For a variety of reasons I have to place a roof tv antenna smack in
the middle of my roof and the ground wire has to run the most direct
course straight of the roof and straight down to the grounding rod.
the coax however has to run across the roof in a different direction
to the service entrance where it will be run through a grounding
block. So there will be 2 separate grounding rods sparated by about
60 feet. Will this cause anything like a ground loop??? Does anyone
know if this is code to have 2 different ground rods?? thanks for any
help. jk

On 7/29/2010 6:55 PM, wrote:
For a variety of reasons I have to place a roof tv antenna smack in
the middle of my roof and the ground wire has to run the most direct
course straight of the roof and straight down to the grounding rod.
the coax however has to run across the roof in a different direction
to the service entrance where it will be run through a grounding
block. So there will be 2 separate grounding rods sparated by about
60 feet. Will this cause anything like a ground loop??? Does anyone
know if this is code to have 2 different ground rods?? thanks for any
help. jk

I don't know what the code in your area would require, but the two
grounds in my area are required to be connected together and to the
house ground and to the cold water pipes. The idea is not to have
anything at a different potential when struck by lighting. If everything
is at the potential, nothing will be damaged or that is what is supposed
to happen. In my case my tower is 65 feet from my ham shack. The tower
is grounded with a ground rod to each tower leg. The feed-lines run into
the shack in a buried 4" plastic conduit. Along the outside of it is a
#6 copper wire connected to the tower which is ground along it's length
with 4 more ground rods. The #6 wire comes into the house and crosses
across the house to the entranced panel were it connects to the entrance
panel ground and along the way connects to the copper panel were the
lighting arrestors for the coax are located. The code inspectors loved
it. I would think that a wire from the ground rod that is connected to
mast to the entrance panel and to the house electrical panel ground
would be the thing for you to do. And no there is no problem with ground
loops. This ground is for lighting protection only and is of no use for
RF ground an it has too high of an impedance for RF.


John W3JXP