So this afternoon I finally thought to check on why my HF radio isn't working very well. I finally had the great idea to check the resistance between the actual antenna and the bracket that holds it's base. This bracket is what I've connected all of my earth wires to and should be separate to the rest of the antenna.

Guess what...

It aint... Looks like the reason I've been having such poor reception is because the antenna is actually being held to ground. So it turns out that any reception has actually been the result of a bad thing. Keeping positive though. I am going to say it's something to do with the impedance at RF being not = to 0 ohms.

So over the course of the week keep an eye out for how I fix this problem with too much grounding as opposed to my original theory of not enough.

Cheers,
Rex