I love it when people say to me "I'm not in the contest..."
There is no such thing! If you have a qso with me while I am contesting, then you are "in the contest", regardless of whether you send in a log or make any other q's.

Just have fun!

TA33 15 feet off the ground and 100 watts, and took first place in the 10 meter contest for 8 land.
I think I also got first in the ARRL DX for low power tri-band in 8 land one year with the same set up.
I LOVE that antenna.

You could build a quad antenna that covers those band's fairly easy....... should fit up in the attic no problem.

Laying it on the roof might work, but not well, lol.
I would put it up in the vertical, if possible. If not, then horizontal with a slope towrds where you want to work is a good option. Higher up the better, of course. With horizontal..... the angle of radiation is straight up pretty much. Thats why they call them cloud warmers. You will be LOUD locally, but more than a few hundred miles out, you are going to begin to struggle.

Yep....... sounds more like a trap problem than tuning.
My 33 has a "decent" swr (less than 3 to 1) almost everywhere I adjust the element lengths.

Page up/ page down.

Oops..... forgot to say after you calibrate it, lol.

It's the same concept as the meter you have been using..... just don't have to calibrate or switch from forward to refelcted.
Tune for lowest SWR with the highest POWER reading.

Why in the world would anyone want a 5/8 wave c.b. antenna on the ground for 10m??
Buy an Antron (Solarcon) 99 for 50.00 bucks or less, and put it up in the air. Heck, 10 feet would be better, and you don't need any radials.
Search Antron on eBay and you will see what I mean.
Oh. btw.....
It works on 11/12 and 15 meters too.

To be honest...... I used a 570 during last field day for the full 24 hours, and I couldn't stand the audio. Never could put a finger on it, but compared to my 450 at home, it was a big loser. Tried different filters and everything.
Just my .02 cents,
Joe

What band??? I assume you mean 2 meters, right?
I am having a hard time believing you don't know this.......
How about 146.52???
Seriously, and don't take this the wrong way, but how can you not know about .52 simplex?? Should have been an easy answer on you test.
Just wondering,
Joe

NEWINGTON, CT, Apr 5, 2004--Bill J. Fisher, W4AN (ex-KM9P), of Alpharetta, Georgia, died unexpectedly April 4. He was 41. The cause of his death was not announced.

My God,
What terrible news.

Oh....... and about the coax,
The shorter the run, the better of course. That goes for any coax at any frequency. How long is too long?
I guess when your loss is equal to the gain you achieved by using the long run, lol.
At 75/80 meters, loss is not a huge factor..... not like at 6 and 2 meters.
I personally use full size RG-8 for my coax, but you can use mini-8 all day long and be happy with it.

Joe
K8NMU
 

Ok.......
First of all, I wouldn't worry too much about those trees affecting your signal on 75/80. Depending on how tall they are, most people USE the trees as antenna supports!
A few suggestions:
1) An inverted-v with the feed point as high as you can get it in a tree.
2) A horizontal full wave loop (if you have the room) will work real well for most short haul work. You will want to use a tuner for this one.... it can be a powerfull antenna on lots of other bands as well.

There are lots of other ideas you can use for more serious dx work, such as elevated wire verticals and half square antennas, but for now, since you are new to the hobby, I'd stick to the inverted-v.

Hope this helps,
Joe K8NMU

Does anyone remember seeing an article about a wire antenna called a Double H-Bay? It was two loops, stacked on top of one another...... I think for six meters. It was in either CQ or QST in the mid 90's.
I built a couple for 15 and 20 meters for our old Field Day station, but they have since vanished.
I'd like to re-build them, but can't remember the formula.
Can anyone point me in the right direction?