I am installing a new antenna and mast for my pro 197. I have a whole house arrester and I am planning on driving an 8 ft. ground rod.
with this setup is it a must to bond with house ground if accessibility is a problem? Thanks to everyone in advance.The antenna is mounted on the eave of the house about 35 ft. high.
While it isn't "a must" to bond the antenna's ground to the house ground, doing so will help to minimize the damage when a lightning strike happens. I can't stress enough that grounding should be done correctly (as described here often) to reduce or prevent damage and to prevent your insurance claim for any damage from being nullified due to improper grounding.
In simple terms, what happens when the grounds aren't bound properly is that the current from the lightning is directed to the ground at the antenna's ground (say a million volts at thousands of amps) and then flows through the ground to the house ground (reduced to say hundreds of thousands of volts and hundreds of amps) where it then flows into the house and burns up everything electronic (and possibly what's simply flammable). This result is pretty much the same if the strike is to your antenna or comes in through the electric lines.
While it may appear that tying the two grounds together would cause the lightning strike to have a direct path into your house, this isn't what happens. The damage is often caused by the difference in potential between the two grounds. Connecting them together causes this potential to be zero (or nearly so).
While there is much more going on in a lightning strike (either direct or as is more often the case a near miss), a complete explaination would require much more than this simple explaination. Basically the best advice is to ground the antenna properly and bond all grounds together.