So having Slinky envy, I have tried a Slinky vertical. The Slinky is stretched over sixteen feet of military fiberglass mast. This is supported by the hitch mount of the truck. I used an existing counterpoise made of ribbon cable with quarter wave conductors for 40. 30, 20 and 17 meters. The resonance seems to be about 6.6 MHz. It tuned on 40 meters but did not tune well on 20. So to make this versatile I added my Balun Designs 9 to 1 Unun in conjunction with the KX3 internal tuner. Now it tunes 40 meters through 10 meters.
Next, I did a quick test to see if it works. I snagged the International Marconi Day station KM1CC on 17 meters. Then I had a good QSO on 30 meters with WA8KOQ. Now his antenna was an eleven foot gutter and he was S9. I got a S7 with my 5 watts. So they say you can tune bedsprings, a gutter, or a Slinky I suppose.
This configuration would be good enough to work out of a parking lot without much of a profile. So perhaps I'll try it for lunch break ops. I could see running a longer coax to the back seat for inclement weather.
