Hi Laurence,
I did not reply earlier on this subject since you were gettig very good
advice from others.
However there are one or two points that I should like to make which may
prove helpfull.
I agree that shorting the ends will not make any difference to the
performance of the ant. but it might reduce possible corona !
I also agree that the vert wire should be a single wire but it ought to be
as vertical as possible to keep its capacity to earth at a minimum. I notice
that the tower is quite close(although you have moved the vert wire further
away ) I think that the tower should be grounded to the very effectively to
the bottom of the loading coil ie any capacitive current should be returned
through a low loss connection to the Tx. If this is done there will be no
losses associated with the tower(or not too many ). Finally I don't know
much about your ground there but my experience is that on poor ground like
mine you should get as much wire in the air as possible " This wire does'nt
need to be in a straight line mine zig zags between trees but I always try
to cover "new" ground and recently discovered that it should be clear ground
ie no bushes etc.
Hope this all helps and look foreward to seeing a signal from KL.
73 Laurie.