You are still confusing ground as defined by the NEC (only for human safety) with ground that makes surges irrelevant (for electronics safety). Ground for human safety is often insufficient (due to too much impedance).
My knowledge of NEC requirements are limited, at best. I'm interested in hiring someone more knowledgeable.
For example, a long wire transmitter antenna might have 100 volts on one point. And the same wire might have zero volts on another point. That would not happen with electricity that concerns code. But that is relevant to another electricity that concerns surges. Wire can be electrically different at both ends. Therefore a connection from satellite dish to earth must also be short (ie 'less than 10 feet'). That wire must not have sharp bends. And other factors never found in the NEC. Because those same requirements (low impedance) are irrelevant to human safety.
The term is called impedance. Impedance is irrelevant to how 60 cycle works. And is significant to how surge protection works.
Various requirements both for human safety and for protection means a dish (typically) must have its own earth ground (as wire as short as possible to be both low resistance and low impedance). Those same requirements also say why a coax cable must be earthed (as short as possible) to single point ground before entering the building.
An engineering application note demonstrates these concepts that also apply to your dish (and would be irrelevent to a pool and to NEC):
Another example of different electrical characteristics when earthing for human and electronics safety. An 18 AWG wire (ie lamp cord) is typically considered a 10 amp wire (for human safety). The same wire may conduct a surge current up to 60,000 amps. Due to electrical differences in those two currents.
A 12 AWG wire (often used for earthing communication cables) and the 6 AWG wire (often used for earthing AC electric wires) are both more than sufficient (thick enough) to perform both human and electronics safety. And also should remain sufficiently 'thick' many decades later for both purposes. Those wires are thick enough to provide low resistance. But impedance is mostly defined by wire length. Low impedance means that same wire is typically shorter than required by code.
Edited by westom, 21 October 2012 - 08:48 PM.