[kwlug-disc] Home made indoor TV Antenna

[William Park]

On Thu, May 01, 2014 at 10:15:08PM -0400, Paul Gallaway wrote:
> On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 4:14 PM, John Johnson <jvj at golden.net> wrote:
> > * I have not looked for these in recent years, but lightning
> > protection components on antenna cabling are mounted outdoors before
> > the cabling enters the building. These components provide a bypass,
> > or path to ground, for lightning induced surge voltages so that
> > these surge voltages are reduced at the antenna terminals of the
> > equipment inside the building.
> 
> You ground everything. The antenna, the mast and the shielding on the
> RG6 cable before it goes in the house. A surge protector doesn't hurt
> either.

What you do is 

    - ground the mast -- If the pole is buried 1m into ground, then
      that's automatic grounding.  But, it depends on the material of
      pole.  You can run a heavy copper wire along the length of pole,
      just in case.  If antenna is on the roof, then run a heavy copper
      wire between the mast and a grounding rod buried into the ground.

    - ground the outer shield of coaxial cable, as close to the antenna
      as possible -- Cut coaxial cable and splice them with "grounding
      connector" (which is just a inline splice with ground terminal
      added).  Run a heavy copper wire between the ground terminal of
      splice and the above grounding rod.