I can barely spell antenna but I was thinking of putting up a long wire
antenna outside for a shortwave receiver I have. My questions are these.

How long should it be?
Does it need to be vertical, horizontal or somewhere in between? Which is
best?
What about guage of the wire? Radio Shack has a 70 foot stranded copper wire
14 guage with a couple of insulators as some sort of kit.
Could something like this be strung on steel insulated fence posts that are
normally used for keeping livestock from wandering? That would put it close
to the ground. I know that higher is always better.

I have a 35+ year old transistor Japanese shortwave radio that had a broken
(and lost) whip antenna. I installed another whip with a little soldering,
bought a generic ac adapter and lo and behold it worked pretty well. A
little hum but acceptable. I thought that it would not cost a lot of dough
to put an outside long wire antenna out there to receive some international
stuff. It brought in some with just the whip but quality of signal should be
much better in my estimation. I have lotsa room on the place here.

Any answers, tips or suggestions would be welcome. I thought if it worked
out I might invest in a new shortwave receiver of some kind. Any suggestions
as to that would also be appreciated. I have been thinking of a Grundig 800
but only done limited research so far.