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820 CATV, and CAT5e

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stormhawk

Member
Location
miami, fl
hbiss said:
What is your interest or role in any of this?

-Hal
Click to expand...

I am bringing a product to market very shortly, I also know of a company that will designing with CAt5 or 6 and I what to be thoroughly knowledgeable about the do's and don't. I am also in the middle of the Mike Holt course. So everything that I ask has a purpose. I have a patent, will be having a patent pending, and be beginning additional patents. So the information her is extremely useful. There is no reason to waste time and money. I am also familiar with TUV, which is the equivalent of UL. This should bring so color to my questions.

In regard to the entry of a cable, there is a specification and its relative to the flood level of the exterior area. So I will have a answer from a person who is in the know, but it is at least 12" generally.
 
hbiss

hbiss

EC, Westchester, New York NEC: 2014
Location
Hawthorne, New York NEC: 2014
Occupation
EC
I thought so because your questions and the way you ask them indicate (no offense) that you have no knowledge of the work, the code or industry. You are not going to fix that with a Mike Holt course or asking questions here or of people you know. You want to go from zero to 100 fast just to sell some product. It doesn't work that way here. About all I can suggest is to hire someone who does know but unfortunately it's well known that the cable/telecom/IT/satellite industry is fraught with hacks who know nothing except how to get the job done the quickest way possible because they get paid by the job, and very little at that. So don't look there or emulate what they do.

-Hal
 
N

n1ist

Senior Member
Location
Massachusetts
Occupation
Principal Electrical Engineer
Comcast happily "grounded" my drop with a clamp on my PVC service riser. Doesn't mean it's right...
 
hbiss

hbiss

EC, Westchester, New York NEC: 2014
Location
Hawthorne, New York NEC: 2014
Occupation
EC
Back in the late 70's-early 80's I worked for a cable company doing, among other thing customer installs and service. They supplied us with a box of 4 foot long X 3/8" ground rods to pound in the soil for the ground from the ground block where the cable enters the house. I knew it was not NEC compliant and told them so but they didn't care. As cable grew word got around that they needed to be NEC compliant as far as grounding so some engineer in the company bought a copy of the NEC. After reading it for maybe a half hour he came up with 8' ground rods, cold water pipes and bonding to the service mast. All out of context because the NEC isn't like reading a Victoria's Secret catalog. You need some knowledge to understand it and without knowing how the book is written and what it covers you have no idea how to interpret what it says.

As an example see 250.94-


Bonding for Other Systems
An intersystem bonding termination for connecting intersystem
bonding conductors required for other systems shall be
provided external to enclosures at the service equipment or
metering equipment enclosure and at the disconnecting
means for any additional buildings or structures.
Click to expand...

These "ground blocks" have been required since the 2011 Code cycle for cable and telephone to connect their grounds. I have yet to see one used.

The only company that had their act together was the old Bell System. All of their procedures were carefully engineered and documented in what they called their Practices. Every employee got a copy relevant to their job and it was followed to the letter. But alas, after the 1984 breakup everything went to hell and what's done today could be anything.

Utilities like cable and telephone and even satellite can get away with doing anything they want because there is no enforcement. While they are supposed to follow the NEC, unless it's new construction with premises wiring nothing is inspected.

-Hal
 
S

stormhawk

Member
Location
miami, fl
hbiss said:
Back in the late 70's-early 80's I worked for a cable company doing, among other thing customer installs and service. They supplied us with a box of 4 foot long X 3/8" ground rods to pound in the soil for the ground from the ground block where the cable enters the house. I knew it was not NEC compliant and told them so but they didn't care. As cable grew word got around that they needed to be NEC compliant as far as grounding so some engineer in the company bought a copy of the NEC. After reading it for maybe a half hour he came up with 8' ground rods, cold water pipes and bonding to the service mast. All out of context because the NEC isn't like reading a Victoria's Secret catalog. You need some knowledge to understand it and without knowing how the book is written and what it covers you have no idea how to interpret what it says.

As an example see 250.94-

These "ground blocks" have been required since the 2011 Code cycle for cable and telephone to connect their grounds. I have yet to see one used.

The only company that had their act together was the old Bell System. All of their procedures were carefully engineered and documented in what they called their Practices. Every employee got a copy relevant to their job and it was followed to the letter. But alas, after the 1984 breakup everything went to hell and what's done today could be anything.

Utilities like cable and telephone and even satellite can get away with doing anything they want because there is no enforcement. While they are supposed to follow the NEC, unless it's new construction with premises wiring nothing is inspected.

-Hal
Click to expand...

Here in Miami, I see that Direct and Dish school their people to install ground blocks and use wiring to locate to local pipe
or POCO input structure. The telephone , ATT, drive 8ft ground rods.
 
S

stormhawk

Member
Location
miami, fl
stormhawk said:
I am bringing a product to market very shortly, I also know of a company that will designing with CAt5 or 6 and I what to be thoroughly knowledgeable about the do's and don't. I am also in the middle of the Mike Holt course. So everything that I ask has a purpose. I have a patent, will be having a patent pending, and be beginning additional patents. So the information her is extremely useful. There is no reason to waste time and money. I am also familiar with TUV, which is the equivalent of UL. This should bring so color to my questions.

In regard to the entry of a cable, there is a specification and its relative to the flood level of the exterior area. So I will have a answer from a person who is in the know, but it is at least 12" generally.
Click to expand...

So it been a while, but the answer to my question has been sought and found. The distance in height from the crown of the road to the bottom of the front road should be about 2ft. This is a flood specification when the house plans were submitted prior to a permit being issue for construction. Of course over time the specification can change, and this could lower the calculated value as is happening in Marathon after hurricane Irma.Or it could raise and then you can opt out of flood insurance. The National Corps of Engineers determine the flood levels. So if you take an imaginary line around the house in line with the bottom of the door, you have the distance above grade that the entry cable needs to be at least above. This took some civil engineering specifications as per the NEC. There is no specific height range, so I will say that cable and satellite companies probably use 1ft as a rule above the grade since most doors have less than a 1ft cement threshold to the grade. The goal is to prevent water intrusion. The opening should be sealed as per NEC after cable is installed.
 
Z

zbang

Senior Member
Location
Roughly 5346 miles from Earls Court
From a couple of posts ago-
stormhawk said:
There is no specific height range, so I will say that cable and satellite companies probably use 1ft as a rule above the grade since most doors have less than a 1ft cement threshold to the grade.
Click to expand...

stormhawk said:
These are no assumptions.
Click to expand...

Please don't play language games. Expecting installers all over the country to follow "best practices" is quite a stretch; evidence highly suggests that they won't.
 
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