Max length can depend on how robust the front end of the receiver is.
I once had a 450 footer - my R-71a ate it for lunch. The same antenna
blew the brains out of a Sony 2010. (Live and learn. Fortunately the
2010 was under warranty and the Sony repair depot was 4 miles away.)

Years later I had another good one - a 240 footer at about 55 ft high,
going to a Drake R8a and a Yahoo Frog-A-Hunnert.

For your situation .. experiment. My experience is the longer (and
higher) the better. And with the Tun-4 you should be able to tame it
down / tweak it up as needed.

For handling the "higher is better" part - a fishing reel bolted to a
wrist-rocket slingshot with hose clamps is 2nd best. A poor man's E-Z
Hang, if you will. Hey E-Z Hang was on sale at Dayton Hamvention for
$90.00 or so. But for about $20.00 and a trip to the Wal-Mart sporting
goods department, you can make one that works fine.

First best - an archery fishing reel attached to a good hunting bow.
Awesome results if you're a decent archer.

Ok .. the *real* first best is a Lyle gun and a few thousand feet of
rope - but this might be overkill. :-)

"El Dubya" wrote:

For your situation .. experiment. My experience is the longer (and
higher) the better. And with the Tun-4 you should be able to tame it
down / tweak it up as needed.

Experiment, experiment, experiment. Best advice yet. I'd take higher
over longer. I 'spearminted with 1/4 - wavelength verticals with an
elevated feed this spring, and am really surprised. Get 'em 20 feet
off of the ground, and make 'em out of wire. I've been using one with
4 radials for 30 Meter Ham and 31 Meter Shortwave use, and have
found it works really well from about 5 MHz to about 22 MHz for
receive purposes. Barring that, if you're going with a longwire
horizontal,
longer really is better, and get it as high as you can.

For handling the "higher is better" part - a fishing reel bolted to a
wrist-rocket slingshot with hose clamps is 2nd best. A poor man's E-Z
Hang, if you will. Hey E-Z Hang was on sale at Dayton Hamvention for
$90.00 or so. But for about $20.00 and a trip to the Wal-Mart sporting
goods department, you can make one that works fine.

I thougth I was the only one doing that! Here's another good'n. Skip the
slingshot, get a deluxe el-cheapo Zebco 202 or 404 fishin' combo from Wally
World (tm), and put a half - ounce sinker on the end of the line. Cast it
into the
highest tree, and the sinker will drop down to the ground. Clip off the
sinker,
attach wire to the end, and pull it up through the tree. Presto! A nice
folded
vertical that will work really well for shortwave purposes. Oh, yeah....use
well-insulated wire.

73,

Steve

"If you are going through hell, keep going."
-- Winston Churchill