It’s the journey and not the destination . Without trying everything you will never know and thats the fun of it !

When I was first licensed here in the UK, I temporarily put up 20 metre long end fed, no balun/un-un with the wire going into a Kenwood AT230 atu.
As a foundation licensee and restricted to 10w, I wasn't expecting much.
I heard someone in Malta calling CQ  on 40m and tried my luck. He came back to me with a 59 report, my first ever contact. Another early contact of mine was working into Florida and the Caribbean - again with just 10w.
That 'temporary' antenna served me well for several years with just the addition of a 9:1 un-un.
Progressing to a intermediate call sign (50w in those days) I worked into the Americas and far east and all points in between, regularly.

When I started I tried several dipoles , wire. Read an article about a simple dipole 1/2 wave lenght two pieces of aluminum and a copper coil in the middle. I was 11 years old and ARRL books were the resource. Used a Eico 723    60 watts CW. Drake 2C receiver.With that low power and CW I contacted Europe and Hawaii. Nobody believed me until the QSL cards began showing up in the mail. Good times? more like Great times !  ionosphere was great from 1961 until 69 or so.Used a Crystal ,no vfo 21114 khz 15 meter band.

When I got my General, the first antenna I put up was a 9:1 "Random Wire" antenna that was like 73 foot long. In the years after I've tried a bunch of other antennas and now that I moved, the first antenna I'm putting up is a 143 foot long 9:1 "Random Wire" antenna. The circle is complete.

Another great video! My first was a random wire with a 9:1 and was 124 long, I simply ran it around the roof line of my house (it was bent this way and that), but it gave me all the bands using my G90 tuner. Like you said, all I wanted to go was get on the air and make some contacts. I've been licensed about 8 months now and have built maybe a dozen antennas since the first one. It's just too much fun.

My first antenna was a dipole on 80m, then a Delta Loop on 40m. Experiment with different antennas. See you on the air. 73!

My first 40m antenna was a dipole up about 20 feet hung in several trees. I then built a pair of vertical loops hung in trees phased with a  Chtistman Network. East west reversible. I currently have an extended boom (34 ft) on an old DX6 with a 38ft loaded dipole on each end fed with a Christman phasing harness. It swings 360 degrees and is instantly reversible.

1/4 wave vertical out in the sticks.
LOVE IT.

For small spaces, I am still partial to an inverted vee.  It uses a single center support.  By adjusting the apex angle a bit, one can get 50 ohms impedance without a requiring trans match balun.  The pattern is near omni-directional, which may be important if your lot size limits the orientation of your antenna. Finally, one can make it multi-band by building it as a linked dipole.  Yes, it's more effort to change bands - lower the center support and link or unlink wire sections - but the antenna remains efficient on all bands.  No transmatch losses.

I keep playing with other antennas - even my home antenna is a temporary setup each time - but I come back to the inverted vee linked dipole as the best combo of performance, cost, and ease of installation.

I wish I had this video when I started!

If I had to do it all over again (but had the trees and the room), I would put up a large loop with the apex as high as possible, and 280+ ft, fed with ladder line. You can use this on all HF bands, has low Q, and receive is usually quiet.

I used a long wire via a home made ATU and a radial.. Worker well on all bands. Worked the states on 10m using AM and AM on 160m. That was about 1974 as g4gja now a GW. I moved back to Kent from Luton beds and  a similar antenna plus a home made 2 ele beam on 10m this time. Late after another QTH move to Sittingbourne Kent I ended up with a huge quad loop.. About 300ft of wire involved. 579 to Scotland with 3 watts of CW, a home made qrp Tx. I am gqrp no 576.

tip: pickup a used CB base vertical at a garage sale. INSIDE the bottom of the tubing you will find a printed circuit coil board. REMOVE that PC board. you will have a very good 20 mtr vertical without that coil inside.... at two radials and good to go. Verticals are good for DX since their radiation take off angle is the horizon itself. They do however tend to be static buzzing noisey antler.

Not all vertical antennas are noisy if it's installed correctly with the proper hardware and knowledge.
Don't forget Doublets and delta loops fed with open wire, there is a huge range to choose from and hope you can demonstrate to the audience in future about many choices. We do have a lot of 'cup half empty' that need encouraging and thanks to you Peter, your helpful videos are making their enthusiasm flourish.
73 & thank you for the informative video demonstration.

When I began studying for my novice exam, I just ran a 14awg wire up a tree vertically up a tree and horizontally, about 75 feet to another tree. It was fed about 6 feet off the ground. The center conductor to the wire and the shield to a 6 foot ground rod, no balun or choke.  (I had no idea what I was doing)
Believe it or not, after I got my license, that antenna ruled the 40 meter band, extremely well on 20 and 10 m, and it was even adequate on 80.
My first contact was on 40 M CW, with a station from Hawaii, and I lived in New York.

DX difficulty on the lower bands is heavily influenced by antenna type and polarization, but it is primarily driven by the characteristics of the bands themselves—specifically, their longer wavelengths. To scale a 20-meter vertical antenna to the 40-meter band, you need a radiating element that is twice as long, along with radials that are twice as long. If you want to elevate the antenna, it must be mounted twice as high as the 20-meter version to achieve similar performance. For example, a 43-foot vertical wire acts as a 5/8-wave antenna on 20 meters; when mounted 6 feet above the ground with two to four elevated 16.5-foot radials, it provides excellent DX performance in a small backyard. For 40 meters, you would need roughly an 86-foot vertical wire mounted 12 feet above the ground, combined with two to four elevated 33-foot radials, to achieve the same 5/8-wave scaling.

Good video. I started with an 80 metre dipole and a a home brew J pole. That was thirty years ago. Now? A 40 metre EFHW coupled to a 64/1 Unun and 1:1 balun. All home brew. Big tip: make in yourself.

First off, I love your videos, they are very informative with facts versus "one size fits all" opinions. I am 64 years old and just passed my Technician and General tests last night. I have spent the last week building my rig with no mentors (Elmers) other than YouTube and ChatGPT. I live in an HOA, so my antenna otions are very limited. To "get on the air" and ease of available attic space without risk of falling, I elected to go with a "home brew" 20m dipole. My radio is the Icom IC-7300 MkII....So far I have only been lurking (until I get my call sign). My noise floor isn't too bad, all things considered, with an S3 at a 75% RF setting. From central Missouri in the USA, I am easily pulling in California, Florida and Canada. This video has me now thinking about an endfed antenna, I think I have the room and it would open up some more bands....My question, are there any gains or losses if my endfed is in an inverted "V"? Thanks again!

My first antennas were a random long wire going from front of my R392, through a window and tossed over a tree limb or two. The Heathkit DX60 had a dipole attached and a box of crystals beside it. I had three dipoles to start with, 80, 40, 10.  40 doubled as my 15.  

What antenna I would use would depend on my QTH limitations and abilities, and my funding is a whole lot more than just a teen, now, so that would affect it, too.

I starting for fourth time. In 45 year's. My first antenna was long wire halfwave for 80 meters , for my homemade radio. QRP and CW only.