Grounding a telephone line.

[Caulki...@work.com]

When the phone company installed my outdoor phone connection box, they
installed a separate ground rod. But the one for my electric panel is
50 feet away. I'm running my own phone line from my house to another
building at quite a distance. I intend to install another outdoor box
with built in lightning protection. (same as the one from the phone
company). The ground rod from my electric service is 6 feet away. Is
there any reason not to use the same rod? It dont seem to make much
sense to drive in another rod.

Note: I intend to also ground a tv antenna to it.

[Stormin Mormon]

I'd use it. Sounds reasonable, to me.

--
.
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
.

[Paul Drahn]

Any ac current in the ground will be heard in your phone. That is why
the telco uses their own ground rod.

Paul

[hrho...@sbcglobal.net]

On Wednesday, November 27, 2013 9:14:26 PM UTC-6, Caulki...@work.com wrote:
> When the phone company installed my outdoor phone connection box, they installed a separate ground rod. But the one for my electric panel is 50 feet away. I'm running my own phone line from my house to another building at quite a distance. I intend to install another outdoor box with built in lightning protection. (same as the one from the phone company). The ground rod from my electric service is 6 feet away. Is there any reason not to use the same rod? It dont seem to make much sense to drive in another rod. Note: I intend to also ground a tv antenna to it.

Only thing that concerns me would be if there was a nearby lightning strike and the ground potential between the two ground locations differed by several hundres volts for the duration of the strike. I am not sure what would happen in terms of ground loop currents if the protectors broke down, but at different voltages. That would put both of the two telephone conductors (tip and ring) at widely different voltages at the two locations, and there would be a huge current flow between the two protectors through the telephone lines. I think it might be better to only ground at the first point of entrance, which is already grounded.

[Tony Hwang]

Hmmm,
Where I am overhead cables, wires are thing of the past.
They are all under ground now. phone line is fiber,
cable, power all are under ground. Only cable hanging over head in my
house is coax cable coming down from my HAM antenna.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi,
Ground loop current is a big no, no.

[Bob F]

Do make sure your phone line is grounded. I was talking to a neighbor once when
lightning struck very close. She was using a wired landline, and got shocked.
For days afterwards, her hearing was ultra sensitive. She said she could hear
everything, often way too loud.

Checking later, I found that the phone line ground had been broken off the
outside water spigot it had previously been connected to.

[Caulki...@work.com]

On Wed, 27 Nov 2013 23:46:37 -0500, gfre...@aol.com wrote:

>The NEC requires that ALL ground electrodes must be bonded together.
>It is also the recommended practice for lightning protection.
>If line powered telephone equipment is the only place here this bond
>occurs (incidently) that will be where any difference is reconciled.
>Back in the modem days, separate grounding systems was the most common
>cause of smoking modems PCs etc
>
>The same is true of satellite installations. They usually drive a
>separate rod. You should bond this to your grounding electrode system
>for the service.

In that case, I may as well just use the same ground rod.

And since you mentioned the modems, as I said in my original post, the
phone line ground rod is 50 ft from the power ground rod. Being rural,
my only option for internet is a dialup modem, or spending a fortune on
satellite dish internet, which will force me to have satellite tv, and I
dont watch much tv. Every year I lose at least one modem from
lightning, even if the lightning is miles away. I've partly solved that
by unplugging the phone line from the modem when I'm offline. Maybe
that separate ground is why???? Cuz my phone lines are still wire and
underground.

[Dean Hoffman]

On 11/28/13 2:56 AM, Caulki...@work.com wrote:

> And since you mentioned the modems, as I said in my original post, the
> phone line ground rod is 50 ft from the power ground rod. Being rural,
> my only option for internet is a dialup modem, or spending a fortune on
> satellite dish internet, which will force me to have satellite tv, and I
> dont watch much tv. Every year I lose at least one modem from
> lightning, even if the lightning is miles away. I've partly solved that
> by unplugging the phone line from the modem when I'm offline. Maybe
> that separate ground is why???? Cuz my phone lines are still wire and
> underground.
>

It might be worth your while to tie the ground rods together with #6
copper. I have no idea what that would cost. #6 is as large as you
need to go when wiring to ground rods.

[tra...@optonline.net]

On Thursday, November 28, 2013 3:56:46 AM UTC-5, Caulki...@work.com wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Nov 2013 23:46:37 -0500, gfre...@aol.com wrote:
>
>
>
> >On Wed, 27 Nov 2013 21:14:26 -0600, Caulki...@work.com wrote:
>
> >
>
> >>When the phone company installed my outdoor phone connection box, they
>
> >>installed a separate ground rod. But the one for my electric panel is
>
> >>50 feet away. I'm running my own phone line from my house to another
>
> >>building at quite a distance. I intend to install another outdoor box
>
> >>with built in lightning protection. (same as the one from the phone
>
> >>company). The ground rod from my electric service is 6 feet away. Is
>
> >>there any reason not to use the same rod? It dont seem to make much
>
> >>sense to drive in another rod.
>
> >>
>
> >>Note: I intend to also ground a tv antenna to it.
>
> >
>
> >The NEC requires that ALL ground electrodes must be bonded together.
>
> >It is also the recommended practice for lightning protection.
>
> >If line powered telephone equipment is the only place here this bond
>
> >occurs (incidently) that will be where any difference is reconciled.
>
> >Back in the modem days, separate grounding systems was the most common
>
> >cause of smoking modems PCs etc
>
> >
>
> >The same is true of satellite installations. They usually drive a
>
> >separate rod. You should bond this to your grounding electrode system
>
> >for the service.
>
>
>
> In that case, I may as well just use the same ground rod.
>
>

