Lightning protection

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Time for the Dumb Question of The Week:

Does grounding an antenna mast actually help or hurt the antenna's preformance?

I run my FM antenna, a Radio-shack 6 element, without a ground. It's sits on a 15 foot mast, bracketed to the wall (wood siding/wood framed) and resting on our deck (also wood). It's a single story house, so it's gets the antenna just a hair higher than the peak of the roof. It works ok and gets pretty much everything that can be heard at this location (although a 100' ft tower would certainly offer an improvment due to our low-lying location). But I've always wondered if grounding it would increase or decrease it's preformance, and perhaps even make it a more favorable target for lightning.

We have nearby trees much higher than the antenna, and this area is fairly wooded so there's plenty more targets for lightning nearby... but I still disconnect it and place the coax in a mason jar during storms to protect equipment.

[Guy in WNY]

I have always grounded all my masts, antennas, equipment - I've even driven in another ground rod next to the existing rod where the electrical entrance cable comes to the meter. You never know what the electrical contractor did there, you know?
Currently, I have a 4 footer at the side of the house the Quantum is on and 2-12' long counterpoise wires buried in a V going east. This is a junky Radio Shack deal that didn't last but a couple of years before rusting out. It will be replaced this summer with an 8 footer x 1/2" from Home Depot. I used the biggest copper wire I could afford to run from the rotator to the ground rod.
At the south side of the house, there is another 4 footer of dubious Radio Shack quality, also rusted out. It has the ground wire from the parabolic rotator on it, no counterpoise, and will also be replaced this summer with an 8 footer x 1/2" from Home Depot.
About 3 feet from that one is a new, 8 footer x 1/2", no counterpoise, that is my station ground. This rod will be tied in to the 2 new 8 footers as soon as I put them in, with bare copper wire buried just a few inches below the surface. It will take about 50 feet to go around the corner of the house.
There is another 8 footer x 1/2" near the tree antenna, no counterpoise yet, but I do want to add one on. This is grounding my VHF/UHF dual band omni. This system will not be tied in to the ground system around the house.
If I decide to move the CB ground plane to the west side of the house, that would be grounded with another 8 footer and a counterpoise added as well.
I use one very heavy copper cable to go from the station ground bus to the ground rod. All the station equipment is grounded to the ground bus bar. You don't want to induce any bad ground "loops" if you can help it.
So ground it all, in my opinion.
Guy in Lockport, NY