[lujim]

This was a barrier for me as well. There are options. I have a 65 foot wire that goes from my house to a tree. It's virtually invisible. I've had many people in my yard an nobody has ever noticed it. I've worked pretty much the whole world with it.

There are also "compromise" antennas that use inductors and other trickery to be shorter. Are they efficient? Not great, but people make contacts on them everyday. (I have a 4-5 foot antenna that can operated on the same bands as my 65 foot antenna although it's not super efficient.

There are loop antennas that are tiny and portable but they can get expensive.

Also their are people that use an antenna tuner to tune a random piece of wire or even their gutters to get a workable HF antenna.