# Satelite ground specifics



## yzman720 (Dec 29, 2009)

I am not an electrician I am a general contractor that builds and sells homes. I build a new home for myself every couple of years and will do the wiring myself. Obviously I could ask my normal electrical subs but I am the type that enjoys researching and doing certain things myself if they are proper and up to code. -

I have read for a couple hours and don't get much on a couple specifics and some conflicting for satelite grounding.
what I have is a new construction that has the service on one side of the home and the satelite will be mounting on the complete opposite along with the phone. What I plan to do is run a solid wire from the neutral/ground bar in the main service panel to where the satelite and phone cables will enter the residence. My confusion lies on the length that is acceptable on this and the size #6 or #8? The wire will probably be at least 90' if not 100' and I saw a couple forums said to run it straight. Well inevitably it will have bends to get to the service panel and 2 90 degree bends at the service panel on top of the bends getting to the panel.
What size wire?
Are the bends acceptable?
Is my length ok?
Will my satelite and phone/internet be able to be grounded to this same wire?
I also see a coax cable ground length limited to 20' this kind of confused me - from where my coax enters the home next to the ground wite I am running to where it reaches the communications box is over 20' is this illegal?

Any help without telling me to refer to an article in the nec would greatly be appreciated. The code language and constant referrals to seperate articles make my head spin.


----------



## GettingBy (Aug 19, 2010)

yzman720 said:


> The code language and constant referrals to seperate articles make my head spin.


Same with the tax code. 

At some point the NEC or tax code citations obviously do not apply to you but you may have to dig several layers deep to get to this point.

I have found at least one NEC section that leads electricians to commit a logical fallacy and I'm sure there are more. Not so yet with the 6000 page tax code.

Here's what you're up against.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_(data_structure)
You start at the 'root node' code citation and have to go down to the end of each branch. And the NEC and tax code have many, many branches.

I think the tax code is an 'undue burden' on the taxpayer and the NEC is probably burdensome on everyone. Maybe there is a 'TurboTax' for the NEC.

FWIW the ground wire should have low impedance per foot (think braided, not round cross section) and should not melt with the majority of lightning strikes. 
Curves may add impedance.
Florida and the Ozarks get a lot of lightning.


----------



## yzman720 (Dec 29, 2009)

anyone?


----------



## GettingBy (Aug 19, 2010)

If you post online code citations and their definition excerpts I can likely tell you 
what it says you can do and 
what it may say you can't do and 
what it is silent on. 

We can narrow this search down. A dozen citations may cover it.

If we do this, electricians will suddenly come out of the woodwork to correct us. And they probably should.

What can you lose?


----------



## Tinstaafl (Jan 6, 2008)

GettingBy said:


> If you post online code citations and their definition excerpts I can *likely* tell you


Likely? So in other words, since you can read, you figger you can kinda sorta make a pretty good guess. 

Maybe you can, but that's all it would be. The OP is asking for advice from someone who _knows_. :no:


----------



## GettingBy (Aug 19, 2010)

Give it time, they'll show. 

Unfortunately, I deleted my links to two online versions of the NEC.


----------



## GettingBy (Aug 19, 2010)

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q="satellite+dish+grounding"+NEC&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

980 people just dyin' to chime in!


----------



## SectorSecurity (Nov 26, 2013)

Here we have to ground our satellite within 4 feet of where it enters the residence using a grounding rod. Although I can't remember the last time I saw some ground one


----------



## tedanderson (May 19, 2010)

SectorSecurity said:


> Here we have to ground our satellite within 4 feet of where it enters the residence using a grounding rod. Although I can't remember the last time I saw some ground one


Yeah.. I don't see many people grounding their dishes either. 

To answer your question about the bends in the ground wire, you can actually bend it but it can't be a sharp bend. It has to be less than a 1"-2" radius. You have to think of it as being like a piece of plastic tubing. If you make the bends gentle and subtle, the current can flow easily to the ground rod. If you make the bend too sharp, the current will abruptly stop and bounce back the other way.


----------



## GettingBy (Aug 19, 2010)

SectorSecurity said:


> within 4 feet


Which limits the impedance, mostly inductive, of the wire.

