so i finally got around to building my first dipole from scratch last weekend. been putting it off for like two years because i kept telling myself id just buy one but honestly after pricing out a decent 40m dipole i figured why not just make the thing myself.

i used some 14 gauge stranded copper wire i had laying around in the garage, cut each leg to roughly 33.5 feet for 40 meters using the 468/f formula. center insulator is just a piece of pvc i drilled holes through and the end insulators are some dogbone ones i grabbed off ebay for like 4 bucks total. fed it with about 50 feet of RG-8X into my shack.

hung it in an inverted-V config from a fiberglass push-up mast at maybe 25 feet at the apex. SWR at 7.150 is coming in around 1.4:1 which seems decent? but im getting some weird readings across the band where it dips way lower around 7.05 and then climbs again toward 7.3. resonant point seems a little low. do i just trim the ends a bit or is that normal variation and im overthinking it. also not sure if the RG-8X is killing me with loss at this length or if thats fine for HF

1.4:1 on your first homebrew dipole is honestly pretty good, dont sweat it too much. the resonant point being around 7.05 just means the antenna is cut a touch long which is totally normal — the formula gives you a starting point but wire type, height above ground, nearby objects all shift it around. trim maybe an inch or two off each leg at a time, remeasure, repeat. way easier to trim than to add back.

RG-8X over 50 feet on 40m is fine, loss is negligible at that length on HF. where it starts mattering more is if youre running long runs on 2m or up. for your purposes youre good. the inverted-V config also tends to drop resonance a bit compared to a flat-top because the legs arent truly horizontal, so factor that in when youre trimming. overall sounds like you built it right, just needs a little tuning.

yeah i went through basically the same thing with my first 40m wire. ended up having to trim like 4 inches total off both legs before it landed where i wanted. took me three trips up the ladder but got it to about 1.2:1 at 7.2 which is where i mostly operate. the pvc center insulator works fine btw, ive been running mine in weather for two seasons and no issues yet. only thing id say is make sure your connections at the center are soldered well and weatherproofed, i used self-amalgamating tape and that seems to hold up.