Need Help

[ralfyguy]

In order to see 61.5, I need to move my dish from the back of the house to the front. The grounding rod is in the back. The house is about 38ft long. The grounding block is also in the back, right next to the grounding rod. The receiver is in the front of the house, so there is already a 38ft cable run from the block to the receiver. Should I run the new coax from the dish straight to the receiver under the house, put a block on the front of the house and then run a grounding wire to the rod in the back, or leave the block in the back and run a wire to it? Or run the coax AND the grounding wire to the back and hook it to the block there? This would mean the coax runs would add up to about 80 feet.
Which way would you guys suggest is the best way to prevent connection issues?

 

[garys]

Proper coax has no problems with runs over 200 ft. Doing either should work, do what makes you most comfortable.

 

[8bitbytes]

You could hammer another grounding rod into the ground out front and ground your dish that way.

 

[ralfyguy]

You could hammer another grounding rod into the ground out front and ground your dish that way.

Thought of that, but heard it's supposed to cause problems with two main ground rods for one house. Don't know where I heard that before..

 

[8bitbytes]

Thought of that, but heard it's supposed to cause problems with two main ground rods for one house. Don't know where I heard that before..

Shouldn't be a problem if only the dish is grounded to it.

 

[WiCkeDuDe]

Thought of that, but heard it's supposed to cause problems with two main ground rods for one house. Don't know where I heard that before..

Having 2 rods can create a potential. You can do this route but you are supposed to then tie the 2 rods together with I think 6 guage. Kinda defeats the purpose in your case, but the point of all grounding is to be grounded to one central point.

 

[Van]

New houses in Michigan have multiple ground rods next to each other, not sure what the new regs are for other states. If the ground wire ends up being longer than the coax run to the receiver then lightning will take the shortest patch to ground so I'd just run the coax under the house to the existing ground block and call it good, you'll need to ground the dish as well if you want to meet NEC requirements.

 

[ralfyguy]

New houses in Michigan have multiple ground rods next to each other, not sure what the new regs are for other states. If the ground wire ends up being longer than the coax run to the receiver then lightning will take the shortest patch to ground so I'd just run the coax under the house to the existing ground block and call it good, you'll need to ground the dish as well if you want to meet NEC requirements.

That's what I thought of doing. So if I just run a double coax with ground wire, 38ft from the front of the house to the back, hook everything to the ground block, and then the existing coax runs from the back to front to the receiver, it should be fine? Sorry just don't wanna do the work for nothing, if it turns out being wrong.

 

[Scott6760]

So you already have a dish in the back of the house, and it's grounded? What do you plan on using for switches and LNB's? If you put up a Dish500/300 with a DPDual for 61.5 out front and run a single coax with 17awg messenger from that to your existing Dish with a DPP Twin LNB you will be fine.

 

[osu1991]

Ralfy, are you having problems with 129 or just preparing for a certain set of hd locals that might be launching on 61.5 soon.

 

[ralfyguy]

Ralfy, are you having problems with 129 or just preparing for a certain set of hd locals that might be launching on 61.5 soon.

Preparations for the new service that is discussed in the pub section.
I don't konw yet what dish to use, have a 1000.2 in the back right now, but can't see 61.5 form there, so i would have to move the dish to the front of the for an unobstructed view. I just wondered, if I can use the existing cable from the grounding block to the receiver, which are located on the opposite sides of the house, which is 38ft in length. So I just wasn't sure of how much more coax I can use from the new dish location to the existing grounding block. In this case the new location of the dish would be also about 38ft away from the grounding block and grounding rod. I am not an installer, and don't do this every day. I just wanted to get advice form people that have the necessary experience. I hate learning things the hard way. I like to do my homework first before I touch things. And I also hate to find out, that i only did half-a$$ work, just because I didn't know better. even I am not a pro, I want to get educated and then do it exactly as a pro would have done it.
Last year we had that bad ice storm and ripped my main electrical box off the
wall and I was out of power for more than a week. Electricians were fixing stuff around the clock, and I couldn't get any of them to work on my house. Well power was restored to the poles after several days, but I was still in the dark. So I took matters in my own hand, got myself educated and put a completely new main electrical outfit on my house by myself. I was desperate to get power back into my house. I was done, and the inspector came out and looked at the whole thing. He asked me which company did the install, and I said I did it myself. He gave me the thumbs up and pad on my shoulder
and told the guys to connect me back to the transformer pole. Nvere done this work before.

 

[osu1991]

I know a lot of people that had to do that, most didn't prepare themselves like you did. I never really used my engineering degree but watching and helping my dad, who was an electrical engineer for over 30 years, while growing up has saved me several times. The thought about that area of the arc occurred to me also. I'm sure you'll have no problems from the posts about your other dish and antenna. I hope your not planning on it this weekend, I stopped working on claims early today because of the wind and windchill. Looks like a lot of rain and a little snow for the coming days.

 

[ralfyguy]

I know a lot of people that had to do that, most didn't prepare themselves like you did. I never really used my engineering degree but watching and helping my dad, who was an electrical engineer for over 30 years, while growing up has saved me several times. The thought about that area of the arc occurred to me also. I'm sure you'll have no problems from the posts about your other dish and antenna. I hope your not planning on it this weekend, I stopped working on claims early today because of the wind and windchill. Looks like a lot of rain and a little snow for the coming days.

No I am not going to that this weekend. In fact I'll wait until it's actually happening, and again try to learn from the installers how to do it the best way. This thread was mainly about the basic wiring in my case. This will be months down the road. I need to actuall get out and rig up something temporarly to see how the LOS for 61.5 works out for me, as I still have to aim up the neighbor's roof. The houses in my neighborhood are parallell and only 4ft apart. Built in 1915.

 

[ralfyguy]

Well I rigged up a D500 with a DP Dual, aimed at 61.5 and connected it to my 622. I got a signal around 62. Problem is, only tuner 2 checked out in check switch menu. Does a DP Dual not work with seperators?

 

[Miner]

Well I rigged up a D500 with a DP Dual, aimed at 61.5 and connected it to my 622. I got a signal around 62. Problem is, only tuner 2 checked out in check switch menu. Does a DP Dual not work with seperators?

Ralfyguy,

I don't believe it does.

Miner

 

[ralfyguy]

So does that mean for the other tuner it would require another cable run?

 

[osu1991]

Yep need another cable. The separators only work with the Dish Pro Plus lnbs and switches. I may be mistaken but didn't you put up a 1000.2 dish, if so you could run the 61.5 cable into the lnb in port on the 1k2 lnb.

 

[ralfyguy]

Yep need another cable. The separators only work with the Dish Pro Plus lnbs and switches. I may be mistaken but didn't you put up a 1000.2 dish, if so you could run the 61.5 cable into the lnb in port on the 1k2 lnb.

Well I wanted to try to see 61.5. So I dug out that old D500 and an old DP Dual, disconnected the 1000.2 and hooked up the D500 only. It worked, but only on one tuner. I don't know if it would work to connect the 61.5 to the 1000.2 input, as the receiver will get confused with the HD channels that are mirrored with the same channel numbers. BTW the DP Dual had some LNB drift of -6.