[TowerTalk] CATV & Phone grounds

[JC Smith]

It makes sense that all grounds be tied together, but a question is how?  If
you have all-copper plumbing in your house and all grounds are bonded to
that, are they all tied together?  My old antenna book shows a ground system
where everything is bonded together in a complete "circle" with ground wire.
The tower grounds tie in to the shack ground which ties into the utility
ground, which ties into the telephone ground, which (etc. etc.) and
eventually you end up tying back into the tower grounds, thus forming a loop
or circle of sorts (the picture shows it going around the house).  This
makes sense but in my case it isn't very practical as my tower (and its
ground system) will be in the back yard while all the other grounds are in
the front and there is continuous concrete slab all around the house to the
edge of the property on the sides.  My shack grounds are tied to my 100+
yard long copper water main, which is tied to my utility grounds, but it's
more of a straight line than a loop.  I can bring a ground wire back from
the tower and tie in with this series of grounds but the continuous loop
concept isn't really practical unless I run a long ground wire over concrete
and through the garage.

How important is it to have this looped ground as opposed to a linear series
of grounds all tied together, and is it OK to have copper plumbing as part
of the system?  Code, NEC or whatever probably says no because there is too
much plastic in modern plumbing, but assuming codes aren't a factor and you
know all your plumbing is copper?

Lots of good information on grounds, BTW.  Thanks to all participating.  We
may never reach a consensus but the educational process gives us all more
information from which to make our own decisions.

73 - JC, K0HPS


-----Original Message-----
From: towertalk-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com]On Behalf Of Jim Lux
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 7:55 AM
To: K4BEV at aol.com; towertalk at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] CATV & Phone grounds

At 07:10 AM 7/11/2006, K4BEV at aol.com wrote:
>
>In a message dated 7/11/2006 9:04:09 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
>jimlux at earthlink.net writes:
>
>And, for  both CATV and phone, their interest is in protecting *their*
>physical  plant, not yours.  You are the sacrificial element in their
>protection system.
>
>
>
>An interesting point.
>Does anyone know if the cable and phone companies are REQUIRED to tie their
>ground to the ground at the service entrance?


There's a general NEC requirement that all grounds have to be tied together.

>Mine are not.
>Several months ago my tower took a lightning hit and everything tied to the
>phone and cable lines was *killed*. I wonder if not having their grounds
>tied
>into the power co's is the reason.
>
>73, Don - K4BEV


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