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Tony Hwang

wrote:
On Wednesday, November 27, 2013 9:14:26 PM UTC-6, 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.

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