Hi all,
When it comes to mast I avoid HW steel because it's soft, heavy, bends easily and uses threaded couplings, a nasty weak spot. I use one of two sorts depending on circumstances. HW aluminium EMT avoiding those threaded couplings, each smaller diameter slides inside the larger about a foot, pin and you have a fairly light tapered mast. Another is the famous Rat Shack medium wall steel with swaged ends that fit together. Any way you look at it GUY IT if you're going over 10 or 15' above the uppermost support, less if you're using a beam and rotor or large and heavy antenna of any sort. Avoid possible contact with power lines, blah blah blah...
One important note, the National Electrical Code (NEC) requires the ground wire not to be less than 6AWG copper and all earthing rods to be tied together and connected to the neutral bus inside the electrical service entrance panel with the same. This reduces the difference in potential between them during a lightning strike which can easily be in the multi-kilovolt range. Avoid sharp bends, lightning has a nasty habit of leaving the conductor at these points causing a nasty flashover to whatever alternate path to earth it can find. By all means avoid that aluminium "grounding wire" because it weathers badly and in a few years becomes brittle. Once I removed a 6M antenna from a widow's house and after only 10 years that miserable stuff broke to pieces at the slightest touch.
