Helper Donkey assists with Back-20 Portable Ops - testing the 45 ft Inverted-L, 4 X 45 foot radials.

Helper Wife smacked the tennis-balled end of the inverted-L up into ideal position with her tennis racket!

Happy to have made a few 1 Watt 80 M QSO's with my Pixie-based system, including homebrew QRP Base Matching Unit to mitigate impedance extremes, and QRP T-Tuner and SWR bridge.  Operation on the higher bands is no problem as well - made a few DX contacts on 40 M and 20 M with the IC706.

4 radials was about the minimum I would recommend - it's about 3 or 4 dB down from the 10 or 15 radials that make a more efficient system.  Aas we get down to 1 "radial", efficiency drops to a good 12 dB down, or about 2 S-Units down.

The 1 "radial" system is of course why the typical sort of hodge-podge "end-fed" with one of the magic counterpoise wires (or just using the coax as "counterpoise" is such a poor choice for low band operation - it's really no more than an inefficient  short radiator with an even shorter single "radial".







More important that just some anecdotal "I made some contacts" statement is the actual data.  

The 45 ft Inverted-L radiation patterns, SWR, and Base Matching Unit considerations are discussed here ====>

End-Fed Inverted-L, 45 ft version, Elevation and Azumith Radiation Plots

End-Fed Inverted-L, 90 ft and 45 ft versions, Feedpoint Impedance and SWR

Why we use a Base Matching Unit (BMU) with End-Fed Verticals and Inverted-Ls

Someone was shopping at Sotabeams.

Congrats!

Nice setup!
The loop in the wire through the s hook on the table.  Is that a loop in the antenna wire itself or something else on the wire creating the loop?  
Like the strain relief in that.  I always have the ef wire pulling on the radio, will have to give that a shot.  
ps - bet no coyotes near your donkey!

Nice setup, and cute donkey. Maybe you can convince her (him?) to pack your gear up to a SOTA summit.

I don't think I can convince those dang donkeys to do anything.  They're smart enough to have an idea of what you want, but seem to enjoy just standing there mocking you.  One could make wife jokes at this point, but it's best not to ...

Yes, I just tied a loop into the wire and bungee'd it to the table.