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Putting up an outdoor antenna?

Solid copper wire to grounding stake -- Available at Radio Shack. Pound grounding stake into ground about 2 feet. Also invest in a kind of line filter called a lightning arrester. It blows out if high voltage present, no guarantees.

Mount away from power lines. Assume it will fall and put it in a place that it will not fall on a power line.

Some people use a strap mount that goes around an old-school chimney.
 
Use a grounding block like this one.

http://www.summitsource.com/product_info.php?ref=1&products_id=6895

Ground it as close as possible to where it enters the home and ideally ground it to a grounding stake (copper clad steel pole, available at home depot etc...) with 10g ground wire. (some places 12g is not to code) You can ground it inside the house (again as close as possible to where it enters the home) to a water pipe but again the grounding stake outside the house is better.

Just don't ground to natural gas line! I saw a sat install once that was grounded to a gas line. Took a picture and gave it to the home owner and promptly disconnected it. That was a little scary for the home owner.

Don't forget a drip loop before it enters the home.

What type of mount are you going to use? the this old house instructional video uses a chimney mount (better than bolting to your roof).
 
Crap. Time flew.

I still been meaning to get this Antenna up. Better uh later than uh ever?

Just been busy with other projects and streaming has tied me over. LOL.

So my House is by some power lines. I will be mounting the Antenna on a storage building across my drive-way from the power lines. Also more clear from Trees too.

So I will be mounting a pole on top of the building.

Then be placing the Coax cable in a hose and burying it across the drive-way and running it on a splitter to my Sisters small place next to ours.

Do I attach the grounding block by where I put the Antenna or by the House? Do I just Hammer a metal pole in the ground? Would a yard pole work?

I can't believe I put this off for a year.... Damn Netflix streaming. 😛
 
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Crow550 said:
Crap. Time flew.

Do I attach the grounding block by where I put the Antenna or by the House? Do I just Hammer a metal pole in the ground? Would a yard pole work?
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Ground the Antenna as close as possible to it. Best grounding is copper. Buy a 3-4 foot length of copper pipe and hammer it into the ground.
 
Crow550 said:
So my House is by some power lines. I will be mounting the Antenna on a storage building across my drive-way from the power lines. Also more clear from Trees too.

So I will be mounting a pole on top of the building.

Then be placing the Coax cable in a hose and burying it across the drive-way and running it on a splitter to my Sisters small place next to ours.

Do I attach the grounding block by where I put the Antenna or by the House? Do I just Hammer a metal pole in the ground? Would a yard pole work?

I can't believe I put this off for a year.... Damn Netflix streaming. 😛
Click to expand...

I'd be leery of sharing a conductor between two homes. If lightning strikes your sisters house there is a possiblity that it will travel through the coax you buried and bring it into your house. Or the lightning could strike your house and take it over to your sisters house.

At any rate, you need to go to Home Depot/Lowes/or local electrical supply store and purchase a grounding rod. They are made from either galvanized steel or copper. They are typically 8' in length. You will need to pound that into the ground (as close to the antenna as possible) so that only a couple of inches are sticking out of the ground. You will then need to connect with copper straping or copper conductor (8 AWG or bigger) the antenna to the grounding rod. This is typically done with an acorn nut attached to the ground rod or you can purchase a ground block. It really doesn't matter. The nice thing about the ground block is that you can easily ground other items to the block as well.

I would also put a lightning arrestor on the coax that is entering your home and I'd also put one on the coax entering your sisters home. I use these: http://www.amazon.com/TII-Broadband-...7213284&sr=8-4 Unless you seal those connections with silicon its best to keep those arrestors dry so try to put them out of the weather.

These need to be installed near the ground rod you just put into the ground. You can ground them to the grounding block if you used one.
 
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sdifox said:
Grounding is important.
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And isolating it from the rest of your gear.

A lightning arrestor does not save you in the event of a direct strike BTW.

In the wireless world the best practice is to ground your AP/antenna to a separate grounding rod (not shared with building power), to run your ethernet to a RG to Fiber transducer and then have at least 1 meter of fiber optic cable between it and the next device.

Keep in mind transducers need power and if you plug the transducers on both sides of the fiber into the same outlet/circuit, the surge can still jump between them.

I am not sure what's out there like that for AV, but I have known a lot of people whose antennas cost them loss of a lot of gear with a direct hit.
 
alkemyst said:
A lightning arrestor does not save you in the event of a direct strike BTW.
Click to expand...

+1

Nothing protects you from a direct hit. Arrestors simply protect you from surges from near hits.

Look, the bottom line is if you ground properly and arrest all incoming lines that is the best you can do. A direct hit means destruction. Luckly, those are rare...
 
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Pound grounding stake into ground about 2 feet.
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Buy a 3-4 foot length of copper pipe and hammer it into the ground.
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Horrible information in this thread. A proper ground rod is 8 feet in length. Ideally you have more than one connected with 6AWG solid, and the bonded conductor from mast to ground rod no less than 10AWG solid. Do not make sharp bends. You should pound your ground rod within a few feet of the mast, extend the second rod 8 feet in any direction. If you have only 5 feet rods you MUST use more than one.

It is "bonded" to the base of the metal pole. You can use this now grounded metal pole to ground an arrestor up on the top of the pole betwixt your antenna and the coax. The arrester directly grounds the shield of the coax, and provides a "gas discharge tube" on the center conductor which whenever it builds up charge, momentarily shunts the center conductor to the pole/ground.

from NEC
Radio and Television Equipment [Article 810]. The antenna mast that supports radio, HAM, television and satellite receiving antennas must be grounded [810.15]. In addition, each conductor (coaxial, control, and signal conductors) of a lead-in from an "outdoor antenna" must be provided with a listed antenna discharge unit (grounding block). The antenna discharge unit shall be grounded and it must be located outside or inside as near as practicable to the entrance of the conductors to the building and it must not be located near combustible material [810.20].

The grounding conductor for the mast and discharge unit shall not be smaller than 10 copper AWG and it’s length shall be as short as practicable run in as straight a line as practicable [800.21].
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