At my present QTH, the antennas are prohibited by the rules of my HOA. That is, "no permanent visible antennas allowed"On top of this grim issue, I also have very limited space for any HF antenna. I have 2 small patios and the attic, which is also very small, about 21ft/7 m wide and 18ft/6m deep, and the height is on low side, crawl space for the most part. Nevertheless, I managed to install several wire antennas in the attic (40-10m multiband doublet, 17m monoband moxon), and strung the similar doublet along the outer roof edge. I also installed a 35ft/10m Max-Gain fiberglass push-up pole in one of the patios and used it to bring up different light antennas, like "hamstick" dipoles or MFJ-17754 2 band (20/40m) dipole. It all worked somewhat, some better then the others, all depending on the propagation and the location of the distant station. DX-wise, I had most success with MFJ-2220 "hamstick" dipole at 35ft on the fiberglass pole.
Until recently, I had no vertical antennas and was determined to try them one day. Vertical antenna is a good idea if the space for the installation is very limited and it has to go up and down promptly and with little effort. At the same time, not all vertical antennas are very good radiators: first, they usually radiate equally in all directions, having no directivity without additional measures, like setting up a system of vertical antennas with special feeding arrangements, meaning the signal in the far field will be lower when compared to a beam antenna or even to a dipole; second, a good ground system or, for elevated installation, a system of radials required for better radiation efficiency (and I have little space for that). Nevertheless, in Dec 2017 I acquired and installed 2 vertical antennas:
- (1) MFJ-2286 "The Big Stick" portable 17ft/5m telecscopic, base-loaded whip for 10-20m;
- (2) Hy-Gain AV-12AVQ 3-band 10-15-20m vertical.
Here are my impressions after a short test, starting Dec 24th and until the last weekend:
