Surge Protect Satellite Lines

Why Surge Protect Satellite Systems?
Lightning surges can ride into a building on ungrounded and/or unprotected cable and phone lines entering or leaving the structure. Therefore, it should be a priority to surge protect and correctly ground all phone and cable company conductors that enter or leave a building. This includes surge protecting all phone or cable conductors as they leave and enter other buildings on the property. Whole home surge protection of any facility, however, starts by protecting all breaker panels. Protecting all systems with good quality surge suppression will pay for itself in short order, especially in moderate to high lightning areas. Surge protection and proper grounding of these pathways are absolutely needed for proper performance of the equipment it is feeding.
 
How to Correctly Protect Satellite Systems
• Count the number of coaxial satellite lines entering the structure and install a TPD-SAT2 on each incoming satellite line.
• Count the number of coaxial satellite lines leaving the structure and going to other parts of the property or campus and install a TPD-SAT2 on each outgoing satellite line.
• A TPD-SAT2 should also be installed on satellite coaxial cable lines as they leave and enter interconnected structures to maintain proper grounding and equipment protection inside each building. Extreme damage can occur when a satellite dish is installed in the yard, on a separate structure, or when grounded inadequately by not taking into consideration the distance between the satellite dish and the home’s service entrance.
• Protect satellite feeds and network connections that have wire runs over 300 feet even if they are contained within a single building. Long wire runs are susceptible to high levels of capacitance-coupled surge energy as it travels alongside other wires and through the building’s structure and mechanicals.
• When satellite systems are connected to a home theater system, network, or television system, special attention should be placed on all other outdoor equipment such as cable or network connections between buildings, outdoor cameras, and stereo systems. All copper pathways connected to the satellite system directly or indirectly should be surge protected with an appropriate surge protection device.
• To maximize performance of the surge suppression system and reduce ground potentials, it is recommended to surge protect all breaker panels feeding satellite equipment from internal and external surges with the TPX-1S240 series. SPDs (surge protective devices) installed on breaker panels have the primary job of intercepting large incoming surges, reducing and diverting them into the building ground at the service entrance ground, or as close as possible to it.
• For sophisticated equipment, it is recommended to also use localized plug protection. The use of localized plugs in surge protectors at the equipment level will protect satellite equipment from other equipment on that power circuit. This will also work as a second stage to protect against residual energy that may have gotten past the panel protector.

Ground the model to the AC power system to assure a common point grounding between the power and satellite grounds. Even with proper grounding per NEC requirements, without surge protection applied, the center pin of this cable is left unprotected and may bring damaging surges directly into satellite equipment which continue to your TVs, receivers, network and any other connected systems. This works for Dish, DIRECTV, XM and Sirius radio, and other satellite brands.

 
National Electric Code Recommends Phone, Cable, and Satellite Type Surge Protection
NEC recommends incoming phone and cable surge protection. This protects and diverts unwanted transient surges from entering the home on incoming power wire, ground wire, phone lines, cable sheathing, and center pin pathways. NEC requires that phone and cable company dMark locations to be located and grounded with a maximum five-foot ground wire to the service entrance of the building. This makes all grounds short for and limits the voltage developed in the grounding connections during lightning strikes. It is recommended that satellite antenna cables should also be routed past the service entrance and grounded there. This may be difficult to achieve, but remote grounding points along with a surge suppression diversion can be put in place to create adequate protection, bringing the building up to NEC standards and IEEE recommended practices for power of sensitive electronic equipment and electronics loads. Areas of the country with dirty and unreliable power from the utility company should also be considered high risk areas. A lightning protection system (which refers to adding ground rods, copper points and down conductors to a building) will greatly reduce the risk of fires caused by lighting, however, it is inadequate to prevent damage to electrical and electronic satellite equipment.