Long wire installation

At the  moment  i have my Lw20 long  wire  mounted on the back of the  house only  about  15ft, one  wire goes  down  the  garden  and  the other  half comes  back  to the house about  4ft apart,  not  happy  would  it be better  as a inverted V a lot  higher...

As in doubles back on itself?  That's not helping if this is the one you reckon is performing poorly.  Height will be fine for NVIS but not much cop for DX.

Your wire antenna is end fed so will probably work better in a straight slopping config,a dipole wire antenna is centre fed and works very well in a inverted V 

Craig

Thanks is it being ruined because its running back on itself even though they are apart, dont have the room to run the 66ft

Can you not put the wire in a different configuration, that simply moves the wires further apart? I use to have a long wire that formed a large almost inverted V square over & around the roof. That worked well. I have also run a Medium Wave/ topband end fed as a loop around the garden fence. A wire does  not have to be straight to be effective. Dog legging works.

Deffo need to move it looking at putting the unun just above the gutter probably 16ft and running to the pole that supports the 2m70, thats only 8ft above gutter and coming off that probably be a gradual V, does that sound ok

You're having right fun with this 'Amateur Radio' malarkey Chris!

It's always bothersome trying to squeeze in an antenna into the limited space some of us face and often we have to make compromises. A compromise doesn't have to be as bad as you think though, you may not become the next DX king but can work out reasonable working conditions.

I always say, any antenna is better than no antenna!


Jeff has already pointed out your mistake of folding the antenna back on itself, that'll do you no good at all.

Craig has pointed out the sloper arrangement and the fact that Dipoles work better as an Inverted V.

A quick read of the following links may help explain it all better :-


Firstly, what happens if you bend a long-wire into an Inverted V,

[url=https://www.qsl.net/kk4obi/EFHW Inverted V.html]https://www.qsl.net/kk4obi/EFHW%20Inverted%20V.html[/url]

Doesn't look great does it?

Secondly, what happens if you bend a long-wire into an Inverted L,

[url=https://www.qsl.net/kk4obi/EFHW inverted L.html]https://www.qsl.net/kk4obi/EFHW%20inverted%20L.html[/url]

Bit better.


As Nick has pointed out you can get away with 'dog-legging' or bending the antenna to various degrees but you can't go too wild(!) You may also find yourself needing a suitable 'counterpoise' to make it all work effectively.

A look at the following YouTube video will show what can be achievable :-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMchB-bML98


There are various other experiments into folding antennas with varying degrees of success and places like YouTube are full of such examples.

I gave up on a longwire due to the fact that my front garden is as long as my back garden and unless I started draping antenna wire over the house no where was long enough! In the end I went for a dipole arrangement knowing that you can zig-zag dipoles to fit smaller spaces.

Info for that was here :-

[url=https://www.qsl.net/kk4obi/Center-fed ZigZag dipoles Horizontal.html]https://www.qsl.net/kk4obi/Center-fed%20ZigZag%20dipoles%20Horizontal.html[/url]

With that I now have dipoles zig-zagging my loft/attic space which is also a 'fan-dipole' arrangement giving me better access to different bands. It doesn't at all work too bad and at least gets me on the air.


Don't disparage or get frustrated......some Amateurs spend a life time working out and working with such compromises. It's all part of the fun


All the best mate,
Victor

Ah bum! The links mucked up.

The hyperlinks still work though so you should still be able to click on them to get to the websites of interest.