From forty till twenty or so years ago, I lived in a suburban townhouse, with no antennas allowed.  My solution then was a 40-meter inverted vee with fanned 20 and 10-meter elements, and W9INN coils on the end of the 40M elements to give me 80M.  I was working on 5B DXCC in those days, and eventually concluded the 80-meter side wasn't good enough, so I threw a 280-foot vertical wire loop up in the trees out back, fed through open wire line and a 4:1 balun. Finished the 80M part in just a few months

When I moved here I had plenty of space, but not much time, so I threw up a Carolina Windom antenna at only about 35 feet.  Darned thing works so well, despite a site that is in a river valley with higher terrain on all sides, that I'm keeping it. Worked 92 countries during CQWW in about 6 hours on 40 meters, with ~900 watts

73, Pete N4ZR
Check out the Reverse Beacon Network
at <http://reversebeacon.net>, now
spotting RTTY activity worldwide.
For spots, please use your favorite
"retail" DX cluster.

On 12/5/2018 7:42 PM, Fred Jensen wrote:
It seems these days that the "Amateur media," which includes all of us conversing on the air or via email lists, tends to dismiss LTPA [less than perfect antennas] which may be discouraging some Technicians from trying out their HF allocations on 10, 15, 40, and 80.  Hard core DX'ers and contesters will scoff at a BWD-90 or my end-fed 80-10 at 6 ft on the wooden fence, and I don't intend to make the Honor Roll with it, but antennas don't need to be perfect to work and even work well.  I snagged VP6D on 40, 30, 20, and 17 CW with 100 W to my WOOF [Wire On Organic Fence] and it was easy.  The SOTA folk don't buy a tower, they just hike up a mountain.  I worked two DL's in a row on 15 CW a couple years ago from W5N/RO-015 in SE NM with 10 W from my K2 into an Alexloop over my head.

If we want younger people to try out HF, we need to assure them that they don't have to spend a year's take-home pay to get on and have fun.  Wayne has been relating some of his QRP-ish field adventures which is really great.  Full Disclosure: I'm part of the W7RN crew and have remote access to the two remote K3/KPA1500 combos and 23 antenna selections [last count [:-) w7rn.com] including a 3-el 80 yagi at 175 ft.  Most of the time however, my K3/WOOF serves my needs which leaves the remotes to those on the crew who have no other option.  RF current into a conductor will radiate, even if it's at eye level.

73,
Fred ["Skip"] K6DGW
Sparks NV DM09dn
Washoe County

On 12/5/2018 3:31 PM, Dave Cole (NK7Z) wrote:
I have one of the BWD-90 antennas up now, (at 25 feet), and use it for local contacts on HF daily...

DX is the vertical, soon to be a beam at 55 feet....  I also use the BWD-90 for all the WARC bands, save 30, which is the vertical.

I also have a new in the box BWD-90, (copper version, not the steel version), as well...

Works well with a K3, as the rig is atmospheric noise limited.

73s and thanks,
Dave (NK7Z/NNR0DC)
https://www.nk7z.net
ARRL Technical Specialist
ARRL Volunteer Examiner
ARRL OOC for Oregon

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