In article ,
"Robert11" wrote:

Hello:



First, thanks everyone for answering my previous posts on antennas, and
providing all those great links. Have been reading on, but it certainly is
a confusing subject, at least to me, with apparently lots of contradictory
opinions.

So again, thanks very much for help; really appreciate it.



Have finally convinced the wife to go along with an outside antenna as
everyone has been suggesting to me, rather than living with the wire strung
around the 4 corners of my attic which I now have. Took some doing.



Do listening only, most anywhere from 30 on down to 0.5 MHz.



Have pretty much decided on purchasing the PAR EF-SWL (45 feet overall L,
end fed), and

configuring it close to the house as an Inverted L.



a. Is there an "optimum" ratio between the lengths of the horiz and vert.
legs ?

Not really.

What does it depend on ?

The idea is to be sensitive to vertical and horizontal voltage polarized
waves so something around 50%.

b. I saw some radiation plots for the antenna, and although I don't
understand these plots fully, they don't seem to be perfectly omni. When I
string it up, I might as well try to optimize it for my preferred listening
directions.

This is not important as you are not going to get the antenna high
enough off the ground to worry about it.

Would this be perpendicular to the horizontal axis (e.g., if I want E-W
optimized, should the horiz wire be strung N-S, or,... ?

Generally you want to run the horizontal part north - south for
reception east - west. The horizontal part of the antenna will still
receive north and south just not as well.

Or, it is so close to omni, that it really doesn't matter ? Would the
answer be (very) freq. dependent ?

You would have to invest in expensive towers to get the antenna high
enough for the patterns to matter.

c. Think there would be any meaningful losses is I run the vertical length
fastened to the house ?

Yes keep it away from the house. The house is a source of noise in
addition to weakening the signals the vertical part can receive.

d. I guess that "the higher, the better" applies here also. True ?

Higher is better.

If so, any problem with end of the vertical also being raised from
close to ground level as a result of trying to bring everything up ?

Yes. For a single wire antenna the other half of the antenna needs a
good RF ground, which means you don't want the coax and radio connection
to the mains ground to be the return. You want to use a UNUN from coax
to to wire near the ground level and run the vertical part of the
antenna from that point. You should have a ground rod at that same point
for the antenna/UNUN RF return.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California