I think we've all been there. At some point, one has to stop reading, and gather up their own experience. It's part of the secret plan - the trick is to keep it fun while learning, otherwise nobody gets on the air and all we do is talk about it in forums (as good as they are). Nobody calls CQ, the band is dead, where are they??? On the keyboards theorizing.
Quick tip - your pixel loop does not need to be that high. About a radius above ground will be fine, unless you are trying to dx line-of-sight locals. They generally have a high angle lobe anyway on skywave, and low-angle reception is well-attenuated - although the outstanding s/n ratio makes for this a bit.
Also, before planting your vertical (whatever it ends up being), doing a site-survey with a battery-operated sw receiver can be beneficial, as in a suburban environment, a few feet either way can make a difference if you are plagued by noise fields - and as a small loop owner you know the difference between a good S/N ratio, and just pegging the s-meter. You can't work 'em if you can't hear 'em. You may even be able to incorporate the two with an antenna in a bad location for transmit, and the loop on rx in some circumstances.