That's how it's done in current code. An inter-system bonding
termination block is installed by the panel. It's connected
to the ground system for the panel and usually phone, cable, etc
are brought in near there and tied to it. If they can't be
brought in nearby, then they can be grounded elsewhere, but
that ground is then still supposed to be bonded back to the main ground
system for the building.

>
> And since you mentioned the modems, as I said in my original post, the
>
> phone line ground rod is 50 ft from the power ground rod. Being rural,
>
> my only option for internet is a dialup modem, or spending a fortune on
>
> satellite dish internet, which will force me to have satellite tv, and I
>
> dont watch much tv. Every year I lose at least one modem from
>
> lightning, even if the lightning is miles away. I've partly solved that
>
> by unplugging the phone line from the modem when I'm offline. Maybe
>
> that separate ground is why???? Cuz my phone lines are still wire and
>
> underground.

Yes, if that's a seperate ground rod and not bonded to the
building system, you could have a big potential difference with
a lightning surge.

[bud--]

On 11/27/2013 10:46 PM, gfre...@aol.com wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Nov 2013 21:14:26 -0600, Caulki...@work.com wrote:
>

> The NEC requires that ALL ground electrodes must be bonded together.
> It is also the recommended practice for lightning protection.
> If line powered telephone equipment is the only place here this bond
> occurs (incidently) that will be where any difference is reconciled.
> Back in the modem days, separate grounding systems was the most common
> cause of smoking modems PCs etc
>
> The same is true of satellite installations. They usually drive a
> separate rod. You should bond this to your grounding electrode system
> for the service.

This is a major point for protecting equipment.

You want a single earthing system with a single connection to the house,
and short wires from entrance protectors to that earthing system.

During an "event" the ground rod 50 ft away may be many thousands of
volts different from the house. That voltage shows up at equipment
connected to both phone and power. I would put a second phone entry
protector at the house and connect it to the house earthing system.
There is no direct connection from protectors to the phone wires so
there should be no noise introduced.

Bonding the rod 50 ft away doesn't work as well as you might think. You
could have a relatively large current through the bond wire during an
"event" since that ground rod is part of the earthing system. Lightning
has relatively high frequency components, so the inductance of the wire
is more important than the resistance. The inductance doesn't decrease
very fast as you increase the wire size.

[Pete C.]

Telephone lines are not grounded. What is grounded is the surge
suppressers built into the demarc unit, and that is the only part of the
phone lines that should be grounded.

[tra...@optonline.net]

On Thursday, November 28, 2013 12:30:46 PM UTC-5, gfre...@aol.com wrote:

> Another important thing is a point of use protector at the PC that
>
> picks up the phone line and power, sinking them to a common point.
>
> That is in addition to a panel protector and the protection the phone
>
> company has.although phone protectors are usually pretty lousy. If it
>
> is a carbon element protector it is useless


Any predicitions on how soon we'll be hearing from Tom?

[Oren]

On Thu, 28 Nov 2013 10:10:44 -0800 (PST), "tra...@optonline.net"
<tra...@optonline.net> wrote:

>Any predicitions on how soon we'll be hearing from Tom?

:-\

[The Daring Dufas]

You don't ground the phone line, you ground the lightning protector. The
protector technology has changed over the years but neither side of the
phone lines is ever tied to ground. The wires are designated "Tip and
Ring" with a standard color code of green for Tip and red for Ring.
This comes from the old days when an operator actually made connections
at a switchboard by manually plugging in a "phone plug" then flipping a
switch to ring the phone at the other end. Tip is the tip of the phone
plug and Ring is the ring around the shaft of the phone plug, much like
the 1/4" plug on a big set of stereo headphones. Anyway, there is a
separate surge arresting element connected from Tip and Ring to ground.
The elements have changed over the years from a carbon resistor or spark
gap to gas tube elements and now solid state elements that conduct
whenever a voltage surge comes in over either side of the phone line
pair. I know this stuff because I've had to argue with the phone company
when my customer's phone line is dead and there is nothing wrong with
the inside wiring of the building. Often lightning will burn out a
switching module of the switch at the phone company's central office
that serves that particular customer. I've had to add extra lightning
protection at commercial customer's locations because lightning was
damaging the multi line phone systems at their businesses. o_O

A very good source of parts and information about all things telephone
where I've purchased parts and systems:

http://www.sandman.com/

http://preview.tinyurl.com/k48cp4b

A lightning protector like what I picked up for a customer. This one has
gas tube modules which are replaceable by plugging in a new one:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/leo22nu

The same base but equipped with delta modules which are a hybrid of gas
tube and solid state elements. The modules are interchangeable:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/l8pauwm

TDD