Batboard

How important is it for a base station antenna to be properly grounded? Does it affect the transmission range at all.(ie..ground plane) Should the radio be grounded as well, or will the separate grounds create an RF ground loop. Smart asses need not reply, as I am just learning.

Ground everything. If you are using a dc ground antenna, such as, almost any sinclair, then you definitely need to ground the tower and antenna. This is all for lightning protection. The chassis of the radio should be grounded at all times. As for the tower, ideally, you want to take copper from each leg and extend it out almost as far as the tower is high. 00 AWG bare copper cable works good. At the end of the cable a 10 foot ground rod should be pounded until it is about 1 foot below grade. a good thing to do is to stick a PVC pipe around it with a cap, so you can check it later for lightning strikes. Another ground rod should be put in place, the same as the previous, at the midway point. This is your common ground, and should enter the shack and be connected to everything, including: polyphasers, antenna ground windows, radio etc...

This is all, of course, in a perfect world. We usually just use one ground cable and two rods in the ground. We DO ground everything in the shack extensively.

Sorry for the long winded reply, but I (an the team I work with) feel that grounding is one of the most important parts of any install.

Regards
JT

A source of alot of really good information on the subject is http://www.polyphaser.com/ppc_technical.asp A technique that really helps helps prevent equipment damage is to have everything entering your equipment room pass a single point - think of it like a window - with protection on everything at this point, with the ground side of all the protectors bonded together. Apply your ground at this point. The result is that the potential (voltage) difference between any two conductors entering the room is minimal - the breakover voltage of the protectors.