Well Tom, I completely understand and wish you will with the antenna.
A radio club friend stopped by last weekend and we did some 
straightening out of the Windem.  It had sagged and got caught under 
a roof shingle but with a bit of effort on both our parts and a 30 
foot telescopic fiberglass pole, we dropped the west end of the wire, 
hooked the stuck part and released it and I held it away from the 
roof with the pole while Roberto pulled it back up in place.  So, 
hopefully I am good for the winter.  A bit problematic with both ends 
of the antenna in trees.  So my fingers are crossed.
And I'm trying to decide if I want an LDG tuner - cheapham.com has a 
good deal on them and I think it would be more effective than the 
internal tuners, but I don't really want to do it until after I buy 
some Christmas presents, when I might no longer be able to afford one!!
Off to work for me as well.
Pat, K9JAUAt 06:07 AM 11/28/2012, you wrote:
>     Pat:
>
>I'm getting ready to head off to work now, but let me just respond quickly
>this way:
>
>You are not an old fart, and really, your thoughts here are good!
>
>One thing I'm going to do before I completely give up on the 80-meter sloper
>is see what happens if the main radiating element is oriented differently
>than it is now.  That can be done with a little help from the sighted XYL,
>who I bet I could bribe with a dinner out or something.  (grin)
>
>It's just that I don't have a lot of support structures and trees at the
>home QTH here, which makes things a bit challenging.
>
>Will keep at it, though, and let you know how I make out.
>
>It's off to work now.
>
>Tom Behler: KB8TYJ
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Pat Byrne" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2012 11:07 PM
>Subject: Re: Cobra antennas
>
>
> > Just thinking out loud Tom.  Perhaps the missing half of the sloper
> > is inadequate for 75 meters.  Perhaps the angle of the wire effects
> > the minimum SWR.  But, how does the antenna work?  If you didn't know
> > that the SWR was high would you suspect that your compromise antenna
> > is letting you down?  Can you wangle enough space to get up a
> > temporary 75 meter dipole and be able to switch between the two wires
> > to see the difference?  Would that tell you anything?  I believe that
> > you have found that adding coax to the feed line lowers, in theory,
> > the SWR.  I guess what I am asking is are you being misled by an
> > arbitrary meter reading that may in fact not mean too much.  And
> > certainly I can be wrong as can be and that your gut and your meter
> > are telling you that the antenna stinks!
> > To end all of this rant; when I was a kid in the hobby I put up
> > antenaes cut to a quarter wave, particularly on forty meters
> > according to the formulaes and, knowing what I know now, they were
> > probably way too long since they were pretty low.  But I didn't have
> > an SWR meter.  I had a Windem fed with 300 ohm TV twin lead which I
> > now know was an awful match but the PI network forced power somewhere
> > so I was convinced that I had a great antenna.  I guess that
> > ignorance was bliss!  Perhaps if there are other hams in your close
> > area, you can work QSOs with them and see at a distance how your
> > signal compares.  Okay, I'll stop sounding like an old fart!!
> > Good luck my friend.  Antennaes are really a fun part of the hobby.
> > Pat, K9JAUAt 08:22 PM 11/27/2012, you wrote: