I don't know if I'm the person on this list with the smallest yard,
but I may be. It's a 20 by 24 foot backyard with a shed at the back end and
power lines running along the back of the house. 

      I put up a Butternut HF6V, six-band vertical and did my best with
laying down a dozen radials. Of course, I had to bend some of them to fit
the shape of the lot, and I could only fan them out in an arc about 270
degrees, since I erected the vertical right next to the shed at the back of
the yard, to avoid any possibility of it coming down on the power line. 

      Luckily, I put the radials down in the fall, after I was done cutting
the grass for the season, and by spring, they were well down in the earth
and grown over with the new grass.

      Since I mow my yard with a small push mower, I sunk edging stones into
the ground, leaving their scalloped edges about an inch above ground. These
run along the two sides of the yard, about two feet from the edges of my
property. I plant herbs and flowers in the two-foot swath and never have to
worry about running over them, since the mower wheels hit the edging stones.
I placed the vertical in this protected area, too, gathered all of the
radials in a piece of PVC that's shaped like an elbow. The PVC nestles
nicely in one of the scalloped grooves of an edging stone. 

      Although it was very helpful to have a sighted friend to help with all
of this, I did a lot of the work, myself, and learned a lot from it.

      The vertical has been up for about seven years now, and it works quite
well on 40 through 10, and does less well on 80. It sure doesn't get me the
precision of a beam, but for my situation, it's done fine.

 

Dave W I 3 Y

 

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