Installing attic antenna with proper grounding
 

I currently have an amplified rabbit ears and for the most part, it gets the channels I need. I made one of those hanger antennas and it came out good. I plan on adding my rabbit ears to it for VHF (since it is UHF).

Anyways, I plan to install the antenna in my attic. Should work out. One thing to note is that on the attic floor I have reflective foil. This foil is NOT on the underside of the roof, so I imagine I will be OK. (ie antenna will be shrung up and be above the foil).

OK, so I will feed the coax out a vent and down the side of my house. I'll put a loop in the cable so water wicks away. I was also set to get a discharge block to connect the coax to. And connect it to a grounding rod.

But I was on a home improvement forum and was told various info about this. One is that my main grounding rod is on the other side of the house and it was advised NOT to have another grounding rod. I'm not keen to run a wire all the way to the other side of the house. But I also don't want to install a 2nd rod if it is unsafe.

Some guys said don't worry about grounding since it isn't outside and on the roof. If I can do, then great, but don't lose sleep on it.

I'd like to get some expert advise. Seems like a lot of disinformation out there.

I was suggested to ground to a water pipe, But I don't have one nearby for this project. I could run a wire to a pipe not too far away. There is an outside faucet. Not sure how you go about that type of grounding.

Anyways, how best to be safe but also not spend 1 month on this project.

p.s. I tried to run the coax within the walls of the house but it seems I hit a firewall 2x4 that goes horizontally between the studs.

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...8d17de816b22bc

Cheers

http://forum.tvfool.com/showthread.php?t=901

You have the option to add a ground rod, provided it is bonded to the rest of your grounding system. That usually requires a minimum of #6 gauge wire from the new rod back to the existing ground rod (or other grounding electrode). There should not be any splices in the bonding conductor and the connectors need to be rated for the purpose. At the current price of copper, that would likely be a few bucks worth of #6. Without the bonding, you will be building a potentially dangerous system that could set someone up for electrocution.

Can you at least run a #10 GA. wire from the grounding block to your existing ground system?

Yeah fire stops can be a hassle... except when they slow a fire down.

would be a huge pain to bond them. Antenna is on one side of the house, meter and ground rod is on the other side.

Can you run a #10 from the existing service ground into the attic?

That might be doable. WHere would I connect it to in the antenna?

Mount the coax ground block close to the antenna in the attic.

I'm not saying this is ideal. But it is better than leaving all the coax shield 'floating'.