Appreciate your answer. I had seen advice before but none said exactly by the power meter. I thought they meant near the main fuse boxes in the house. I found the ground connection there. The problem now is that it's exactly on the opposite side of the house and carport (in the middle of our yard) from where I wanted to put the antenna. Really only one TV is important for that antenna so I planned on putting it on a mid level porch near it. Unless I put the antenna on the roof the house will block the most important direction it needs to face. That would also be a much more complicated installation. Can I tap into other things connected to that ground or does it have to be a dedicated connection? Thanks
You can build a grounding post. It's just a copper post driven into the ground. Well, it's not that simple because it has to extend below the frost line and not contact or damage the other utility systems buried in your yard.
I'm not an electrician but those are 2 things I can caution. Your best bet is to hire a certified electrician because they'd have all the answers.
You'd also have to consider any future insurance claims if lightening did strike your antenna and destroys equipment and appliances in your home due to being improperly grounded.
Where I live within 2 feet you hit rock so putting in one of those posts would be quite an undertaking. The house electronics are already grounded to that outside pole but an antenna needs to have it's own separate wire going the ground on that pole? For example, the Cox Cable internet/TV connection is grounded on that pole. Aren't they all still interconnected?
The house electronics are already grounded to that outside pole
What outside pole...the public-utility pole? Your house has its own ground near your power meter. Utility poles have an earth ground to discharge lightening. Your house is not grounded to the utility pole.
There's a lot of metal atop of utility poles and that elevated metal can create a hazard by potentially attracting lightening. If lightening strikes a pole, the surge will discharge at the utility pole via its ground...and not through the electrical coaxial cable you're connecting from the pole to your house. The ground at the pole is only providing an easier path for the lightening to discharge.
By creating the hazard in the first place, the utility companies are only protecting your house from lightening strikes at the poles. That's why they gave you a "heads up" about the other end of that coaxial cable being grounded at the pole.
Houses don't normally get struck by lightening...unless there's a metal object on top of them (weather vane, metal chimney, antenna, etc). The reason to ground those things is to keep the discharge away from your home wiring system. You keep it away by providing an easier path for the discharge to flow into the earth.
You don't want to be "interconnecting" earth grounds...or safety grounds...with electronic grounds. Electronic grounds are used to make your electrical appliances work. Safety grounds, on the other hand, are used to dissipate damaging electricity. You don't want to interconnect or mesh these conductors together because you wouldn't know what path the damaging discharge would take. Discharge it into the earth as opposed to daisy-chaining throughout your household.
By the way, thanks for your replies you clearly know tons more about this area than I do.
"What outside pole...the public-utility pole? Your house has its own ground near your power meter. ". The pole I'm talking about is the small one with our power meter on it in our yard by the south side of the house. There's a ground wire at the bottom of it. Cox Cable's coaxial cable ground shield is connected to that ground wire. Their cable then goes the entire width of the carport and house into the north side of the house which is where I wanted to put the antenna. I didn't plan on putting it on top of the house by the way. I was going to put it midway up on the side of the house at the end of the porch. It needs to face that direction to pick up the channel I really need. So my options seem to be 1)run a very long ground wire (ca 150 feet) to the house ground by the electric meter. 2) Put the antenna close to the house ground on our pole and run a very long coaxial cable from it to the other side of the house (loosing signal) or 3) bury a ground rod (I guess horizontally) since there's no way I could penetrate the rock 2 feet below the surface.
