Staying "INSIDE" the Box
The Inverted-L / LAZY-Inv-L (or LAZY-Inv-V)
I have often lived at a QTH with a so-called "Postage Stamp Garden".
Clearly we are challenged to erect good-performing antennas within the box.
To say that a quarter-wave vertical is a space-saving antenna is stating the obvious.
This section is about 'other' space-saving antennas, not about vertical antennas.
A vertical antenna is usually good for DX, but not particularly good for working NVIS. If you are interested in vertical antennas, please visit my other web site, here: Vertical Antennas .
One way of saving space is to bend a full-size antenna. When speaking of "full size", we are usually referring to a full size "half-wave dipole" or a full size "quarter-wave vertical".
Figures 1 - 4 in the drawings below show three space-saving antennas, compared to the size of a half-wave dipole. My favorite one is the Inverted-L. Like the vertical, they omni-directional antennas, but
unlike the vertical, they have horizontal polarized as well as vertical polarized radiation.
These features make it a good antenna for working both DX and NVIS, albeit not quite as good as the vertical for DX and not quite as good as a horizontal dipole for NVIS - but a darn good general-purpose antenna. If I can't put up separate vertically and horizontally polarized antennas, then I'll take this one!
Sometimes our QTH does not facilitate a second elevated pole/mast. In this case it is OK to slope the horizontal segment diagonally to the ground. You should strive to keep the end as high as possible. I like to keep it at least at a 60 degree angle to the vertical segment of the radiator, but if you can't, just do the best you can.
WARNING: There is high voltage on the end of the sloping wire. Keep the end high enough above the ground than humans and animals cannot come into contact with it.
SO WHAT DO WE CALL THIS ANTENNA?
Well we could call it a "Lazy-L" or "Lazy-Inv-V". It doesn't really matter as long as we know what antenna is meant. For the rest of this segment, I will call it a "Lazy-Inv-V".
