Ham Radio / SWL folk: I need advice.
In this thread, I mentioned that I’d come across a 500’ spool of magnet wire. I already have a receiver I built, and one that a friend gave to me. Well, now I wanna do some listening. . .
Here’s the catch: my SWL receiver is battery powered, portable, and I can throw it in a rucksack–so I want my antenna to be backpack-able as well, so I can go up mountains and catch some waves.
So I could use some help, advice, or hints. I had considered getting a hula hoop from the store, slitting it open, and winding the wire into the inside of the hoop with turnouts at specific lengths to “tap” off of. It’s an idea. I wanted to see if I could do a multi-band antenna in one unit.
What do you guys use for portable antennae?
Tripler
Quite possibly the nerdiest post I’ve ever made. 
One suspects you want a helical whip - aka broomstick.
Basically get a length of tubing and wind your wire in a single layer down it’s length. Capacitive hat helps. Google it - there are lots.
Will probably need a tuner to match to your receiver - easy as well to knock one up.
You want to keep that quite still , tight and firm on very stiff mount a hula hoop may tend to shake it too much… certainly no hanging it from trees… Well you can… you can take 15’ or something as a single use hang from tree antenna…
Loops are good for space restrictions (such as apartment operation) and nulling out local interference (neighbor’s noisy lamp ballasts). You will probably have neither in your mountaintop situations. You would also be the guy with the hula hoop everyone on the mountain is avoiding.
A vertical is OK but will typically be noisier than a horizontal orientation for several reasons but mostly that a lot of broadcast antennas are vertically polarized and will introduce noise. There is also the significant disadvantage of needing to get some big height. Of course, you may not always be able to rely on trees and other natural structures for vertical hanging.
I think you’ll be best off with a simple random length wire. I can’t recommend the magnet wire you have since it is probably quite stiff and will not lay flat. It may also have a fairly low copper content (poor conductivity) and may even be steel which will rust. It may also stretch.
You’ll still need structures to get off the ground but a shallow sloper can work just fine.
I’ve never bought from them but have heard many, many great reviews from the Wireman:
https://thewireman.com/antennap.html
I’d sure like to have a few hundred feet of their (his?) 259 strand ‘silky’ or Flexweave stuff. You could coil it up and later toss it out and it will tend to not kink and knot up on you. You’ll appreciate a nice, smooth surface when it is time to reel it back in, too.
I don’t think there are multiband antennas for shortwave listening like you’d have with a transceiver. You don’t need to worry about an SWR match. Longer is probably better here. You also won’t need a counterpoise or radial array for receive only which cuts your copper down by half or more. You will not need a tuner.
-jngl/Amateur Extra
Hrm, very good points. . .
**
Francis Vaughan**, and Isilder bring up a good point about the fragibility of the wire, even inside a hula hoop; I wonder if I can simply wind a loop around something else, and fix down the wire with tape.
I do have an apartment, and think a loop might give me more directionality than a coiled whip. Although. . . the whip would be easier to carry up a mountain. . . My only concern with the helical whip is how far I’d have to space out each turn for such a low frequency. Helical antennae are good for the GHz range. I’m looking at MHz, which would make the thing 200’ long.
I guess I could do it. Just would have one hell of a hike! 
Tripler
Oh, but man, I could darn well do direction finding with a 200’ long helical antenna.