I agree BuNter as with HF you can talk long distances without having to worry about being close to a repeater just to get good reception
Where im living at the moment i've got my HF shortwave receiver tuned onto 44260KHz USB with a wire antenna running from the radio in my computer room to outside hanging on the gutter and im able to get good reception at night.... same goes for my 27MHz SSB radio i've got the antenna setup outside the lounge room window attached to the gutter and it gets real good signal when theres skip
Plus you can talk to other countries when the conditions are there... oh yeah BuNter the 27 MHz whip antenna i've got outside my lounge room is infact a base antenna as station master base antennas dont exist in the South East