I'm sorry if these questions are stupid, but there seem to be so many conflicting bits of information around, I'd solicit yet another one :-)

I live in a semi detached house, with a 4 band HyEndFed EFHW with 49:1 mounted on my chimney. It's fed from my shack using some decent M&P coax. I am assuming that the coax acts as the counterpoise/ground to some extent as there is no separate connection for a CP at the antenna end, but I've not had any real RFI issues (that I'm aware of) other than a capacitive touch lamp which misbehaves when the radio is on TX.

I am considering whether to replace this with an EFRW, primarily to get some other bands which I don't have access to currently. If I were to use a 9:1 and a wire 45ish metres long, I believe I should be able to get a match (with a tuner) on most bands, certainly all that I'm interested in from 80m up. The wire would make at least 2 nearly 90 degree angles, but there would be 15m or so between each of the corners.

My questions are these:

Would this be likely to provide any real difference to simply getting a longer EFHW and running it in a similar path? Currently I have a 20m long EFHW which just runs in a straight line.

If I did go with the RW, would the coax still act as the CP if I simply didn't connect anything to the ground lug on the 9:1?

If so, would a CMC down at ground level before the coax enters the shack be more prudent than with the EFHW?

Thanks in advance for your collective wisdom.
73,
Stefan MI0PYN

You dont need a counterpoise with a 49-1 as there is very little current at the feedpoint and a high voltage and your coax will suffice. If i were you i would stick with the 49-1 and put a longer wire on that around 40m in length to start and shorten it and tune it on 3.550 for optimum swr as that will out perform any antenna with a 9-1. Antennas with a 9-1 are ok if your struggling for space etc and they receive ok but on tx any resonant antenna will work far better.

Hi i use a 9.1 unun with 53 ft of wire my ts 2000 auto tuner tunes from 80m to 10m no problem

an IL with the FP just above GL is very effective, and yes use the coax as an adjustable CP, thought sometimes a VSCP at the FP helps.

I have an end-fed wire here in Tenerife, 32.6M long, 9:1 UNUN, running horizontally with the last 5M vertical.
I have attached a single counterpoise at the UNUN, and I also have around a 9" string of ferrite beads on the coax. 10ft away from the feed point. I've had no problems with RF feedback.
Just be aware that there are good & bad lengths of "random wire" I have a table of good lengths that I can send to you if you wish.