Jeremy Parr schrieb:
I am looking at getting a shortwave radio, and am concerned about antenna
options. My place of residence has a small attic, about 25' x 25', and the
lot is small as well, about 40' x 120'. What options would I have for good
reception?

For shortwave you should try to get as high as posibe with the feeding
point of your antenna. If you can, go to the roof and take some 4-8
insulated thin wires with differnt legths between 15' and "as long as
possible". Spread them out like a wing above your roof and the lot. Tie
up the end of the wires as high as possible maybe by using an extension
wire insulated from the antenna wire. All antenna wires do connect to
the center of a 50 ohm coax cable running to your SW-radio. If possible
do run a a thick copper wire from the shielding of the coax cable(s) to
a separate grounding rod buried at least 6' deep into the ground. Do
_n_o_t_ connect to a lightning protection system! Cheap RG 58C/U (double
shielded) for RX only on shortwave does it fine. At least a simple wire
with a length of 50' will do the job for a beginner :-)
For your scanner put up a discone antenna on the roof top and run a
separate coax to it. For the scanner do take a high quality cable. Coax
cables used to feed from satellite dishes with double shielding just do
fine. On scanners the 50 Ohms for input impedance is just theoretical.
So mismatching of the 75 Ohm cable is no argument.

Also, what would be a decent radio? I am looking at keeping the cost of
antenna system + radio under $500, but if there is a compelling reason to go
over I will consider it. Would it be better to get a shortwave radio, and a
scanner to do trunking stuff? Or is there a RXer that can do DC-Daylight
w/trunk tracking?

There are very few professioal grade scanners from Icom and AOR for
example wich do "DC-daylight" just fine. But without tunking capablites
and way out of your money limit. Even a really good tabletop SW receiver
will blow up your limit easily. Maybe you go lucky to get a used Drake
or JRC SW-radio within your limit. Shortwave listening and scanning on
VHF/UHF are completely different worlds. As I do live in Germany I'm not
into the trunking stuff used in the US.

regards,
Volker