For lightning I'd visit Home Despot and get a copper rod about 3/8" to 1/2" with
thicker preferred. I got an 8' rod and kept about 6" to 1 foot above ground.
It's right outside the window grounding the feed lines. (Yeah, we get SOME
lightning here - one or two "thunder-drizzles" a year. So all I did was put a
dribble of water on the baked hard dirt over night. That got the area muddy
enough the rod slipped in. As it dried out the rod became nicely stuck in the dirt.

Now, if I wanted to go overboard I'd have used a post hole drill to build an 8'
deep hole, support the rod in the center about 1' up from the bottom, fill it
with rocks and sand and magnesium or copper sulphate, dribble in a bit of water
for to establish a solution, and you have a long term god ground that won't
corrode away as fast as it might without the careful preparation.

There is a LOT of information on the web about ground rods. Most of it looks
useful. Over the top solutions are not usually required. However, in Dallas and
mid/south Florida it is impossible to go overboard.

For the cheap antenna it might perform better for you without a super good ground.

{^_^}

On 20190714 17:17:15, vincent wrote:
> Joanne
> what do you advise for a good ground? a metal rod drive 6' into the ground? Some
> of us that live in developments were you have to be very careful in regard to
> gas and power pipes. what would you suggest?
>
> Vincent
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 14, 2019 at 3:44 PM jdow <jdow@...
> <mailto:jdow@...>> wrote:
>
>     I repeat - for starting out there is something really nice to be said for a <
>     $10 roll of bell wire strung out oh even 20' to even 200' from your point of
>     entry on your house near the radio. If you get lightning storms add in a
>     lightning arrestor just outside the window. Put a GOOD ground on the arrestor.
>     (Perhaps as simple as a plastic box with some 1" wide strips of copper cut to
>     points at one end. Connect wire and ground to their respective strips of
>     copper.
>     Screw the copper down with a 1/8" or so gap between them. Use HEAVY wire
>     down to
>     the ground and make it a good ground. And even with that you want to disconnect
>     the antenna when there is lightning around.
>
>     The performance of this simple and more importantly dirt cheap antenna will be
>     within shooting range with a spitwad of anything else you can do at anything
>     near that price. For some things it will outperform $200 toys.
>
>     {^_^}
>
>     On 20190714 06:37:05, Paul Mclaren MM0ZBH wrote:
>      > You need a better antenna not a tuner.   Your antenna is for 25Mhz to
>     1300Mhz so
>      >   most line of sight tx/rx and a lot of frequencies that the HF+ does not
>      > cover.  It is not the best antenna and you will struggle to hear anything
>     not
>      > local or strong like you say,
>      >
>      > Have a look online for simple HF antenna like a dipole which will get you
>      > started .  You will need some coax and thin wire.   Mkae a dipole for
>     14MHz and
>      > get it outside and up as high as possible away from other cables and wires
>      > outside your house like electricity and phone lines.
>      >
>      > Regards
>      >
>      > Paul
>      >
>      >
>      > On Sun, 14 Jul 2019 at 07:31, zig zag <big.zigzag@...
>     <mailto:big.zigzag@...>
>      > <mailto:big.zigzag@... <mailto:big.zigzag@...>>> wrote:
>      >
>      >     Dear All ,
>      >
>      >     Good day,
>      >
>      >     Hope you are doing well,
>      >
>      >     I am SWL , specially ham radio and I am leaving in far away from US &
>     Europe
>      >     , which is have many people using radio in different bands l can not find
>      >     signals in my location except the Countries around me and only the strong
>      >     signals.
>      >
>      >     I have AIRSPY HF+ connected with Diamond D-130J antenna , but still not
>      >     success finding good reception.
>      >
>      >     Do I need antenna tuner ?
>      >     Dose it help improving reception?
>      >
>      >     I need your advice about this , and if need to change the antenna what is
>      >     the good or best choice to work with HF+ ?
>      >
>      >
>      >     Thanks
>      >
>      >
>      >
>      >
>
>
>
>