Contrary to what you might read, Slinky type antennas WILL work with scanners. Here's the problem most people have. Most short wave and Ham radio signals are horizontally polarized. Scanners pick up VLF, LF, VHF, UHF and microwave signals which are vertically polarized. For receiving  scanner frequencies, a piece of wire set up vertically will provide good reception. A "Slinky" antenna will provide very good reception if it is hung vertically. This is hard to do as the Slinky has a tendency to droop the majority of the coils to the bottom because of gravity. Never the less, it WILL work if it's installed vertically. The "Slinky antenna provides good reception of most signals because of it's enormous "capture area". If you like to use your antenna for shortwave and scanner reception, try setting it up with one side vertical and the other side horizontal. This will provide you with an antenna that works well with both types of signals. Bear in mind, this is intended for receive only!!! If you intend on using this setup for receiving and transmitting, all bets are off and you need to do a whole bunch of studying, and be licensed for the frequencies you want to transmit on.

Hope this helped a few people...

Mike Stewart

N5DAR