"blair thompson" wrote
I have a 63 ft. end-fed wire antenna which I am using with an
MFJ-949
versa tuner, and 4 counterpoises cut for 1/4 wave on 15,20, 30 and
40
meters. Far end not very high, about 25 feet up a tree, shot up
there
with a slingshot. Pretty thick foliage right now, but not a lot of
the
wire is showing and in the clear as the near end of the wire slopes
down almost to ground level (townhome QTH).

Bit of an underperformer, and I was wondering whether it would be
worth my while to install a ground rod in order to ground the tuner,
and whether that might improve matters a bit,

=================================
Blair,
A single ground rod will be virtually useless - that is unless it can
be driven into salt sea water.

If the radials are elevated above ground, then some improvement may be
achieved by allowing them to rest at ground level. This will increase
the effective height of the antenna.

Better still, shallow-bury them.

Even better, add more radials. Extra radials, on or underground, need
not be very long and not of any particular length. The more there are
up to a dozen or so, the merrier.

Important - try to get the near end of the wire as high as you can in
the air. Get some vertical wire into it. Can the near end be taken up
the side of the house and suspended from a chimney, TV antenna or rain
gutter or something? This will definitely make a noticeable
improvement.
----
Reg.