I just had my electrician mount a diamond discone antenna on my roof and he grounded it for me. He said he read somewhere that I should also have a lightning arrester attached to it. Does anyone have any experience with this? Also, since the lightning arrester would go attached to the coax, I would have to buy another short piece of coax I am assuming to connect both sides
Lightning arrester
- Thread starter Baronimj
- Start date
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
Yes, National Electric Code requires a lightning arrestor. It should be mounted at the point where the coaxial cable enters your home. It will need a direct connection to the ground rod.
I also have a Diamond discone. If you have the NJ model, I recommend the Polyphaser DT-NFF
It has type N input and output so no need for adapters. and is DC-3GHz. Best of all, it is less than $100 US.
I don’t recommend buying used, because you don’t know if it took a hit.
My coax goes into a weatherproof enclosure on the side of the house, and a short jumper goes through the wall into the house. If your electrician ‘grounded the antenna’ by adding a ground rod, it will have to be connected to the ground rod for your house wiring.
PolyPhaser is considered one of the best arrestors available.
It has type N input and output so no need for adapters. and is DC-3GHz. Best of all, it is less than $100 US.
I don’t recommend buying used, because you don’t know if it took a hit.
My coax goes into a weatherproof enclosure on the side of the house, and a short jumper goes through the wall into the house. If your electrician ‘grounded the antenna’ by adding a ground rod, it will have to be connected to the ground rod for your house wiring.
PolyPhaser is considered one of the best arrestors available.
You can see the cable enters the house right at the bottom of the antenna
Attachments
Where is it grounded? Hopefully not to the house wiring. My coax runs down the gable, behind the siding, and out into the enclosure. The arrestor body is connected to a 8 foot copper clad ground rod with a heavy copper solid wire. This ground rod is connected to the main house ground around the side of the house. Not sure what would happen if the two grounds were not connected and lightning hit the antenna if it was not connected to the house ground but it is in the National Electric code.
Most electricians don’t have experience with antennas nowadays. He also said to ask about the size of wire because the code book said you can use #10 which is what he did. But he said the manual for the lightning arrester said the crimp is good for up to #6. I never thought mounting an antenna was so difficult.
It means whatever crimp came with the arrestor can be used up to size 6. But size 6 is much bigger than size 10.
Do you have to use a gas tube protector for discone? When i search it on Tessco website, it comes up under DC Pass Lightning Protector. I though I would need DC block protector.
Yup, I just bought the same lightning arrester. Having that installed this week. Thank you for the input.
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