what is the best guage wire to use for shortwave antenna

Well it needs that counterpoise and a choke as well. The instructions including those from MFJ say no counterpoise needed, but yet the box has two studs on it. It gets me there but not without some effort. I got this as way to try and make 80m as previous builds/purchases weren’t working for me.

Others have given pieces here and there but I’m going to give a full very detailed review of it. I feel it needs a fair review and a detailed one. I went back-and-forth debating on whether or not to review this antenna. I think that the shorter run of wire (~ 66 feet) is more likely to survive a few winters. I chopped off the excess wire on the MFJ to make it into a 40m EFHW and put it up at home as a backup antenna. Update July 2022: I replaced this antenna at my cottage with a Par EndFedz. I give it a 3/5 because it does work pretty well, but it is just not built to survive due to the use of flimsy wire. This antenna is inexpensive but I think the reason is because MFJ cut corners on the size and quality of the antenna wire. My suggestion would be to spend your money on a beefer implementation of this design such as the Par EndFedZ EF-ALLBAND-KW 80m-10m which uses 18AWG Polystealth wire (stranded copperweld). I think it makes a pretty decent antenna for a temporary vacation setup but I would hesitate to recommend it for use as a permanent antenna. Likely nothing would have survived a tree falling on it, but I am skeptical that this antenna would have stayed up for another winter at my location under normal circumstances. What I discovered when the antenna came down is that the wire MFJ used is only 10 strand, #20 AWG hookup wire, which IMHO is way too light a gauge for a 132 foot span. I did initially have some common mode issues, which made RX very noisy but addressed that by adding a 13.5 foot elevated counterpoise to the ground connection and some snap on ferrites on my feedline just inside where it enters the basement. I could use it without a tuner on every band from 80m through 10m with the exception of 30m.

I had this antenna up at my cottage for about a year and it worked quite well until a tree fell on it recently and broke about 30 feet off the far end of it. Works ok, antenna wire (#20 AWG) is too flimsy for 132 span

What is the best guage wire to use for shortwave antenna