A pulse like this standard lightning waveform 

"The �standard� wave reaches its peak voltage value in 1.5 microseconds and reduces to half the voltage value in 40 microseconds."

contains frequencies as high as 200 kHz or so and so any inductance in the wire undercuts its grounding effectiveness.


----------



## Inner10 (Mar 12, 2009)

SectorSecurity said:


> Here we have to ground our satellite within 4 feet of where it enters the residence using a grounding rod. Although I can't remember the last time I saw some ground one


I've never in my life seen a bell installer ground a dish.


----------



## GettingBy (Aug 19, 2010)

Inner10 said:


> I've never in my life seen a bell installer ground a dish.


Because 
they were not required to
they were required and didn't
they didn't know they were required
the risk of a lightning strike there was low 
of other reasons?

This is evidence in favor of no grounding but 
it may be 'anecdotal evidence'.
But, if this happened your whole long life this evidence is strong.

Dunno'.


----------



## Inner10 (Mar 12, 2009)

GettingBy said:


> Because
> they were not required to
> they were required and didn't
> they didn't know they were required
> ...


Piece workers.


----------



## SectorSecurity (Nov 26, 2013)

I'm going to go more with the installer doesn't care and bell doesn't want the added cost.


----------



## jberger (Feb 18, 2008)

We go through this all the time with DirecTV. 

The current DTV guideline is the ground at the electrical entrance point and not to add a second ground rod, same as current Telco and TV Cable. 

DTV has had a lot of opposing guidance over the years but this one seems to be consistent regardless of subcontractor and DTV QA audit personnel in the Southern US.

The word from QA was that adding multiple grounding rods by service type was leading to a lot of issues in the field and the common ground point is reducing grounding issues and improving safety.


----------



## GettingBy (Aug 19, 2010)

Sounds like they want a Single Point Ground.


----------



## yzman720 (Dec 29, 2009)

*Length between main gec and communications gec 810.21 800.93*

I have a new construction home that the satellite/cable/telephone enter at the complete opposite side from the electrical service. This is home is all electric no gas and ran completely in pex plumbing. Needless to say I cannot bond to the electrical service within 20' so I am going to have to drive a ground rod. The 6awg wire that I bond this ground rod back to the ground rods next to the electrical service is where my questions are. Is there a maximum length of the 6awg wire that I run from the communications ground rod back to the main ground rods? It will have to be buried approximately 140' with 3 - 90 degree turns to get it back to the main service entrance. I have not seen anything limiting the length but this is a long distance and was curious if I skipped anything in my readings? Also are the bends of any concern here I can make them sweeping 90's but they are there.

810.21
800.93


----------



## GettingBy (Aug 19, 2010)

Can you use the foundation rebars for
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ufer_ground
?

http://electrical-riddles.com/category.php?lang=en&cat=7


----------



## sunkist (Apr 27, 2012)

We got a couple of guys here that can answer your queston, ones out working the other is out taking pictures, hold tight some one will be by soon.


----------



## GettingBy (Aug 19, 2010)

sunkist said:


> We got a couple of guys here that can answer your queston, ones out working the other is out taking pictures, hold tight some one will be by soon.


I think the OP is playing
http://www.ericberne.com/games-people-play/why-dont-you-yes-but/


----------



## klintala (Aug 2, 2014)

90 degree angles are fine, just make them more of a quarter loop, not a squared 90.
Their is some formula where you use the radius of the cable and get a minimum bend radius that is acceptable for grounding. I can't tell you what that is though.

Are you planning on grounding the satellite itself or just the lines?

I'm not too familiar with satalite but I know that broadband companies typically require you to run your drop to the service panel and ground it there. That sometimes requires you to wrap cable lines all the way around your house. You should end up with a very short ground at that point, however I think the max length is 10'. 

It seems like they change their rules every two weeks and are always in debates with the elecrical companies. Last I heard grounding to the braid by the service panel is your first choice, then a strap on the service side, then a strap on the HO side, then a clamp on the box.

If you want to ground your satalite itself, you might just want to run a line straight into the ground. 
If you want to ground your lines see if you can run to the service panel first and shoot inside from there.


----------

