For 20 meters my favorite is a ground plane. Use a 20 foot "Black Widow" telescoping fishing pole for a support. Clip one end of a 16.5 foot AWG 26 wire to the loop at the tip with a fishing swivel. Support the pole with a single peg driven into the ground (slip the pole over the peg). Twist the pole to spiral the wire around the pole a couple times to keep it from blowing in the wind. The bottom end the wire will now be about 4 ft above the ground. I use a female BNC to terminate the bottom end of the wire. I secure the BNC to the pole with a Velcro wrap, but a piece of tape would work as well. Cut 3 radials each 16.5 ft long and attach to the ground side of the BNC. A light cord at the end of each radial then runs to 3 tent stakes which are positioned to keep the radials off the ground and act as support guys for the pole. Feed with run of RG58 to your rig. This will give you nice low angle radiation for working DX on 20. The internal tuner in any of the Elecraft rigs will also easily tune it on 30, 17 and 15. Last time I had it up, I worked New Zealand from Colorado with 5W on 15 meters. If you precut the wires and make all the connections ahead of time, this antenna can easily be put up by one person in 10 minutes. The poles are available from Cabellas for $17 if I remember correctly. Quite a bargain - I bought two.
If you're more horizontally oriented and want to go first class, the Buddipole system will give you lots of options for dipoles on several bands as well as the ability to configure verticals. Buddipole dipoles at their normal 10 to 20 foot heights will give you higher angle radiation than the ground plane, which may be desirable if you're after stateside QSOs rather than chasing DX. Have fun in the woods! ... Craig AC0DS _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com