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Re: [TCML] Grounding Coil to Water Pipe



The dish itself only has a coax connecting it to any splitters thern to the 
receivers, and may not have to be grounded at all Does NEC cover altennas? What 
I've seen grounded are the splitters; not the antennas themselves.



----- Original Message ----
From: jimlux <jimlux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Tesla Coil Mailing List <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sun, August 29, 2010 5:04:33 PM
Subject: Re: [TCML] Grounding Coil to Water Pipe

Brandon Hendershot wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> I got DirecTV the other day and notice that the installer grounded
> the satellite dish to the protruding water pipe leading up to my
> garden hose. I'd never thought to ground there before!

And your installer may not have made a legal ground, in any case.  Cable TV and 
Satellite installers are *notorious* for bad grounds, both electrically and code 
compliance wise.

I can say with a fair amount of certainty that grounding the dish to a water 
pipe coming up from the ground, if there's no other bonding wires,  is NOT code 
compliant. (call your satellite company and/or your city code enforcement 
folks...)




But I've got a
> few things I'd like to run by you all before I try it there;
> 
> 1. The running water shouldn't be affected by the coil due to the
> 'skin effect' factor. It should limit the current only to the surface
> of the pipe, right?

Wrong.  You cannot depend on skin effect.  What if there is a partially 
insulating gap in the pipe (pipe tape/pipe dope)? What if there is a 60 Hz short 
(e.g. arc to the primary)..



2. The satellite ground should be disconnected
> before powering on the coil, right? Seems like a bad idea to pump
> thousands of volts into a satellite dish 

It's probably ok. even with the non-code ground.



;P 3. The pipe should
> provide sufficient RF ground, yeah?
> 
No.

> I've searched the list, but I didn't see anything particularly
> definitive on the subject...
> 
> P.S: The ground wire is actually leading up to the coaxial splitter
> looking thing. 

Actually, if they're doing it normally, there's a grounding block that the coax 
connects to that bonds the coax shield to the grounding system. The ground wire 
itself has to be solid copper, aluminum, or copper clad steel of a particular 
gauge.


http://www.mikeholt.com/documents/lowvoltage/pdf/LowVoltBook.pdf is based on the 
1999 code, but has all the data you need.



The thing that'll take the satellite output and split
> it up to the different recievers throughout the house. I dont know if
> it's a necessary part of the system or not, but if anybody knows
> anything about this, I'd sure like to know what you do.
> 
> Thanks everybody! Brandon _______________________________________________ Tesla 
>mailing list Tesla@xxxxxxxxxx http://www.pupman.com/mailman/listinfo/tesla
> 

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