Longwire Antenna: Length vs Height.

[Blake]

Hoping some of you blokes can help.

I have a shortwave setup at home, long story short, i've got my antenna setup at the moment.
It works pretty well.
I'm happy with it.

Question is: What's more important? Length or Height?

I've been thinking about changing the height of the current antenna.
I can reasonably easily make it about 8-9 feet higher,
However, the trade off is, it'll be about a third of the length.

So, is it worth it?

The extra height for the reduction in length.



Cheers blokes.

[Vkfour]

A long wire antenna is just that, and it is the entire length of wire, from start to finish. In increasing the height, you won't be making it shorter, just the horizontal part. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer as antennas quite often don't follow the rules in the book. Best thing is to try it an see. Just make sure you let us all know how you get on.

[Blake]

Cheers for that vkfour.

It's a long story, but if I do change antennas it will actually get shorter.
I've actually got two antennas up.
The first was has been up for a looooong time, between two tall masts.
It's not connected at all. (but can be with some farnarkeling)

The second is my more modern one.
I've put it up in recent years.
It's much longer, but not having access to the masts, it is shorter height wise.

Basically, the trade off: a reduction to a third of the length, for a gain of about 8' in height.



I have had a little bit of dealings in this before,
in that I originally had a different antenna before the current one.
It was hella long, like a good 400+ meters. (I can't remember exactly)
However it was strung along in trees, it might have been only 8 feet off the ground, you know, house eaves, trees and the like.

What I observed with the switch to the current antenna (which is about 1/2 the length) is that there was a reduction in what it was picking up, but in the low bands.
It essentially shifted it's sensitivity up.
Also, the increased height of the new antenna, and the 'cleaner' install, meant that noise was significantly reduced as well.

It seemed, that signals coming in were much clearer (without noise/static), but, now I was picking up much higher frequencies better. And the lower frequencies worse.


I'm just not sure if that would be the case again, or if it would be different.
I might have to do some farnarkeling and rig something up to try and test the difference.
We'll see, maybe one day.

[Newy1234]

Unfortunately, there is no easy answer as antennas quite often don't follow the rules in the book. Best thing is to try it an see. Just make sure you let us all know how you get on.

+1.