What would you do?

This is my quandary, antenna to the front of the block of flats and be more noticeable as it is on a main road, or to the rear with buildings pretty much on 3 sides. All the buildings to the rear of the property are at least as high as the highest point I would be able to dangle the antenna, but I could possibly hide it behind a plastic soil pipe. The only way to get the full length of the Thunderbolt SSD12+ at the front of the building would be to use a fishing rod covertly angled out of my living room window. I am more inclined to go with the front of the building as there are fewer buildings, and they are lower than the rear of the property.

I just noticed the closest building to the rear is actually a low garage.

Hello,

Just my 2 cents worth here.  I looked up your antenna, there's not a lot of info on it but here goes as to what I'd first try.  I've had considerable experience as of late with an end fed antenna of my own I use on 40, 20, 15 and 10 meters.  First, when it comes to antennas, everything affects everything.  I wouldn't be too concerned with the buildings at the rear of the property and it sounds like you'd be able to come up with a much nicer installation vs. placing it out front.  If none of the buildings near you have a metal roof then you should be OK.  My end fed wire antenna runs along the back side of my 2 story house and is approx. 15 feet away, some of it is lower than the roof line and it works just fine.  I have tried both a completely horizontal arrangement and a sloper arrangement, mine works better as a sloper and this may be the case for you as well.  I have mine 15 feet off the ground at the feed point end and 30 feet at the other end.  Just try get it up in the air as high as you can.  20 to 30 feet at the far end and around 10 to 15 feet at the feed point end should be fine if you're using it on 11 meters.  

The other advantage of a sloper is it will also give you some directionality if you want it to radiate better in a given direction.  It will still radiate off the sides well, and as an example if the East end is the high end it will radiate better to the West and vice versa.  Mine is higher to the West and hence radiates better off the sides and to the East, but still works fine to the West, it's just stronger to the East.  I didn't see any info on your antenna concerning the need for a counterpoise, you may or may not need one and you can try it both ways.  If you need a counterpoise a wire the same length of the antenna or something in between would also be fine and can just run off the feed point in the opposite direction to the ground and stretched out some or just let it drop down.  

You preferably don't want any RF on your feed line so some ferrite beads or some kind of choke arrangement up at the feed point of the antenna would be a good idea, although it looks to have some kind of coil already on it, not sure if that's just a trap to electrically shorten the antenna or if that's a choke to eliminate RF on the coax. it's hard to tell in the pictures I found.  If it is a choke, then no additional ferrites or other choke arrangements should be needed.  Just string it up and see how it works.  Having an antenna analyzer or SWR meter would be good to check out SWR.     

I hope this helps in your decision.     

73
Marc

Good info above.
I use an Endfed long wire with a 5:1 unun and 66ft of wire fastened up wherever i can as only have a small garden.
The 5:1 unun is not seen much but i have made some for some friends and they like it.
It covers 6m to 160m some bands with a tuner some without and worked the world on ft4/8.

After some experimentation, have gone back to my Sigma 2011 Skip Master 5/8 Wave poked through the loft hatch. Not the most elegant of solutions yet it gives better results than dangling the SSD12+, I am now getting intermittent reception from Europe on 27.415-27.855 both USB and FM. I was also getting a lot of QRM on the SSD12+, which I have now reduced from S7 to S3-4.

Sounds like you have things figured out for now, that's good.  I'm surprised to hear the SSD12+ was that noisy unless you have overhead powerlines nearby which could explain things.  Regardless, it should still be quieter if set it up horizontal vs. the vertical, but who knows?  I have a Procom PT-99 vertical I recently took down if favor of a 10 / 11 meter beam I built that's horizontally polarized.  No overhead powerlines anywhere nearby, but the Procom was terribly noisy with a steady S5+ all the time, the beam on the other hand is very quiet.  Recently on 11 meters here in Minnesota I had stations coming in from London, Ireland and Germany, pretty cool.  No luck reaching any of them but still cool to hear them none the less.  I'm only running 12 watts SSB with a President McKinley on 11 meters.  Propagation has been crazy as of late on 10 and 11, and 10 meters here during the day has been a hoot with my Icom 756 Pro and 100 watts.  I liken it to going fishing with the best lure possible, throw out your call sign and get a bite every time.   

73 and have fun! 

Marc