so ive been putting off building my own antenna for probably two years now because it always seemed more complicated than just buying one, but i finally just did it last weekend. cut a simple half wave dipole for 40m using some 14 gauge stranded wire i had in the garage, fed it with about 50 feet of RG-8X i had laying around from a previous project, center insulator is just a piece of pvc i drilled holes through and ran the wire through, soldered everything and wrapped it in self-amalgamating tape.

SWR is sitting around 1.4:1 at the bottom of the band which is honestly better than i expected for a first attempt. i used the standard 468/f formula and cut a little long on purpose so i could trim it. trimmed maybe 3 inches off each leg and its sitting right where i want it now for phone.

my question is about height. right now its only about 20 feet up in a kind of inverted V config because thats the tallest support i have (a tree on one end and my chimney on the other). i know higher is generally better but is there some kind of practical sweet spot where the pattern starts to become actually useful for more than just local stuff, or is 20 feet more or less fine for regional contacts on 40? ive been reading conflicting things online and some of it gets really deep into the weeds with takeoff angles and i start to lose the thread.

20 feet inverted V on 40m is actually totally workable, dont let anyone tell you otherwise. yeah the takeoff angle is going to be higher than if you had it at say 40 or 50 feet, which means youre going to favor closer in skip distances. but honestly for evening regional stuff on 40 thats often exactly what you want anyway. you'll still get DX when conditions are decent, just dont expect it to compete with a dipole at a half wavelength up. the classic rule of thumb is half wavelength above ground for a dipole, which on 40m is around 66 feet, but nobody is putting a dipole at 66 feet in a residential backyard so we all just work with what we have.

your 1.4 SWR is fine, most rigs handle that no problem and the actual feedline loss at that mismatch is pretty small. nice work on the first build, the pvc center insulator trick is solid, ive been doing that for years.

yeah what he said about height is right. i'd also add that the inverted V shape actually helps a little with the azimuth pattern compared to a flat top, it kind of broadens things out so you're not as directional which at 20 feet is probably a good thing anyway. one thing i noticed building mine is that the feedpoint impedance drops a bit with the V angle so if you went with a really steep V you might see the SWR shift slightly over time as the wire stretches and the angle changes, something to keep an eye on in a few months. also 14 gauge stranded is a bit heavier so watch the center insulator connection, sometimes the solder joint fatigues if theres a lot of wind load and the wire is pulling on it. not trying to scare you, just something i learned the hard way with mine, add a strain relief loop at the feedpoint if you havent already.