When setting up the base what is generally a good location / distance to place it in relation to the points to be collected?
I would probably list the things I look for in a base setup as follows (in order of importance):
1. Secure Location. Not likely to be stolen while unattended. Not likely to be run over by heavy equipment.
2. Open, free from obstructions. An observation with the rover near a tree or building will affect that one rover observation. An observation with the base near a tree or building will affect every rover observation using that base. Clean base sites are very important.
3. Radio range. If you don't have communications from the base to the rover, you can't do RTK. Depending on what modem you are using, the communication range will vary substantially. I believe 1 watt will generally give you about a mile range. In my observation, radio range/wattage follows an inverse square rule, meaning that a 4 watt modem will give you about twice the range of a 1 watt (square root of 4=2), while a 35 watt radio will give you about 6 times the range of a 1 watt (square root of 35 is roughly 6).
4. RTK range. I've been working with an internet configuration and have been able to get fixes at 20km (12 miles) between a Triumph-2 and Triumph-LS, but at this range, performance suffers: fixes aren't as fast, accuracy not quite as good. For working in challenging environments, keeping the base close to the rover minimizes variables in the atmosphere (ionospheric and tropospheric delays, scintillation, etc.) that the engines must try to resolve. From anecdotal experience, I think the sweet spot is in keeping those vectors under 5km (3 miles).
When creating the export file how do you get it to not put the word "point" preceding each point number?
I'm guessing that you used the default point names when you stored your points. Default names begin with "Point1" and advance from there. You can set the name, as you are collecting data, to whatever you want. If you don't have a lot of points, you can rename them, one at a time, in J-Field. If you have a lot of points, I'd probably recommend exporting what you have and using a spreadsheet to modify the names on your PC.