for the incomplete installation of your dish.

[TimGoodwin]

Mine was not grounded either. Plus they did not seal the base that is bolted into the roof so whenever we got a heavy rain I was getting leaking into my attic.

[K4SMX]

It is absolutely essential that all dish antennas be properly grounded. Many installers skip this essential step. Sure, they work just fine without being grounded. That's not the point.

I used to get all the 8' ground rods I could carry away for free from the power company truck guys in Atlanta. When I asked about this "deal," one of 'em commented that when they got back to the yard and the remaining rods were inventoried, the company would assume that they had been used grounding telephone poles, so that would be that many more they didn't have to drive in the ground. He said sometimes they just, "Throw them up in the woods."

If you're having a new install, you should be familiar with what the installer is supposed to do. This info is easily available and is referenced in all dish antenna installation manuals. If the installer pulls a fully assembled dish out of his truck, you won't see that document. Here's (http://ecmweb.com/nec/electric_article_radio_television/) a fairly decent article describing what should be done.

Hasan?

Also, you can find reference to these procedures in the user guide that comes with your receiver, e.g., the DirecTV H20:

"NOTE TO SATELLITE DISH INSTALLER

This reminder is provided to call your attention to Articles 810 and 820 of the 2002 National Electrical code. Refer to article 810, in particular 810-1 and 810-15, for required grounding of the metal structure of the dish antenna. Refer also to 810-2 which, by reference to Article 820, requires that the satellite dish coaxial cable should be connected to the grounding system of the building as close to the point of cable entry as possible."

So you can just show them the book and ask them to explain to you that your installation is complete.

A final note, also from the H20 User Guide: "Unplug this apparatus during lightning storms..."

A little additional thought goes a long way here: you can fairly easily determine how to completely isolate your entire equipment group during lightning storms by unplugging all the electrical plugs simultaneously through a single point (at the wall outlet -surge protector or UPS) and all incoming antenna/cable TV lines with quick-disconnect F connectors available from RS and elsewhere. It's really difficult for lightning to damage equipment that is completely disconnected. (And those disconnected incoming coaxial cables can still conduct lightning into your house, so they remain hazardous. What I do is plug the quick-disconnect F connectors into a standard outdoor-type pass-through grounding block, and that grounding block is connected by a short piece of #12 green jacketed copper wire directly to the ground lug on a 3-way screw-terminal-type electrical plug, which is connected to a house wall outlet.)

[glennb]

I have a grounding thing I use where the coax enters the house. It has a short run to a grounding rod buried in the ground nearby for the AC disconnect outside the house.

The dish isn't grounded, no big deal. I'm not losing any sleep over it.