I was hunting through my old radio magazines trying to find an antenna but can't find it and wonder if anyone remembers or has made one.

It was a stealth antenna, fed at the top and was wound around a downpipe (plastic)

A simple design and i think it came from the states.

Im interested because my shack now is at the top of the house and i use end fed wires as its simpler but would love to find the design - all i know is that it was a HF antenna.

Could you mean the Partridge Joystick?

As I recall it was a roughly 6 foot long helically wound 'rod' fed with a length of wire. I made one once, it worked better than I expected.

Take a look....... http://hfdxarc.co.uk/technical-pages/ae ... k-antenna/

Interesting, wasn't that one but interesting none the less

Wasn't the joystick although i do have one of those the "gold" version but don't own a joy match, might be worth digging it out again.

I'd dig out the Joystick. I built it for my son when he first licenced. It worked well on an FT817.

My experience with the Joystick is a lot different. In 1965, when the Joystick was advertised in all the usual mags, George Partridge (a member of RNARS) overheard me criticising the Joystick. I was saying that the rf was being radiated by the 100ft of wire feeding the antenna (the Joystick). So George contacted me and offered to loan me one free of charge for a week. I had it for a week and tried all bands and believe it or not I did not make one QSO!! I went back to my G5RV and sent the Joystick back to George who was not best pleased!! I was serving in the RN at the time and stationed at Portisheadradio, Burnham on Sea Somerset, and there were several radio amateurs on the staff who all confirmed my results.
73 de Ken G3RFH

Any time I've heard this antenna spoke of, especially on lower bands, has been with ridicule.

I remember the joystick being advertised and an article about it in the magazines, I did have one in the 60's and a joy match too, I remember having a huge flash over in the ATU at that time also getting a bad RF burn while running my old valve FT200 through it, i later went on to Dipoles etc and a decent ATU along with grounding.
Im now in a semi detached with a small garden and using a long wire and got to thinking about top loaded antennas but had forgotten about the Joystick until it was mentioned - mine is still in the loft although the joy match has long gone.
Thats not the antenna though i was thinking about.
I had seen an article (I wish i hadn't thrown all my magazines away when we moved) the antenna was top loaded and was wound around a plastic pipe - I have seen helical wound antennas the other way i.e.; bottom fed vertical, but only one article of the top fed, I guess it can't be any good or there would have been loads of info on google.

I have searched google for it and never found anything.

When i used my joystick I also had decent contacts but my view was it was a long wire, remember taking the end off mine and it was fed by mini coax - centre was connected to a soldered tag and the screen was not connected, so was never sure what the screen did. The centre connected to a banana plug that was plugged into the joy match and the joy match was earthed or they sold an artificial earth, which really would act as a counterpoise I guess.
I never took the centre section to bits as i didn't want to destroy it.
Mine was mounted about 45 ft up on a pole and fed with about 100ft of mini coax - hence my view that it was a vertical long wire.
As i say mine is still in the loft, unused since the 60s - why I've carried it around all our house moves i don't know!!