so i finally bit the bullet and built a center-fed dipole for 40m out of some 14 AWG stranded wire i had laying around in the garage. cut each leg to around 33.5 feet based on the 468/f formula and got it up in an inverted-v config with the apex at about 30 feet off my chimney. not bad for a first attempt i think.

the part im confused about is the feedpoint. i used a piece of scrap abs plastic as my center insulator and just soldered the coax braid to one side and the center conductor to the other, wrapped everything in self-amalgamating tape. my swr is sitting around 1.8:1 at 7.150 which honestly seems decent but im wondering if i should be using a 1:1 balun there or if what i did is fine for now. ive seen people go back and forth on this and cant figure out if its actually mattering for my situation or if its just one of those things people argue about forever.

also one of the solder joints at the feedpoint looked a little sketchy after i did it, like the wire didnt tin great, should i just redo it or is it probably fine. the antenna seems to be working, got a few contacts into EU last night on 40 SSB running about 75 watts.

the balun question is one of those rabbit holes honestly. short answer is for a simple inverted-v at low power you're probably not going to notice a huge difference, but a 1:1 current balun at the feedpoint does help keep rf off the coax shield which can cause all kinds of weird stuff -- pattern distortion, rfi into your shack, swr readings that shift when you touch the coax, that kind of thing. i ran a dipole for years without one and it worked fine, then i added a cheap air-wound choke balun (just 8 turns of the coax through a couple of type 31 toroids) and my noise floor actually dropped a little. might have been placebo who knows.

1.8:1 on 40m ssb is workable, most tuners will handle that no problem and your finals wont care. if you want to bring it down you could try shortening the legs just a bit at a time, like half inch increments, and rescanning. sounds like the antenna is doing its job though if you're making EU contacts at 75w.

redo the sketchy solder joint. seriously. cold solder joints fail eventually, usually at the worst possible time, and its a 10 minute job to do it right. flux, good heat, let the wire tin properly before you join it.

nice work getting it up. i did something similar for my first antenna, also inverted-v, also no balun, worked for a long time. eventually water got into my feedpoint because i didnt tape it well enough and i lost one of the solder joints inside the plastic housing. just something to think about with waterproofing, the self amalgamating tape is good but make sure you stretched it properly when you applied it or it doesnt actually seal that great.

EU on 40m at 75w is pretty solid for a homebrew dipole, you're doing something right