James Barrett wrote:

Does it really matter if my equipment is ground to the house ground or
should it really be connected to its own external ground? And if/when
I ground to guard against lightning strikes, would I use that same
external ground or go with yet another external ground?

I'm still doing my research, but figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

Jim,

You'll see numerous references on the web to "single point ground." It
is very, very important stuff. I got nailed on this stuff back in
August, 2003. Here's how it played out:

We had a violent thunderstorm early one morning about 7 A.M. Suddenly
there were three near strikes (simultaneous lightning and thunder)
within a ten second time frame. In addition to telephones, computers
and home entertainment equipment, my four month old Ten-Tec Orion and
numberous shack accessories were zapped. My house ground is a single 8
foot copper plated ground rod. The lightning ground for the shack was
an identical ground rod driven about thirty feet away from the house ground.

When the strikes conducted a surge into my home via the power lines, all
three wires had very high voltage on them. The shack ground was still
at its usual potential (0). The house ground was elevated to high
voltage. There was a potential difference between the shack ground the
the house ground. That potential quickly equalized inside my equipment.

Ten-Tec reported that six boards inside the Orion had their ground
traces evaporated.

For a shack ground, you want the shortest possible distance between your
rig and earth. The house ground will be as close as possible to your
electrical service entrance. If, like me, you have to use two ground
rods, you need to bond the two of them together with a big, fat wire so
that the two can never be at different potentials.

If you have a tower, I'll assume that you have at least one 8 foot
ground rod driven at its base. Bond your coaxial cable sheaths to the
rod at the tower. The sheaths should also be bonded to your shack ground.

Dave Heil K8MN