Verticals for 30, 40, 80m

[VK4WDM]

As people have noticed from previous posts I have a very restricted area for antennas and a height limit of 10m. 

My "Western HF10" dipole (G5RV jr with loading coils) is about all I can fit wire-wise and the current results are not good. 

I have decided to use a rotating dipole for the higher bands but need a vertical for 30, 40, 80m (and 160m would be a real bonus).

So what are the options as I see them?

1. Turn the mast that is currently holding up the dipole into a non-resonate "mono-pole"  over radials and maybe an auto-tuner at the base. I could add a horizontal wire to give extra length. Low cost option. Would also give me a vertical option on the higher bands. There are some commercially-produced ones, but how good is this type of antenna on the low bands?

2. A trapped vertical such as the Rippletech TZ-V-3L ( a bit over the height limit but who is going to notice) over radials. More expensive that option one but is the extra cost worthwhile for an antenna dedicated to these bands?

3.  Comet CHA250 vertical.  Would also give me a vertical option on the higher bands. Does not need radials. Expensive and the reviews are very mixed especially on its low band efficiency.  

What say ye?

73

Wayne VK4WDM

Update on this.  I ended up making an ally tube vertical 10M tall. The lower sections are double wall so it is self supporting but I will consider adding guys if wind sway gets too scary. I then added 12M of wire to the top that slopes down to a 5M mast on the corner of the block so I now have a sloping "inverted L."  The wire length is solely based on the distance available. I have an earth stake but no radials as yet but plan to add some in the next few days.

It is obviously a non-resonate length but the internal antenna tuner (more correctly a transmission line matcher) allows me to use it on all bands 80-6m, and with an external tuner, on 160M. Early results seem quite good on 80 to 20M. Not much activity on the higher bands to check. Also worked all over VK-ZL on 6M when Es were active.  Like all verticals it is a bit noisy on the low bands but the Yaesu FTDx-1200 has very good noise mitigation.

The next move is to try it with an auto-tuner at the base.

73

Wayne VK4WDM