Another thought, If your bonding ground wire runs near or past a water pipe in the basement, bond your bonding wire to the water pipe at that point. You could then also continue the bonding wire to the AC service ground electrode as defined.
Fred
Okay Fred thanks; that is a good idea about the water pipe; I had not thought of that before.
rob
Rob,
The reason to bond to a nearby water pipe is to prevent flash over to the pipe, even though the ground wire is on its way to the service ground.
After nearly 45 yrs in the antenna installation business I've seen many lightning strikes. Had one on a CB antenna that was grounded. The lightning followed the coax into the basement and flashed over to a water pipe that the coax ran near. It punched a hole in the pipe. I told the customer, I guess the water put the fire out. Just another example of a poor ground being worse than no ground.
I stopped driving ground rods into the ground at customer's homes probably over 30 yrs ago. I grounded the shield of the coax lead-in to the AC service ground. I did this by the easiest method that required the least amount of ground wire. The ground wire could be 12cu or 10al. If I ran that wire to the service ground, that was all I needed. But, if I ran the ground wire to a separate rod, I then had to bond that rod to the AC service ground with 6cu.
I would always try to mount the antenna above a location that was near the AC service. Or a location where I could pick up a water pipe to ground to. These ground connections could be outside or in the basement near where the coax would be running. Most often I didn't ground the mast, just the shield on the coax. If lightning hit the antenna it was going to run down the coax regardless, even if there was a ground wire running from the mast. Most all TV antennas have VHF elements that are insulated from the boom and mast. That was another reason to ground the coax shield more so than the mast. The outer shield of the coax has less inductance than a thin ground wire. Although, I did ground many masts wherever it was possible.
On high-rise and other commercial buildings, antennas where grounded to the nearest electrical metal conduit, usually inside the elevator room. On many flat roof buildings (like strip malls, one two stories) antennas were mounted right to the side of a roof air conditioner. This grounded the mast and I added a ground block on the coax which was screwed to the metal frame of the air conditioner. That was all the grounding that could be done.
On a flat roof, rule number one, never screw anything into the roof, it will leak. The roof air conditioner was the only other thing I had to work with. Over the years I mounted many antennas to air conditioners and never had a complaint.
Fred
