In article . net,
Chuck wrote:

Regarding antenna length, more is not
necessarily better and may be worse! But
whether worse or better, changing the
length of an antenna may make it
different. For example, if you are
crossing oceans and want reliable skip
communication over great distances, you
want low radiation angles. A
quarter-wave or 5/8-wave vertical will
be your best choice. That would be about
16 feet in length at 14 MHz. Make your
antenna 32 feet long and you have a
half-wave vertical with very little
low-angle radiation at 14 MHz, but at 7
MHz and below, low-angle radiation will
be plentiful.

Also be aware that autotuners CAN"T tune antennas that
are within 50Khz of 1/2 wavelength. So inlight of this
one must pick a length of antenna that puts the 1/2
wavelength point on a frequency band that will never be used for
transmitting. Also understand that short antennas preform
very BADLY, as the Input Capacitance on the L tuner model
is increased. So your preformance below 4 Mhz will be drastically
reduced with antennas of less than 50 ft of electrical length.
If your using MF Frequencies for comms of less than 400 miles,
which is what they are there for, you will need a longer
antenna.

Bruce in alaska
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add a 2 before @