this is driving me nuts, so now i cant sleep

[n2ize]

Why not just built an inverted vee and use balanced feed line instead of coax. (You can even use TV old fashioned twin lead). Cut the vee for the lowest band you intend to use. Get the feed point up as high as you can and run the balanced line into your station. Then use a tuned (pref a link coupled type) between your transmitter (radios) and the antenna. You should be able to tune up on every band. I used this set up for years and it gave me excellent results. Mine was cut for 75 metres and it worked great on 75, 40, 20, 15 and 10. Nice thing is that if you build it right it is almost invisible. Most people would never notice it.

[N2RJ]

Why not just built an inverted vee and use balanced feed line instead of coax. (You can even use TV old fashioned twin lead). Cut the vee for the lowest band you intend to use. Get the feed point up as high as you can and run the balanced line into your station. Then use a tuned (pref a link coupled type) between your transmitter (radios) and the antenna. You should be able to tune up on every band. I used this set up for years and it gave me excellent results. Mine was cut for 75 metres and it worked great on 75, 40, 20, 15 and 10. Nice thing is that if you build it right it is almost invisible. Most people would never notice it.

Just be careful though, at higher frequencies the nulls get pretty sharp. My last inverted vee cut for 80m had a deep null towards Europe on 20m. Therefore it was a terrible DX and contest antenna for me.

My current vee is on the ground, The snow of October took it away.

[WA4TM]

Have you thought of an off center fed dipole? It might not be as good as a fan, but it will be easier to get in the air with out becoming a birds nest..

[KJ3N]

Just be careful though, at higher frequencies the nulls get pretty sharp. My last inverted vee cut for 80m had a deep null towards Europe on 20m. Therefore it was a terrible DX and contest antenna for me.

My current vee is on the ground, The snow of October took it away.

Must have something to do with how it was oriented. My 134 foot long dipole works fantastic into Europe on 20m. It runs almost dead on N/S. I have a deep null into the West Coast, so I use the 40m loop for that.

[N2RJ]

Must have something to do with how it was oriented. My 134 foot long dipole works fantastic into Europe on 20m. It runs almost dead on N/S. I have a deep null into the West Coast, so I use the 40m loop for that.

Yep, that was the problem. But I had no choice since the only supports I could use were in certain directions.

Now it's a moot point since I have a tower, beam and other antenna supports to play with.