Simple Ham Radio Antennas

How would you like to have a simple, effective antenna for 20 meters thast will give you some gain over a ground plane antenna and exhibit a radiation angle of approximately 15 degrees? You can grab more DX (distance) at a modest cost by building a 5/8 wavelength vertical antenna working in conjunction with 1/4 wavelength radials beneath the main radiating element. I've built 5/8 wavelength antennas for 10 and 15 meters and they work very well.  If you desire multiband performance out of this antenna, you will need a balanced feed line (such as 450-ohm ladder line), a 4:1 current balun, and a sturdy ATU ( antenna tuning unit ).  If you prefer to use this antenna on one band only, you can establish resonance with a base loading coil that tunes the antenna to 3/4 wavelength  resonance.  Standard 1/4 wavelength wire radials are used with both versions of this antenna. According to William I. Orr (W6SAI) and Stuart D. Cowan (W2LX), "a 5/8 wavelength antenna provides imp