When propagation helps, a big antenna is not needed. Of course I could not hear everything that was on the band, but I worked what I could hear.
Given the typical figure-8 dipole radiation pattern, I wonder if I should have installed it vertical. Original polarization is lost when the ionoshpere reflects our signals, so for ES DX-ing you don't need to match with the correspondant. "Same polarization" is true for (almost) line-of-sight contacts and, probably, tropo.
