Grounding roof antenna?

Personally, I have never put up a lightning collector without grounding it in some manner. I think you should ground the tripod and mast, and put a lightning arrestor on the coax.

Agreed, and electrical codes in your state probably requires it. Well then again with all the liberals running it!!! LOL just kidding.

Actually, the instructions likely do detail the grounding requirements. If not you will likely find them in the first pages of any television, or any other receiving equipment. The mast for the antenna and the coax shield must both be grounded to the ground electrode on your electrical service.

Leonard

Code usually requires grounding.

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Thanks to all, appreciate your replies. I wired it to ground today. Sudy Nim

out

here

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I hope you used a wire somewhat bigger than 26 gauge. Altho a direct lightning strike of 20,000 amps or more will vaporize anything you could reasonably use, the ground will help in the event of a nearby strike. How far west of Chicago are you. I'm 28 miles out and we get some humdingers here.

line

Let me know when you have over 1400 strikes in an hour.

You havent seen lightning till you have lived with a desert on one side and a mountain range on the other side like we have here in Northern Utah.

Having a huge inland sea/lake primarily made out of salt from prehistoric Lake Bonneville a few miles from your front door doesnt help either.

Yawn. The Central Florida area is the highest lightning area in the country. Water everywhere, and almost as flat as your desert. I have been inside buildings with no windows that were lit up like daylight from the constant strikes. So close together that one hasn't completely faded away before another one hits. The thunder so bad that the entire building was shaking for over an hour, with no electricity, plus wind and rain so hard you didn't dare step outside.

I have seen concrete buildings damaged, and lost a lot of electronics as well. One TV studio got a direct hit on the building, past the service entrance, and took out all kinds of equipment, including items that weren't connected to anything.

Yawn????? LOL!!!!!!!!

You aint heard nothing till you hear thunder echo back and forth between two mountain ranges.

The Central Florida area is the highest lightning area in the

Like the warming trend here in Pittsburgh, well this last summer was not as hot as the previous two, but all the leaves are usually on the ground, or at least thats the way it was 10 years ago. Its been unusually quiet as thunder storms go. I sort of miss them. We have hill after hill, after hill, etc. The worst and most trecherous sounding storm I have encountered, was up right off Lake Erie, on flat land. I was scarred.

I was installing some guy poles off my new deck for a sun shade, out of steel piping. I also attached some wiring to a ground post. First time I ever put one of those long things in the ground. I still want to ground the steel roof of my shed attached to the garage.

greg

Ever hear of Delta Junction, or Ft. Greely Alaska?

Someone mention using a thick wire for grounding..I was wondering if that really was needed..by grounding the antenna isn't that just changing the charge potential between the antenna and the ground.

My understanding is that the antenna ground wire is to provide an "alternate" path for the very large, near instantaneous current (either from ground to the sky/lightnining or from the lightning to the ground, depending on the difference in the voltage potentials) that occurs when the lightning "strikes" the metal mast.

Too small a conductor and it will be quickly vaporized leaving the current to find its way to ground via some other (more destructive) path. Even if the ground wire is of sufficient diameter to withstand the lightning strike, it also needs to be as low of a resistance on that path as possible since some portion of the current will nonetheless follow the path down the coax based on the impedances seen in those two "parallel" paths to ground. The goal here is simply to minimize any current down the coax so proper attention needs to be given to the construction and length of the ground conductor as well as the terminations on both ends too.

Bob

I would agree with the path of least resistance, but as far as a single strike, vaporizing the conductor is not going to stop the lightning like a fuse.. The vapor or plasma probably has some conductivity anyway.

greg

line

I hope you used a wire somewhat bigger than 26 gauge. Altho a direct lightning strike of 20,000 amps or more will vaporize anything you could reasonably use, the ground will help in the event of a nearby strike. How far west of Chicago are you. I'm 28 miles out and we get some humdingers here.

influenced some related interesting discussions. My property is in kind of a valley, I'm about 20 feet lower than the surrounding area. The only lighting problems I experienced at home are power line strikes, which resulted in blown power line transformers, damaged TV's, appliances and burned out wall outlets. Prior to retirement I made my living in the TV service industry so I have personally seen the results of lighting. I often pondered if grounding the antenna just attracts lighting? Just as I can not visualize how a radio or TV dropped into a bathtub of water would electrocute you. But, I'll let someone else experiment with that. Looks, as if we could be neighbors, you must know of DuPage County?

Lightning is 100...1000 ths of amps. A low resistance part to ground means less damage on attached equipment, and less chance of starting a fire inside. That also means, no curves and bends, to lessen inductivity.

Neighbor,

I too am living west of Chicago, IL in western Dupage County.

Bob

Bob H is Bob Hofmann retired from Bell Labs EMC group in Naperville, IL. I put myself thru college in the 1950's installing towers and antennas and vacuum tube antenna boosters in Fort PIerce, Florida. After a good summer storm, we could count on getting calls from people whose tower amplifiers had been blown apart and whose 300 ohm twin lead if intact had no conductivity because the copper had ben vaporized into the poyethelene or what poastic was used for the downleads. Nearest tv station was Miami, 125 miles away, so amplifiers on towers was the only way to get signals. When West Palm Beach went on the air, only 57 miles away, people began to get serious about buying tv's since roofotp antennas becanme somewhat practical.....