4 foot ground rod dish approved ???

vern

Active SatelliteGuys Member
Original poster
Aug 19, 2008
18
0
i was on a retail sight. they sold a copper 4 foot ground rod. says approved for direct t.v. and dish network.
whats the deal guys...right or wrong ???
 
I suppose it'll all depend on how good the soil is in your area whether the need for 8' or one I never heard of 4'... if I remember right to get down dirty techie whatever it takes to get to 25 ohms or less.

My guess is someone is just being cheap on the copper buying 8' rods cutting them in half.
 
4' ground rods are not NEC approved. Doesn't matter what DISH or DirecTV likes. NFPA says you can't use anything less than 8'.

I'm sure they're approved as a spike for holding down a tripod, that's about it.
 
I remember back in the day, guys would use those things all the time. They would put the Dish where ever they wanted, put the ground block where ever, and drive a 4' ground rod in right next to where the ground block was. Then all it took was a short length of copper 10ga between the rod and the ground block. I still don't know if that was ever a legal ground, as I know it was not since I started installin.

Thing is if I go out to an install now, how do I know that ground rod is not bonded?
 
4' copper grounding rods are sold in VA or MD. Can't remember just where I bought the 2 I have.
 
I suppose it'll all depend on how good the soil is in your area whether the need for 8' or one I never heard of 4'... if I remember right to get down dirty techie whatever it takes to get to 25 ohms or less.

My guess is someone is just being cheap on the copper buying 8' rods cutting them in half.


Interesting--25 ohms from where to where?
 
Drive a rod 4 feet into solid ground and who is ever going to know it isn't 8 feet down there?:p
 
If the problem you are trying to solve is that an installer will not install your system due to no available ground, go with what has been said here, more than likely your tech will be happy that there is a ground rod, and that he can pass a QAS because the system looks grounded. If you want your system to be properly grounded, search for more threads on grounding throughout this site as there are plenty of them, more than likely that 4' ground rod by itself will not be sufficient either legally or effectively.
 
Interesting--25 ohms from where to where?

It's the resistance in the soil itself. Some areas have higher resistance, I can say in the Detroit area their is higher resistance in the soil you need 2 ground rods 6' apart at the meter base.

Down where I'm at now in the hill country of texas it's good soil, you only need 1 ground rod... so that's how they do it here. At the same token in the county that I'm in there is no electric code inspectors, people do whatever they want.

From what I was taught there is a meter to measure the resistance in the soil, I have yet to see one hands on... just what I was taught 25 ohms or less come text book, been told some places you can drive in 20 rods and never achieve 25 ohms.

So maybe if one really wanted to prove something they could get a hand on one of those meters and show the code politicians they could get away with a 4' rod ?
 
I just went through all this because my dishes will be mounted so far from the electric service entrance in the house we're moving to soon.

DC resistance between one ground rod and the earth must be 25 Ohms or less. If it is more than 25 Ohms, a secondary ground rod must be installed. THe proper engineering design for a second ground rod, and a rule of thumb, is to install the second ground rod no closer to the first ground rod than the length of the ground rods themselves. (8 ft ground rods = 8 feet apart). They can be as far a way from each other as you want, so long as they are bonded together.

The equipment needed to accurately measure a ground rod's resistance is expensive and time consuming to set up. It's far easier to install two ground rods if there is any doubt about the soil conditions.

I drove another 8 foot copper grounding rod. I dug 125 feet of shallow trench to bury a #6 copper wire running between that new rod and the main house electrical grounding rod. The house was totally rewired. All new electrical wiring, new service, new ground rod, etc so I had the phone installer reground their interface box to the new ground and he was more than happy to do so.

I spoke to a master electrician who said this about what I had done, "I'm glad to see that you knew enough to bond your ground rod to the main electrical service ground rod. You are way ahead of most custom installers in understanding this. Many hours have been spent, by many people, trying to figure out why they are getting audio hum or rolling bars on a video display because of improperly grounded & bonded telephone, CATV, satellite, and antenna cabling."

I did a lot of reading, looking for an easier way. In the end, doing it the RIGHT way won.

Keep in mind that your dish receivers are connected to electrical, phone, and (in many cases) antenna. All these systems have to share a common ground (no pun intended) and simply driving a 4 foot rod wherever is convenient is not the right way to do this.
 
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