Does an outdoor TV antenna mounted on a regular 7 ft steel fence pole need further grounding. (It works fine for local stations).
In other words, the steel pole is about a foot into the soil, and the antenna is bolted to it. (There's also a guy wire for stability).
This should bleed builtup charges to the ground, right?
This should bleed a lightening strike to the ground, right?
If more grounding is needed, how should it be done?
If all it takes for an adequate lightning protection ground is a steel pole a foot in the ground, why is everyone else using real ground rods? I'm surprised a pole a foot in the ground can even support the antenna.
If it were my install, it would have a proper ground on the mast, as well as a lightning arrestor with ground where the cable enters the building.
Lightening strikes are too big to bleed. If lightening did hit something like that,I think it would melt into a puddle. :)
Your first qustion was on target, bleeding charges to the ground, or call it, dispersing them to the ground. At any rate, it's too keep something from attracting the lightening by being the opposite charge (positive, I guess).
Otherwise the lightening rods on barns and houses would't work. They are to thin and the wires going to them are too thin to carry even a small lightening bolt.
That's what they say, at least. I don't really understand all of this.
Your pole is fine. But the problem would be the antenna elements, which are insulated from the pole, right? Whether you are using cabel or flat lead, there are lightening arrestors made for it, and I think you need at least one, and maybe one at each end of the cable, the mast and just before the house.
No matter what you do, in the unlikely event that lightning does strike the pole/antenna it will likely be destroyed or severely damaged, along with the cable and TV set. Good grounding and lightning arrestors do give some protection from nearby strikes, which otherwise can be very damaging.
Don Young
fence pole
Proper TV antenna grounding procedures can be found on this page
Oops. Lightning! I've wondered about the spelling for a year or two. Maybe I'll remember now.
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