Chip C wrote:

I'm confident that my responses will draw at least as many flames as
your questions would.

Thank you for your detailed reply Chip. It is very helpful.

I am still a bit fuzzy about the ground bar and neutral bar being
'connected' at the service panel. Won't all electricity just goes to
the ground in that case? I know it sounds silly, but what's the
difference between connecting the ground/neutral at the panel vs
connecting them at the receptacle? a wire is a wire right?

I suspected the answer to "why only one ground/grouding rod" is
the big IF part in my post. Thank you for clearifying that part.

let me ask another (not a troll!) question, in many areas, redundancy
is good. if one fails, the other still works. isn't having two
properly done ground rods better than one? If one fails, then the
other should still work? having the code calling for one and only
grounding to be done at the service panel, then the whole system will
be depending on that grounding work correctly. The probability of one
fails is much higher than the probability of both fails right?

I mean redundancy is why I backup my data to CDRs.

So if I understand it correctly, the grounding for the satellite dish
for example, is to connect the metal part of the dish to the ground
bar in the main service panel via a proper ground wire? not to the
earth right under the satellite dish (or roof) which I can dug a hole
and bury the bare copper wire that came with my satellite install kit?
And the reason being the ground at the servie panel will most likely
provide less resistence than my bare wire?

Thanks again.

Raymond