Proper Grounding with Wing Dish

[Todd Nicholson]

Hi,

I have a single 722 with two dishes 110/119 and 129. I've had E* for almost a year and a half, and I just noticed from being up on the roof that my system does not seem to be grounded properly. There is a ground running from the grounding block to my house ground, but no ground running from the dish to the grounding block. The RG6 used to connect the dishes doesn't have a messenger ground either. I wanted to run a ground wire from the dishes to the grounding block, but since there are two dishes, how is that accomplished. Do I just run a ground from one dish to the grounding block (and that will ground both dishes) or do I run a ground from the first dish to the second dish, then to the grounding block? I searched, and while there is info about grounding, I couldn't find anything about grounding with a wing dish in the mix.

Thanks for your help.

Todd

 

[Haysoos]

You'll need 2 ground lugs, 1 for each mount. Dual insertion lug is needed on the main dish. Take 10awg ground wire from the lug of the wing dish into the dual lug on the main dish.
Take 6awg ground wire (same size as messenger) from the other side of dual ground lug to ground block then 10awg from ground block to ground strap/clamp/whatever your bonding device is.

It's a good idea to scratch some of the paint off the mast where you are putting the lug as well. Also, according to Dish Network installation guidelines, you need to use solid copper rather than stranded.

Hope this helps.

 

[Todd Nicholson]

Thanks for the input. That's what I was thinking and you've verified that.

Todd

 

[the mack]

Take 6awg ground wire (same size as messenger) from the other side of dual ground lug to ground block then 10awg from ground block to ground strap/clamp/whatever your bonding device is.

.

6 gauge is huge, and I have never seen a messenger wire even close to that except on rg11 which was 10 gauge at the most.
the messenger on my dish install looks like 14 gauge.

 

[Haysoos]

I thought I had typed 16, but that's not even right. It looks like most messenger on RG-6 is 18. Ya, you don't need 6. Thanks for catching that.

 

[rglore]

I think it's actually 17 gauge.

 

[Todd Nicholson]

Well, I used 10 for everthing, and it worked fine I must say that I see an improvement in picture quality. I could always see "noise" in the picture, especially when there were large swaths of solid colors in the picture. This seems to be completely gone now that my system is properly grounded.

 

[dodge]

grounding the dish should not give you an improvement in picture grounding is for lightning protection and a drain for static build up.

 

[scoobyxj]

grounding the dish should not give you an improvement in picture grounding is for lightning protection and a drain for static build up.

Lightning protection. I still think that's funny! Grounding a system properly will in fact help with picture improvement in certain cases.

 

[dvrexpander]

Lightning protection. I still think that's funny! Grounding a system properly will in fact help with picture improvement in certain cases.

I've only seen one dish ever hit by lightning and it heated it up so much it bent in slightly like a taco throwing off the signal by 30points. Grounding will not help with the picture either not sure where your getting that idea. Grounding is good to do for static but its not a requirement unless a NEC ground is nearby which I believe is 20feet. Dish's standards of grounding is beyond stupid anyway, they would rather you run a 10ga green wire along a copper pipe to a perfectly good incoming ground pipe than just use that pipe or not even hook it to one at all.

10gauge from the block to the grounding point yet we have 16along the double or single wire to the mast/pole - makes no sense to me why the ground block to grounding point can't be just as small. I've had to run so many new lines cause of that stupid rule when there is a perfectly good smaller wire running to a perfectly good ground point.

 

[dadeaton]

I've seen one dish that was hit by lightning as well. The messenger line was broken by the burn. Messed up the siding on the guy's house.

The answer to the grounding question doesn't always sense. I was told the other day that the messenger works in conjunction with the center conductor to form the actual gauge that is required for the dish to be grounded properly. This is why when running dual cable, both lines need to run to the ground block... hmm?!

 

[Jim5506]

Grounding will not protect you if lightning strikes but it will bleed off the build up of static electricity that attracts lightning, thusly reducing the probabilty of a strike.

You would need a very large braided copper cable to carry the voltage of a lightning strike to ground, and that still would not guarantee the connected electronics would not be fried.