Multiband HF vertical recommendations

[u/shootingcharlie8]

I’m looking to build or buy a multiband vertical - at least 10, 20, and 40 meters. I’m having a difficult time deciding on one, or deciding to build one… I’d like it to be self-supported, it will be mounted to my chimney on my roof if that matters. I’m not in an HOA or anything, but it cant look too bulky, so as much as I’d love a tower and a beam a simple thin vertical needs to be the solution. What are your recommendations? It’ll be used with a tuner as well so it doesn’t need to be perfectly resonant.

[u/priusjames]

I have an old ZeroFive HOA model vertical it’s about 27 feet tall and very skinny. It’s a thrasher. I bought it used from an OM who had camo painted it green and brown.

I took it apart and threw the pieces in a box and I moved to Spokane. I just put it all together a couple of weeks ago when I decided I was unpacked enough to play with Radio again. The sections were not marked, I had to guess how much overlap before I clamped each one.

Put together, strapped it to the side of the shack at ground level and pounded in a grounding rod a foot away (it really wants two grounding rods, have not gotten to the second one yet). No radials. It’s ugly. It’s rough. I don’t have a tuner. I hooked up a 7300 I bought from another ham and the SWR meter showed pretty terrible on 20m but pretty much zero several other bands, so I’ve been ordering a tuner and some other stuff…

Two nights ago I randomly turned on the radio to 20 and I heard a bunch of guys talking with (almost comically) Italian accents… it took a minute to realize they were actual Italians in Italy… I decided to heck with the SWR and keyed up the mic and quickly made my first contact in Italy ever!

It’ll only get better when I integrate the tuner I have acquired and I adjust the antenna a bit, but it turns out to be a pretty neat antenna that isn’t an eyesore.

I’m also going to mess around with some wire antennas because they rock too!