How do I ground my RG6 from Dish service?

Im about to embark on finishing up my media area and I wanted to make sure my dish service was properly grounded. Since there is no ground wires anywhere on any dish equipment in or around my house, im guessing that it is NOT.

The coax enters the home on teh second story, and inside the wall where it goes in is my grounding block. I assume I would want to use this for grounding, but Im not sure how to do it properly. Can I hook up a wire to the ground on that and then go back to the outside and down the wall 30' or so to the rod that the telco used for grounding? If so, what size ground wire?

 

I'd think the proper way to do this is to install an intersystem grounding bar.

Arlington GB5-1 White Intersystem Zinc Grounding Bridge with Plastic Cover, 4-1/2-Inch - Amazon.com

 

I see. I don't quite follow how that helps me though. I have a direct path to the ground rod from my dish 'ground block', its just that its about 30' away. My meter and service entrance is on the opposite side of my house from my cable entrance....over 100' away.

 

As I recall, the NEC requires cable and satellite receiver systems and telephone systems all to be bonded to the electric service ground, this is why the intersystem ground block is now a code requirent. It's possible the dish installer may not have grounded his equipment properly, many of them know nothing about codes.

 

If you drive a rod near the dish you will still need to connect it the the ground for your electric service.

 

The telco's rod should have been bonded to the GEC at the service. Take a walk around and verify that there is no connection.

Most likely to do it right you are going to need 130' of 4 gauge copper to connect everything together.

From another forum -

 

It is always a good idea to bond together the various audio and video and telecom components in each grouping or room and bond them to ground. You can use a long 14 gauge bare or green wire (an equipment grounding conductor) daisy chained between the pieces, attached to the outer shell of a screw on (typical antenna coax) jack or a press on (RCA) jack, or to a screw that penetrates to the chassis of the equipment. Connect the far end to a known ground which can be the grouping of equipment in the next room if you already installed one such separately run EGC from there.

In your case, the separate EGC from the first piece of equipment to which the Dish service coax is attached (or its grouping) can be attached to the #4 or #6 copper wire (a grounding electrode conductor) connecting the ground rod at the far side of your house to your existing grounding electrode system* if you already installed that GEC, rather than go a longer distance to your panel.

Problems with equipment fried by power surges or incorrect wiring of cable TV or telco owned equipment are greatly reduced by installing the separate EGCs as I have described. A separately driven ground rod with no GEC to the rest of the grounding electrode system does not provide much protection.

* The "grounding electrode system" consists of the #6 or #4 ground wires (GECs) between your main panel neutral bus and ground rod(s) and/or cold water pipe together with the other items named in this sentence.

 

Ok...help me understand why i need to go through all this trouble with extra ground wires run all over the place when I have a functional ground system already built into the electric outlet the equipment is plugged into? That goes straight back to the panel in a daisy chained fashion and unless you have really crappy equipment, the metal case is already grounded internally to that.

I dont know if the telco ground rod has any copper wire connecting it to the electrical panel ground rod that is 150' away. I would bet not. I dont have phone service and the phone is disconnected in the box, so that ground rod is not in use and to run a bare copper wire from it to the other would require more than a little effort.

I just don't understand how a ground is not a ground. Everything is electrically tied back to the one ground at the meter. All romex wire has a copper ground and any serious equipment is three pronged (including the dish receiver) where the coax and dish are connected. That means its grounded does it not? Sorry for not understanding.

In other words, wouldn't it be a lot simpler to run a #6 stranded copper wire from the telco ground rod, up the wall, through the attic and then attach it to the giant ground lug where the rest of the grounds end up? That will electrically bond one rod to another via the main panel. From there, i can simply run a green ground from the coax grounding lug where it comes in and go straight to the telco ground lug...??