Chris,

Here is the only way I have found to get any short wave performance 
from a DC to Daylight radio like yours, or like my THF6A.

Go to a ham fest, and buy the ugliest, most beat up small antenna 
tuner, such as one of the 300 watt MFJ models, that you can find. Of 
course, you can buy a new one, but if you want to do this on the 
cheap, ugly will be the way to go.

Also, buy a coax patch cable with a PL259 on one end, and the SMA 
connector that fits your Icom on the other.

Connect the tuner to your HT with the patch cable, as though you were 
going to use it to tune an antenna, which you in fact will be doing. 
Then connect no more than 10 or 15 feet of wire to the output of the 
tuner.

When you want to listen to short wave, adjust the tuner for maximum 
signal for the frequency you have tuned in.

What you are really doing is using the antenna tuner as a tunable band 
pass filter of sorts. The tuner is keeping all of the other DC to 
daylight signals from swamping the front end of the HT. This is why 
you use 10 or 15 feet of wire for the antenna, rather than 100 or 150 
feet. You want the band width of the tuner and wire combination to be 
very narrow.

This is necessary because the HT has no filtering in its front end, 
which means the receiver is very easily overloaded.

Of course, you then have to disconnect the tuner, and return the 
regular antenna in order to transmit.

You can do the same thing with the so called "Miracle Whip" antenna or 
one of its imitators, that is sold for use with the Yaesu FT817, or 
with one of the indoor active antennas if you want to spend that much 
money.

Mike Duke, K5XU