so i finally got around to building a proper 40m dipole instead of just using the end-fed wire ive been running for the past year and a half. cut the elements to roughly 33.5 feet each using some 14 gauge stranded copper i had lying around from an old extension cord job, which i know is maybe not ideal but its what i had.

the feedpoint is what im not super confident about. i used a SO-239 chassis connector in a small pvc junction box i got at the hardware store, epoxied the box shut after running the wires through some rubber grommets. seems weather tight but we'll see. the thing is my swr is reading around 1.4:1 at 7.150 which honestly is better than i expected but im wondering if the slight off-center height is messing with things — one end is about 28 feet up tied to the chimney and the other end is maybe 22 feet on a push-up mast so its kind of an inverted V shape but also slanted sideways if that makes sense.

is that geometry going to hurt me much on receive? on transmit it seems fine, worked a few stations in the midwest from the northeast with 100w and they were giving me decent reports. just not sure if im leaving performance on the table with the weird angle. also should i be worried about the extension cord wire or is copper basically copper at hf frequencies

copper is copper, dont stress about that. stranded vs solid makes basically zero difference at 40m wavelengths, the skin depth thing doesnt really come into play the way people think it does for hf. ive run antennas with all sorts of random wire gauges and the losses are negligable compared to everything else going on.

the geometry is a little weird but honestly inverted V dipoles work fine even when they arent perfectly symmetrical. you might see a slight pattern skew but nothing that would noticeably hurt you in normal operation. if youre working midwest from the northeast at 100w and getting good reports thats really all you need to know — the antenna is doing its job. id maybe try to even up the heights at some point just for peace of mind but its not urgent.

the pvc box feedpoint is something ive done too and it works but just keep an eye on it after heavy rain, i had one start letting moisture in after about 8 months and it threw my swr all over the place before i figured out what was happening. coax seal or self-amalgamating tape around the coax entry point is worth doing if you havent already.