My entry into HF has been a 10m sleeve dipole, discussed at length here
and still a work in progress. (The coax is out of the lower element, so
it's just a vertical dipole.) More about that below.

Today, at a local swap meet that features ham gear on the first
Saturday, I bought a little tuner for $5.00. It got my puny TS-120 onto 15
meters and I talked to a guy in Pennsylvania. Hot stuff! That was my first
QSO outside the local area, not counting IRLP. And this with an antenna
that's mounted only 18 inches above the ground.

I tried it on 20 Meters, but that was too much of a stretch. Very high
VSWR no matter what. Antenna must get bigger. How to make antenna bigger?
Add metal.

I grabbed a three-foot piece of meter lead with alligator clips on both
ends. I also grabbed a hank of TV coax and went out to the antenna (in the
dark with a flashlight), intending to stretch out the coax and clip it to
the end of the lower element of the dipole. I nearly tripped over a
retracted aluminum extension ladder laying on the ground. Ah, fate! I
immediately clip-lead-connected the ladder to the bottom of the lower
element of the dipole and went back inside, taking the unused RG-59 with me.

This time, the tuner had no trouble getting a very low SWR. I tuned
around and heard a guy. I called him and he came right back. From Hawaii.
He said I had a solid signal, although I'm sure his five-element beam was
doing much of the work.

I've heard stories about unusual antennas, including the one about
"loading up the bedsprings" but I believe a ladder laying on the ground as
part of an antenna is a novelty.

I tried 40 meters and got a good match. I could hear people but nobody
came back when I called. Maybe I needed to stretch out the ladder.

Back to the subject of the original dipole. I got a 1:1 balun at the
Ham Radio Outlet store in San Diego today after the swap meet. I will try
fitting it to the dipole as a possible cure for feedline radiation. Also, I
probably shouldn't have the dipole leaning against tree branches for
support.

73,
"Sal"