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Old 12-Aug-2014, 7:54 PM   #3
stvcmty
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Posts: 135
GroundUrMast had a very good explanation of grounding.

I only have one thing to add. It is good to have the coax ground block close to the electrical service entrance, and have it grounded as close as possible to the electrical service ground. The coax should not enter the house until it has been grounded.

In your case, that would mean having the antenna in the back, bringing the coax around the house, and bringing it into the house in the front. Without knowing the specifics of your situation, (how much signal is in the air, how your antenna affects the signal, preamp and so on), that may or may not add unacceptable loss.

My view of grounding comes from an amateur radio grounding concept best explained as “a rising tide lifts all ships”. If your electrical service, phone, cable (if you have it), antenna, and any other services all enter at close to the same point, then a surge or lightening strike on any them will get dumped to ground at the same point. An rise in potential (voltage) that gets in will be on all wires in the house equally so hopefully no voltage will develop on connections that expect to be low voltage. On the other hand, if something had a separate ground (such as your antenna), a spike on the separate ground could cause large voltage to develop between the separate ground (the antenna), and the house ground. To see how that could be bad: if your TV has a 3 pin plug then a spike on the coax shield would try to equalize its voltage through the TV’s 3rd pin to the house ground. GroundUrMast keeps that from being a problem in the DC case by bonding all grounds. The problem is lightening is not just DC. Lightening has components that are up to 3MHz. For an AC wave of 3MHz, the peak potential difference will be at ¼ of a wavelength, or 25 meters, or 82 feet. So, if two grounds are separated by 82 feet, a huge potential could develop between them from a lightning strike. On the other hand, if everything enters your house at the same point, short grounding leads clamps everything to close the same potential in the same potential even for the RF components of lightning.

I am not saying remote ground rods are bad. A ground rod near the antenna with the mast tied to it is a good thing, it gets static or lightening into the ground as fast as possible. That remote ground rod should be tied to the house electrical ground system with heavy wire run outside of the house. What I am saying is everything that enters the house should enter the house together and be grounded within a few feet of each other so any spike on any line is equal on all lines so no device in the house sees a RF potential develop across any of its paths to ground.

Grounding is a tricky subject. What works well at DC or 60Hz may not work well at the RF components of lightening. I highly recommend reading the grounding section in Practical Antenna Handbook 5/e by Joseph Carr and George Hippisley.
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