Living on the edge of town with a small garden can mean difficulty in putting out a good signal, also local man made noise (QRM) can mean weak signals are lost in the noise.
My solution is to mount the antenna away from the house and also use a horizontal antenna.
A Horizontal antenna has big advantages in an urban environment. It is much quieter on RX.
If you can't hear the weak DX signals then how can you work them. A good RX is of utmost importance.
Not wanting to invest a large some of money on a purpose built mast I repurposed a few piece of scaffold tubing and a couple of swivel clamps.
The whole mast costs less than £100 and can be folded over. The stub mast is less than 8ft tall and therefore I think I may get away without needing planning consent.
Atleast I don't have the worry of losing an expensive investment if I did go the route of buying a commercial mast and getting turned down by the planning authorities.
My antenna is the Cobwebb 5 band antenna. No ATU is required, band changing is instantaneous and it is the lowest noise option I have so far tried.
