I am suspecting that we had a lighning strike that took out the satellite reciever and my brand new 54" LED tv. Still need an evaluation.

Would an earth from the dish to ground prevent such an occurance. Since nothing in the house exploded, I suspect it could not have been a direct hit to the dish.

It is good practice to earth TV antennae and satellite dishes etc. but lightning is unpredictable so there is no guarantee that it will always prevent damage.

Ideally disconnect the TV from the dish and unplug high value items when lightning is forecast for your area but because of possible danger don't do this if the lightning is already nearby.

Difficult question to answer...

But there is the old saying that lightening doesn't strike in the same place twice..

But it was more likely in my opinion that the surge entered from the Mains outlet rather than the dish.. If you had a direct hit, you would certainly know about it.

To properly Earth a satellite dish you would need to Earth the antenna at several points, Antenna itself, the connection point on the LNB and the point where it enters the building, this would then need to be connected to your properties proper earth source (I understand you should not connect a seperate earth rod for this purpose)...

Lightning is a difficult beast, and to install proper lighning protection would cost a lot more than a couple of Satellite boxes and done wrong (bad advice, perhaps even mine) what would you prefer??

1. House goes up in flames (coax catches fire) because you are inviting trouble.

2. Buy a new Satellite box

If I was in your situation and with it only being inexpensive domestic equipment, maybe its best left alone..

Providing your house does have an electrical Earth, then maybe buy some surge protection devices.

This is a good question for Crossy..

A lightning strike directly or indirectly on your satellite dish will send a surge down the coax cable to your TV - and that will most likely happen with or without grounding to the dish. Surge suppression on the A/C will not help b/c the voltage is on the coax. Direct or close strikes will do damage no matter what you think you might have to protect.