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I've hung it from the eave of the house (~8') to a tree with the high end at ~20'. Drilled a hole in the aluminum plate for counterpoise stud and connected a 40' counterpoise. Counterpoise is at ~8' and perpendicular to the antenna and ungrounded. Just for tuning purposes and will move it's feed point up to ~45' on an antenna mast as a downward sloper after tuning. Get nice SWR <2 readings on all bands but at a lower frequency than what I want to operate at on the phone bands. So... I need to trim the antenna. Question is 2 parts. What length should the counterpoise be? Where should I start trimming the antenna. Start with the 160M band and work up or start with the 40M band and work down? After adding the 40' counterpoise the low SWR band points frequencies increased so it does affect the tuning length.

Once moved to the antenna mast, the mast is grounded with a 10' ground rod with 10 20' radials fanned out in a hemi circle. Should the counterpoise be grounded to this as well?

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    $\begingroup$ re your grounding question, check out this answer that separates the grounding of a mast, equipment grounding, and an RF ground plane. Also, check out other various and sundry ground related Q&A here! $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 13 at 19:51
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    $\begingroup$ Also, you should note that moving the feed point of your antenna will change its tuning characteristics! Put the antenna on the mast, and "trim" the ends by simply folding the ends back. That way you can non-destructively experiment. $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 13 at 19:55
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    $\begingroup$ Finally, start with the lowest band you'll be operating on. $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 13 at 19:57
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    $\begingroup$ When tuning a multi-band antenna, it's good to do an SWR "study", by recording your lowest SWR in each band you intend to use the antenna on, since shortening it to move the "best frequency" in one band, may cause your best SWR to be "too high" in another band. So you may have to compromise to get a decent, but not "perfect" SWR across all of your bands. As far as how long your counterpoise should be, that antenna looks to be a center-fed sloper, so each leg should be the same length & UnGROUNDED. You do NOT need any radial field with a dipole, you are just distorting your radiation pattern. $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 14 at 17:11
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    $\begingroup$ Yes, I use an MFJ-269 Antenna Analyzer and "map" the antenna by band and SWR low point on the band and SWR at the target frequency center for the band. Turning the antenna wire back on itself to test before trimming is a good point. Another part of this "project" is grounding and connecting the ground to the existing ground for the house to prevent ground loops. I get mixed reviews in the various antenna books on counterpoise and even some antenna manufacturers say that the counterpoise for their antenna should be grounded. I don't see that in the literature of books on antenna design. $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 15 at 16:15

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OK SamR, it's very common for folks to mix up DC grounding for static and lightning mitigation, and RF grounding. I think most experienced people will say if you want a DC ground, you can, and should ground your coax shield at the antenna AND run a wire from that point to your utility ground, then, ground the coax shield again as it enters your home, and using another wire, tie that point to the same utility ground. Do not use the coax shield as the "ground wire" from the antenna to the point you enter your home. Here is a very informative video with an engineer and ham who designed ground systems for the utilities: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJVJjgI2YbM]1

DC grounding however, does very little for RF. To minimize RF on the coax shield, it is advisable to place ferrite beads on the coax, or wind the coax through a ferrite toroid at or near your radio, since your coax shield does carry extraneous RF since RF doesn't "ground" entirely to your DC bonding system, and every coax will be found to be just the right length to be resonant at several frequencies, and if nothing else, create a noisy environment for your receiver. And ferrite beads, clamps or torroids do nothing for DC static or lightning, only RF that is on the coax shield, they don't even affect the RF currents being carried inside your coax, just those on the outside, that can still cause receiver noise. Coax through Ferrite If I understood your antenna description correctly, you have a dipole that you are going to configure as a "Sloper"

Sloper Dipole Antenna

If this is the case, you do not need a radial field anywhere, and if you have a radial field anywhere around the antenna, you will get unpredictable radiation patterns through asymmetrical reflection and RF current absorption by the radial field, above which just the natural ground would cause. If you have this setup and want to ground the coax, do so at the coax/antenna connection and tie that wire to an appropriate ground rod for your area, and run another wire from that ground rod to your utility ground.

As stated earlier, this will likely have an undetectable affect on anything but the discharge of DC, which is good if you have a dry wind blowing across uninsulated wire, without transformer isolation. And if that's the case, make sure you disconnect your radio on dry wind days since long bare copper wires can build up thousands of DC volts that can fry a receiver's front end.

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    $\begingroup$ top notch communicating and if I could upvote more than once I would! $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 17 at 2:50

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