Bytor

Great info Sshannon

A picture is worth a thousand words, right?
Look at page 3 in this document. They show the simplest solution for your situation:
https://reeve.com/Documents/Articles Papers/Reeve_AntennaSystemGroundingRequirements.pdf
It simply depicts a lightning arrester inserted into the feed line right where it enters the house and then connects the lightning arrester to your grounding bus. It’s a direct connection from the shield to building ground and a gas discharge tube to connect the inner conductor to ground to protect against static. 

There are "gain" and radiation pattern differences between the various antennas. Also at UHF it's LOS, line of sight, so just moving even a few feet can make a huge difference when there are obstacles between the radio and the repeater location. One other item you may notice while driving at times is a flutter or rapid momentary dropout of the signal. That's commonly refereed as "picket fencing". That's due to the signal being blocked by buildings etc. so the signal path between radios, or radio to repeater, changes rapidly as you move.

Not quite sure where all this paranoia about the Federal Government comes from, but the events since the presidential election of 2020 show that election workers have more to fear from being Dox'ed by anti-government activists than the other way around:
Attacks Against Election Officials are taking a Toll