it seems to play reasonably well with part of the latter line on the ground, 
or horrizontal.
As i said before, a guy at the camp area we were at had his g5RV ten feet 
off the ground, with almost all of the latter line on the ground, fed with a 
chunk of 50 ohm coax...his internal tuner tuned it and he was able to check 
into the nets, and make a few dx contacts along the way.
He talked to japan and somewhere in europe on that antenna without even 
really trying.
Ours had part of the latter line lying on the ground as well and it was 
definitely not all vertical.
It worked pretty nicely as well...so the short anser is, don't worry about 
it, it doesn't seem to drastically effect the performance of the antenna.

73
Colin, V A6BKX
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Behler" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2012 8:07 PM
Subject: Another G5RV Question


> Hi, folks.
>
> Upon further inspection, it turns out that there is a nice tall oak tree
> behind our RV that I might be able to use as the center point for my G5RV.
>
> But, here's the question:
>
> I am not sure how high I'll be able to get the center up into that tree, 
> and
> since the XYL might be helping me with this entire operation, I have to be
> careful.
>
> My question is this:  Is is absolutely essential for the ladder line to be
> vertical, or could a few feet on the bottom be horizontal without 
> degrading
> the antenna's performance substantially?
>
> I don't think we'd have trouble getting the center up about 20 feet, but 
> 30
> might be pushing it.
>
> It's just going to be hard to use a slingshot or whatever to safely get 
> the
> center of the antenna up as high as I would like, given the close quarters
> of the camp ground, and given my desire to save life and limb.
>
> Thanks for tolerating all of these questions, and I'll keep everyone 
> posted
> if we can get something accomplished this week-end.
>
> 73 from Tom Behler: KB8TYJ