Grounding/Earthing a Satellite Dish

Shinto

Hello everybody,

I live in Galway and intend to buy an 80cm Dish and Monoblock LNB to pick up Astra 19.2E and Hotbird 13E.

(I originally wanted to pick up french channels on Atlantic Bird 3 at 5W but found that i dont have a direct line of sight...Merde!...so ive settled for the other two satellites).

I will install it myself (god help me)...and wanted to know if it's really necessary to ground/earth the satellite dish? I've read that this is good for damage prevention from lightning and static build up. However, the fact that i live in Galway and not "lightning valley USA", is this really an important issue? Have you folks earthed/grounded your dishes?

Sparky

if you do earth your dish its more likely to attract lighting, where will the dish be mounted? on the ground or rooftop?

watty

Dish should be earthed but NEVER the LNB at dish. The LNB is insulated from Dish.

Earthing is recommended to aviod build up of static. Especially on a wooden building, mobile home or caravan. On a typical damp Irish brick/concrete wall it pretty much is well earthed.

It does not affect lighting risk. Unless your dish is 10ft above everybody elses TV aerials.

No part of screen of coax should earth at LNB end or touch dish.

watty

Dish should be earthed but NEVER the LNB at dish. The LNB is insulated from Dish.

Earthing is recommended to aviod build up of static. Especially on a wooden building, mobile home or caravan. On a typical damp Irish brick/concrete wall it pretty much is well earthed.

It does not affect lighting risk. Unless your dish is 10ft above everybody elses TV aerials.

No part of screen of coax should earth at LNB end or touch dish.

cormacl

I'm wondering if there is some mis-information here.. I'm getting the impression from posts here that you never ground the LNB feed, when in fact in the US, they do.

In the US, a grounding block is commonly used and it grounds both the LNB/diseqc cable AND dish at the same time.

The block has one or more female to female F-connectors.. so you connect each LNB/dish feed to it and then take another feed from the other side into the house to the receiver.

A separate ground wire is taken from each dish/mount to the very same grounding bracket and then a ground wire is ran from the grounding bracket to ground or to a suitablly grounded pipe.

So whatever about over here in Irish dampness.. in the US they do ground the dish and LNB feed at the same time and assuming the laws of physics are the same here as there.. if grounding, then do both.

just found a link here, which shows a picture and reiterates the need to ground both..
http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Installation/Grounding.htm

watty

They use 110V electricity in USA and quite different standards.

Here we use 220V 230V and regulations are different.

If grounding LNB do it at the Satellite box or else you will have mains hum, esp with two core flex boxes.

Ground the Dish if you like but not LNB.

NEVER copy any USA / Japan electrical practices in Europe.

Capt'n Midnight

watty wrote:

regulations are different.

Ground the Dish if you like but not LNB.

NEVER copy any USA / Japan electrical practices in Europe.

On the continent plugs are reversable in that they can be plugged in so Live and Neutral are interchangable. This means they use RCD's whereas we can use ELCB's to trip out when live current "goes missing". - so don't take German or Continental stuff as gospel either. Also most new homes have Protective Multiple Earthing (PME) where Neutral is connected to earth. Older ones may not.

The long and short of this is don't Ground your satellite to the Earth socket either tempting as it may be.

Shinto

Thanks for the advice everyone...

Sparky S....ill be putting the dish up on top of my Garage roof by mounting it to a concrete wall (most likely to be damp...im in Galway after all!). So its not a prime lightning targtet as it will be elevated at only half the height of the house. Also, being a semi-detached regular suburban house, it will be kind of cuckooned on my garage roof between the gable-end of my house and the gable-end of the neighbours house.

Cormacl....i had already read that hyperlink you posted and that was one of the reasons why i asked the question, as it seemed like an important issue from that website.

Watty...good point about the USA using different technology and regulations.

Capt'n Midnight...ill heed your advice too.

Thanks folks.

Sparky

yeah i got confused by the information also, but i would of said here in ireland it does be wet so our dishes do get pretty much grounded to earth, whereas the likes of australia and the us in dry areas may need to ground their dishes.

watty

I'd only bother earthing the dish on a Timber frame / wooden building, Caravan or mobile home.

A good rule of thumb for any other electrical items is that if it has a terminal marked "Earth" or a three core flex, then Earth it. If it has NO "Earth" terminals at LNB, Box or mains cable, then don't add one.

Regarding Satellite in Europe
I have only seen Earth terminals on Dishs and ocassionally the very expensive obsolete boxes for C-Band analog with a gasillion connectors for polarisers, actuators, sensors etc on the back.

Most professional communication gear has an Earth connection, best connected with less than 6ft of wire to a spike buried in Ground. NOt for safety but to improve reception. These are best disconnected from Aerials (as are TVs) when Thunderstrom approaches.
If in doubt read the manual!