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Jun 29, 2023

Using an outdoor antenna to pull in blacked

Outdoor antennas that aren’t properly installed can attract lightning into your home and start a fire. They can also indirectly attract voltage from nearby lightning strikes that can fry your TV and

Outdoor antennas that aren’t properly installed can attract lightning into your home and start a fire. They can also indirectly attract voltage from nearby lightning strikes that can fry your TV and other electronics, experts say.

DirecTV and U-verse customers might be tempted to buy an outdoor antenna to pull in Miami’s CBS affiliate, WFOR-Ch. 4. The channel has been blacked out on those systems since July 17 due to a dispute over programming fees. When the channel will return is anyone’s guess. Each entity has warned the dispute could last into the NFL season. Miami Dolphins games begin in September.

The most effective way to pull in all available local channels is to install an outdoor antenna, just like during the pre-cable days. Prices start at $20 online and at big-box retailers.

When antennas are installed correctly, grounding provides lightning or other electricity that enters the antenna with a safe, low-resistance path into the earth. According to the website antennajunkies.com, “Without this path, lightning will find another way to get to the earth [and] that could be through your antenna cable and/or even worse, your house.”

If lightning sends electricity into an outdoor antenna, the current has to go somewhere. If it’s not grounded, the current will follow its easiest available path — through the antenna’s coaxial cable, through the exterior wall of your house, then into your TV and possibly anything connected to it, such as a satellite receiver, DVR, stereo receiver, speakers, and onward.

Grounding won’t safely divert current that enters a house in the event of a rare direct lightning strike. Nothing can prevent havoc in that event, and every summer brings news reports of lightning striking homes through rooftop antennas. Whether they are grounded or not usually isn’t mentioned.

But antennas can also conduct current traveling through the air and ground from nearby lightning strikes. And as the lightning capital of the world, Florida is home to a lot of stray voltage looking for a way into your home.

“The voltage goes into the ground and can travel in a wave — like an earthquake — a quarter mile,” said Vinnie Burdo, chief electrical inspector for Hy-Byrd Inspections, a Lake Worth-based contractor that provides building inspection services for more than a dozen cities in Palm Beach County. The current can enter a home at 20 to 30 volts, he said, “enough to fry electronics or certainly mess them up.”

Outdoor antennas, whether large and gangly or compact and futuristic, “are all exposed to outside electricity, including lightning,” said Sandy Ross, owner of Miami-based installation company Antenna Systems. “I highly recommend that they be grounded.”

Why am I just finding out about grounding?

Warnings about the need to properly ground antennas typically won’t appear in online listings or product boxes, and they might not appear in the installation guide. What’s more common is for packages to include a separate sheet with proper grounding instructions, but that can easily be pushed aside during installation along with the warranty card, plastic wrappers and empty box.

Proper grounding means meeting requirements of the National Electrical Code, which most local governments require by ordinance. Unfortunately, doing it right can increase the price of that outdoor antenna well beyond $20 and the cost of coaxial cable.

Do-it-yourselfers can limit the additional cost to the price of necessary materials, including an antenna discharge unit (also called a grounding block), 10-gauge or thicker copper conduit to connect the antenna to the home’s main ground service, usually located near the home’s main utility service, and the clamps that bond the conduit to the antenna and ground service.

Those items can total as little as $20 to $30 depending on how much conduit is needed.

Numerous instruction sheets and videos are available online for the handy types. Others should consider hiring an electrician or experienced antenna installer, which could add $100 to $300 to the cost of the project.

Because it has to meet codes, legal installation in many cities technically requires the homeowner to obtain a permit and a follow-up inspection, said Todd Schepers, Margate’s chief electrical inspector. But while he’s aware of homeowners who have pulled permits for antennas mounted atop poles, he’s unaware of anyone pulling a permit for a roof- or house-mounted antenna, he said.

Different jurisdictions might have different requirements, so Schepers recommends installers call their local governments to find out what’s required.

Why choose an outdoor antenna?

Outdoor antennas have been making a comeback since 2009, when the major television stations in the U.S. completed the transition from analog to digital transmission. The switch made it possible for stations to transmit multiple digital channels over a single digital signal — significantly increasing the number of channels available free over-the-air.

Digital transmission also helped ignite the cord-cutting phenomenon. With local channels available for free via antenna, millions of consumers have opted to replace their expensive cable or satellite packages with less expensive streaming services, like Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime, or packages, such as YouTube TV, Sling, or DirecTV Now.

Capable of delivering television signals from 30 and more miles away, outdoor antennas are a smart hedge against large pay TV bills, system outages and blocked satellite signals.

Loyal DirecTV users can attach the coaxial cable from an outdoor antenna into their Genie receiver box, via the Local Channel Converter that DirecTV has been sending for free to customers affected by the CBS blackout. By following DirecTV’s onscreen installation procedure, channels received through the antenna will show up in DirecTV’s programming guide and can be paused and recorded just like satellite content.

Tips for properly grounding an outdoor antenna

Locate your house service ground wire. This should be near the electric meter or where power service enters the house. It should be a thick copper wire coming out of the ground.

Install the antenna near the house service ground wire to create as short a path as possible.

Install a grounding block (also called an antenna discharge unit) as close as possible to where the antenna coax enters the house.

Connect the coax from the antenna mast to the top of the grounding block (or antenna discharge unit.) Connect the coax that will enter the house to the bottom. Connect a 10-gauge or thicker copper wire to the bottom of the grounding block. Use a ground clamp to attach the other end to the house service ground wire.

Connect another 10-gauge or thicker copper wire to the bottom of the antenna mounting pole. Connect the other end of the copper wire to the house service ground wire, also using a ground clamp.

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