I got sick of paying cable so i cut the cord. I picked up a Clearstream 2V for really cheap and i have had very good results with it. I am pulling in more channels than i really should be. But i am wondering if i should ground the j mount i have read so many different things about grounding. From you have to ground it to the electric meter to you dont need to ground the pole just the cable via cable ground block unless you actually have a mast in the ground. What would DIY do?
>>899279
Unless it gets hit by lightning, which is very doubtful, you don't 'have' to do shit.
>>899281
Someone told me that even if i did ground the mast and it got hit by lighting that even 6-8 AWG ground wire would turn molten and possibly catch shingles on fire. He told me to rout it though electrical conduit to keep it from catching the roof on fire. So it sounds like im fucked either way so i think im just gonna skip grounding the mount.
>>899288
if lightning strikes your antennae it will be worse on your house than if it was earthed with a 6-8 AWG ground wire
>>899291
Can i just ground to a single 8 foot grounding rod or do i need to use 2 or more and link them together?
>>899279
I grounded my antenna using a frayed extension cord someone gifted me tied to a 8ft steel rod driven into the ground.
I was told that grounding an antenna may improve reception as well by bleeding off static charge? I don't remember the exact details.
Don't go crazy, a basic setup is good enough.
Local laws may vary. Where I live they are supposed to be grounded. I have never yet seen one that is.
Grounding is not so much for lighting protection as it is for seeing that when you touch the thing wile you are on the roof you don't cop any voltage and fall off the roof or worse. Some voltage was very common between the antenna socket of a TV and ground as the hot and cold side of the smps were coupled with high value resistors and some HV ceramic capacitors. This leads to some voltage but once loaded it is pulled down easily. I believe these parts are fitted to drain super high voltages that may otherwise build up and arc over.
>>899313
>I was told that grounding an antenna may improve reception as well by bleeding off static charge?
OP here, i am grounding the cable via a grounding block I think this is what gets rid of the static. Grounding the pole the antenna is on is another thing all together i think it's just for lighting strikes????
This weekend im going to put 2 of these antennas on the house. One for the living room and one in the back for the bedroom. I figured it would be easier to run 2 antennas than try to run cable and worry about signal loss from all the cable. And i picked them up on jetdotcom for $56 each which is almost half the price of walmart.
I will probably eventually ground the mast but for right now i just want to get the damn things permanently mounted on the roof.
Thanks.
if it's getting what channels you want then don't bother grounding it.
I worked in this industry for 15 years and people that have you do all this work for minute improvements to performance are such cancer.
They will spend thousands of dollars on things just to say they have one more lumen or milliamp on paper.
As far as lighting goes there is no real way to channel lightning. It will go where it wants how it wants.
I've seen racks of equipment get hit and only a couple of pieces go bad despite all sharing the same plug or connection.
I once had a house get struck on the roof, it traveled down to the bedroom and picked up a 19" tv and threw it across the room. The VCR that was hooked up to it and shared the same outlet was fine.
People who say you can harness lightning should be shot.
>>899338
lol thanks for the info
>>899279
You could always out in your attic? I did that at an old house and it worked fine. Then I moved farther from the city and just put in on a lawn chair outback ND have been fine. Also same exact antenna as in your pic.
I worked for Aci or a few years. I was a shitty tech. I once hooked this up as a ground connection. Cheap assessment didn't give us grounding clamps.
I'm kinda jealous though, they stopped sending tv signals through the air years ago making portable tv's a dead market.
>>899588
The signals didn't stop they just switched to digital. You need a digital converter box if you have an analog TV to view over the air signals, on new TVs you just plug in the antenna and scan for channels.
>>899588
This
>>899609
I grew up in the 80's and we had a antenna and i remember channels coming in fuzzy and looking like shit. I have not used an antenna in many years but after getting a new digital antenna the reception is fucking amazing. I live in a rural area but i can still pull in 22 channels using the ClearStream 2V. If i wanted to spend a bunch of money on high end stuff i could pull in more.
>>899279
You don't need to ground antennas, just put a lightning rod slightly higher on your roof and ground it. Mine is a home-made weather vane.
>>899338
My grandma got struck by lightning via her kitchen sink. Fucking triggered.
Check the ground around your electric meter or wherever the electric feed enters your house. There might already be a grounding rod in place you can tap in to.
Pic related : thin wire attaching the devices are all attached to the grounding rod.
>>901773
God cable techs are always such pieces of shit.
