Drafter,
Just remember there are two different types of grounds DC and RF...If you are operating off an AC/DC inverter then you should be fine with the grounding your house provides through the outlet, but if you're using a DC battery then you could, but not necessary, run a 4 foot copper solid grounding rod just outside your house next to where your antenna is for DC grounding, this will help with reducing man made noise on vertically polarized antennas...Now your RF grounding pertains to your Mobile units mainly because mobiles run monopoles (positive side basically) and the RF grounding provides the second half of the antenna (the negative side)...Now if you're running from a base station then it all depends on the antenna you're using as to whether or not you need to create a ground plane for your antenna...The J-pole (Whether made of ridged copper pipe or 450 or 300 ohm flexible ladder line) is designed not to need a ground plan cause it has the other side of the antenna made into the design, same as a 1/2 wave dipole...If you was to just make a straight up vertical antenna from a 102" whip and mount it on a pole on the side of your house you would need some radials to create a ground plane for the radiator (102" whip) to reflect off of...The further off ground the vertical antenna is the less it needs for ground plane radials...actually two 1/4 wave radials 180 deg off of the radiator (102" whip) at approx. 16 ft would work great DX, kind of like an inverted "T". The closer the radiator is to earth the more the signal gets absorbed by the earth, that is why they say if you mounted a ground vertical you'd need 120 1/4 wave radials to create a perfect ground plane for that antenna (anything more than 32 radials is negligible, you wouldn't really notice any gain)...Most people that run ground verticals live in areas where there's restrictions on throwing up large pieces of metal in the air...haha...So they opt for the 8 foot vertical inside the 6 foot privacy fence so nobody can tell on them...Glad to help you guys any way I can...keep asking and I'll try to answer the best I know how...