Grounding TV Cable

sweaty

In my house, built in 1976, the cable is grounded to a clamp on the meter cabinet. I have no ground rods. Is this OK?

In my rental house, the cable is grounded to a hose bibb. The house was built in 1977, but I replaced the old Federal Pacific panel with a Sq. D Homeline 4 years ago and have a couple ground rods. How is this set-up?

Ash

The necessity of rods etc depends on the house electrical setup and is not related to the tv cable

The tv cable may or needs (i dont know how it is there) ground. The panel is sure a good ground source. The pipes may be only if they are connected in turn to the panel ground but not otherwise (two different grounds in one home is bad)




Edit : Only now understood the question

TazinCR

Do they still ground the cable coming to the house. I don't remember seeing one for a long time.

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petey_c

Newer panels/services are required (in most areas of the US) to have one of the following: 2 ground rods connected by the properly sized ground wire (I usually use #4 bare copper for most services I do...) to the panel. Some areas will allow you to run the ground wire from one rod to the next and into the panel, others want an independant path from each rod to the panel.
1 ground rod and a "water" ground, connected to the "street side" of the water meter/shut off valve. (They may also want you to provide a "jumper" from one side of the water meter/shut off, to the other. Sometimes, due to rubber gaskets and such, there really isn't a good electrical connection from one side to the other. This way, should the interior plumbing system become accidentally energized, it won't stay that way.) pete

fburke

Cable TV should be grounded to the house “common ground” such as a cold water pipe, meter pan or common ground rod… not it’s own ground rod

Multiple grounding sources can actually disrupt the grounding field and cancel each other out and leave you ungrounded.

chris75

grounding field? and cancel each other out? Not sure about any of that but...

CATV and TEL systems get grounded to prevent and difference of potential voltages, thats why they need to be bonded to the electrical systems grounding.

fburke

Think of a ground field like the ring a small stone makes when tossed into a calm lake…now toss another stone right next to it…what happens to the ring? The waves bounce off of each other so instead of getting a nice circulator motion moving away from where you threw the first stone you get other types of disturbances….a ground dissipates electrical energy in much the same away

handyman78

Where I live near Phila, PA, my cable (Comcast) and phone lines (Verizon) were both placed by the company installers when the house was built. Both have seperate ground rods, neither is connected to anything else.

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theatretch85

This issue should be corrected! With a difference in potential between the ground on the CATV, Phone and Power this is a very dangerous situation. Also you run the risk of destroying your TV, phone, computer, etc with any high voltage event (like a lighting strike). With out these services being grounded together and at the same potential, if there is ever a fault upstream on your cable or phone line you run the risk of being the human component that completes the circuit when you go to hook up that new LCD tv in the living room.

If your services all enter the house on the same side/area this should not be too difficult, run a bonding wire between all three grounding rods (I am assuming your electric service has its own ground rod in addition to your cable and phone).

chris75

So how does that relate to the NEC?

JohnJ0906

What did they teach you in engineering school?!?

Please look up 250.4(A)(1 through 5)

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