9000 Lightning strikes last night! ? on grounding

[delta_charlie]

Hi all, we had one heck of a thunderstorm last night with over 9000 lightning strikes. Needless to say it got me thinking about my crazy grounding situation.

The problem starts with the old wiring in the house - it only has two conductors for each power outlet. As modern electronic equipment was added that required a ground pin in the power outlet I added a ground rod just out side of the outlet and hooked it up to the ground pin on the outlet.

Then Dish installed two dishes and put down a ground rod for that.

Then I added some FTA dishes and more ground rods.

As it stands right now I have 5 ground rods - lets call it ground loop city ;-)

Trying to shore up the grounding about 3 weeks ago I added a thick sold steel galvanized ground wire hooking up two of the FTA dishes that's up on two different masts to the ground rod that is near the breaker box at the back of the house. Then this morning I added a 16 gage wire to the remaining ground rods so as it stands now they are all hooked together and all have a connection to the rod at the back of the house where the power lines come in.

I would really like to use much thicker wire to lash everything together but the cost of copper grounding wire is way up there. When I add up the distance between all the rods it is over 200 feet. That would cost more then a new HD FTA receiver!

I'm looking for input on what is the best (cheap) way to try and improve my loop city. Is hooking all the ground rods together the best approach?

On a side note - two of the FTA dishes are on masts that run down about 5 feet into the ground so the way I see it these would also add to loop city.

Any thoughts on a cheaper replacement for solid copper ground wire? Aluminum power cable? Source?

Thanks for any input, DC

 

[bubba108]

Dang, looks like you got it going on there with the ground situation. One thing about grounding , it will help with static discharges and nearby lightning strikes. But NOTHING will protect against a direct hit. If I see a bad one headed my way, I disco everything, scanners, ham radios, TV OTA antennas and all sat dishes. Got everything setup for quick disconnects.

 

[delta_charlie]

Dang, looks like you got it going on there with the ground situation. One thing about grounding , it will help with static discharges and nearby lightning strikes. But NOTHING will protect against a direct hit. If I see a bad one headed my way, I disco everything, scanners, ham radios, TV OTA antennas and all sat dishes. Got everything setup for quick disconnects.

Hi Bubba, thanks for the reply. I used to try and disconnect stuff but it is so interconnected - tv hooked up to the Dish receiver and it is hooked up to the phone line and it is hooked up the broadband internet cable and on and on.

About the best that I can hope for if I get a direct hit is most likely it will hit the BUD as it is the highest and with some luck not set the house on fire. The BUD is well grounded as the mast goes into the ground about 5 feet and it is hooked up to two 8 foot ground rods.

About all I can do is keep my fingers crossed and make sure the home owner insurance is paid up.

PS - I sure would feel better about it if I could come up with about 200 feet of 4 gage grounding wire to lash all the ground rods together. Don't want to use copper due to the cost and some bum would steal it anyways. There must be something else that could be used.

Got to run, DC

 

[bubba108]

Before I started disconnecting everything, I would whine and cry like a 4 yr. old and hide in the closet during storms. If you want to really to be able to laugh at nearby strikes, if possible, disco all equipment. I've had lightning shoot out of a hard wired phone and leave it a melted mess. And that was with professional grounding by the phone guys.
Microprocessors are so sensitive that almost any extra voltage will fry them. But you have done a great grounding job already, I've got a ton of ham radios etc. and wish I was that well grounded. :up