Following a very interesting discussion with some of my SW radio colleagues I have decided to post some of the information about longwire antenna designs for shortwave listening.

The longwire antenna for shortwave listening has been around for donkeys years and still has many devoted followers.
Fans of it claim that it is cheap to make , easy to set up and provides reception across the whole shortwave band.
Some people do admit that there probably are better antennas designs out there to be had , but still nothing beats the longwire when all issues are considered.

Simple installations may be nothing more than a wire literally thrown up into a tree and the wire fed into the house to the radios antenna terminal.
Users may choose a more elaborate setup and include things like antenna tuners , grounds , balun matching transformers and well made support  poles and insulator assemblies.

Great claims , but are they accurate ?
Is the same style of antenna that grandpa used in the 30's still a good for shortwave listeners today ?

Let us look into the details and investigate matters further.

I hope this article will provide a balanced view of both for and against sides and as usual I will leave the ultimate answer to you , the reader.


Some history


I have yet to find the exact beginning of the longwire antenna.
No inventor claims it to be his work , which would seem an odd situation for a proven design , after all , if Mark Twain felt that his elastic suspenders on December 19 1871 were worth getting a patent on then surely an antenna of a proven design , the work of a scientist , logically would also be patented.

Perhaps it was derived from a Zep antenna or perhaps it was a layed over version of the Marconi vertical.
I just don't know , but what I have found about on untuned wire antennas is below.

In the late 1800's radio pioneer Marconi used a kite lifted wire antenna for his transmission experiments.
His transmitters were primitive untuned spark gap affairs , and his receivers were no more advanced , the pair he used in 1896 are shown here below.


   


The antenna that he used can be referred as to a wide banded leaky radiator of RF energy.

Early on Marconi (who had no official training in science) had no knowledge about frequency and atmospheric propagation , just a simple understanding about Hertzian waves.
Most of his work was attempts to improve on others work by trial and error.

He felt that it was best to get the antenna and earth as far away from each other as possible.
This resulted in the myth that the best performing antennas must be as long and as high up as possible.

Marconi went about this by employing kites to lift his wire high into the sky.
  


Marconi's early experiments had some success and some failures , some even today doubt many of his claims of success.
Recent recreation attempts of some of Marconi early transmissions have not been entirely successful at proving Marconi's claim of his transmission from Poldhu to Newfoundland.


In time Marconi abandoned the untuned longwire idea and adopted variations of Hertizian dipoles and his Marconi vertical  , which many antennas of today are modeled after.