I shunt fed my, at that time, 55 foot tower once.  I laid down about 8 wires
which were no longer than 60 to 70 feet because my yard is only 75 feet
wide.  I then laid down a couple of thousand feet of very tiny wire, I am
talking about probably 22 to 24 gage stuff, , insulated wire, it lasted
about one season, but it boosted signals like you can't believe.  A friend
about 20 miles across town, I only ran 100 watts, asked me the very first
tonight I tried the ground system out, if I had purchased an amp with 160 on
it.  I said, why, and he said, man, you are 10 db louder than I have ever
heard you.  Then I told him about the grounding system.  I also hooked a few
of the radials to my chain link fence running around my property.  One
really long wire, I connected to my outdoor water pipe as I recall.  I don't
know if this will work with the newer verticals where their own tuned wire
stubbed poke out at the base.  I've had excellent performance out of the R7
on my roof for many years.  Sure, all verticals are a compromise but
frankly, I don't care if people do call them air filled dummy loads, I have
probably worked 200 countries running 500 watts and ground mounted and roof
mounted verticals.  I had a 14AVQ on the ground with just four 8 foot ground
rods during low sun spot times and worked, in 18 months, 610 contacts, and
14 countries on 40, 20 and 15 meters running 2 watts, or less.  I worked all
50 states and both KH6 and and KL7 on 40 meters.  So, I'm sold on verticals
unless you just have a big tall tower and a huge lot to hang wires on.
Better yet, buy two verticals, hot wire them for bidirectional broad band
operation or quarter wave coax them to end fire for directivity.  The higher
off the ground, the better.  I put one 18AVQ on top of my 55 foot tower once
and it was was unbelievable until lightning hit it two weeks later.  Bummer.
You can also now buy switching and phasing networking commercial to switch
bidirectionally or up to 8 or more directions, too.  Trapped verticals work
great on higher bands, too.  I had a friend in western Colorado, who had
four phased 80 meter LKM verticals.  They are part tower and part vertical
tubing at the top.  He used to lay down chicken wire all over the cow
pasture during the winter months.  I used to sit here and Denver and
literally hear him work Europe on 75 meters and give the stations S7 reports
when I could not even copy a single whisper on the channel.

Phil.
K0xn