Grounding for a Satellite Dish

[fharris770]

I have a satellite dish mounted on the roof of my two story home.  The coax cables run across the roof, behind a gutter, then down the outside of a drain spout.  They then run to a grounding block and finally into my house between basement and first floor and finally to the satellite receiver.

I want to reroute the cables from the dish into the attic and then down a chase to same area of basement, thus eliminating almost all of the outside cable run.  My problem is the guideline for grounding indicates you need to place the grounding block near where the cables first enter the structure.  Any suggestions would be very helpful.  I really want to avoid the cable runs outside, but don't see how I would "ground" the grounding block when it would logically be mounted under the eaves two stories above ground.  (The existing grounding block has a bare copper wire running to a ground stake close by.  Doesn't look like much of a ground itself.)  I believe the coax carries some volts.  Somewhere between 11DC and 19DC is what I have noticed in some literature.

I am also considering installing a roof top TV antenna on the roof.  I think this item would also need to be grounded. 

Any suggestions would really be appreciated!

[JP]

There are many opinions on grounding; I once attended a class in which the instructor made an argument that low voltage systems should not be grounded. His argument was that lightning looks for a path to ground and if there was no path it would look elsewhere. Low voltage grounding has been debated for a long time, but today most low voltage systems are grounded and it is possible for it to follow the path through the coax because most likely the T.V. is grounded.

If I was looking to properly ground an antenna or dish, I would run a minimum size #4 g cable as straight as possible directly to an 8ft ground rod sunk in the ground. That would give lightning a nice direct path to ground, but still would be no guarantee that your electronics would not be hit. High quality surge suppression is a must in my opinion. By the way in the for mentioned same class he recommended tying knots in the cords of your electrical cables that plug in the wall, I know that sounds nuts but he swore that in cases of a direct lighting hits it has blown out at the knot and not made it to the equipment. Having said that keep in mind that a direct lightning hit is much different that a surge.