[Alexandria Radio Club Reflector] HF Antenna Suggestions

[Eric Parker]

I've put up (and taken down) two wire antennas trying to make some headway on HF without much luck and am looking for suggestions for a new antenna.  I'm leaning towards a vertical, for space and cost reasons.  

The first wire antenna was just that - a 40' or so long piece of wire hooked up to MFJ's long-wire antenna tuner.  I made a few contacts but it never seemed to work well.  I took that down and replaced it with an Buckmaster OCF antenna.  When I had the apex at about 35' it worked fairly well, even though I had the wires at 90 degrees to each other to fit the lot.  The mast at the apex wasn't stable, however, so I ended up chopping off about 15' to make the installation safe though that seemed to pretty much kill the effectiveness of the antenna.  I've since taken it down.

I'm now thinking of a mast mounted (off the ground) vertical such as one of the GAP products.  I'm getting tired of reading the eham reviews and was wondering if anyone in the club can offer some advice.  

Thanks and '73

Eric, KG4DZA