so ive been going back and forth on this for like three weeks now and i just need someone to tell me what they'd actually do. i have a pretty small lot, maybe 60 feet of usable run in one direction, and im trying to decide between putting up a half wave dipole at like 25 feet or just doing an end fed or a vertical with a few radials. the 40m dipole would have to be kind of an inverted V because i dont have a second support point at the right height.

i know the theory says a dipole at a quarter wave height is great for dx but 25 feet on 40m is nowhere near that obviously. the vertical with radials theoretically has a lower takeoff angle but im surrounded by houses and fences and im not sure how much that matters. i mostly do general ragchewing and some casual contesting, not chasing rare dx or anything serious.

anyone run a comparable setup and have an opinion? i feel like ive read enough antenna modeling forums that im now more confused than when i started.

honestly for 40m ragchewing at that height the inverted V is probably fine. yeah 25 feet is low but inverted V's actually have a higher angle of radiation which works pretty well for regional contacts, 200-800 miles or so. i ran one at about 28 feet for two years before i moved and worked all 48 states without much trouble. the feedpoint impedance is a little lower than a flat dipole but nothing a 1:1 balun cant deal with.

the vertical with radials is more work and if your ground is average you need a lot of radials to really get performance out of it. some people lay down like 16-32 and call it done but buried radials in a suburban lot are kind of a pain. i wouldnt bother unless you're really after dx.

i went through this exact thing last year. ended up with an inverted V for 40 and 80 and im pretty happy with it. main thing i noticed is that my local and regional stuff on 40 is solid, like really solid, but when i try to work anything over maybe 1500 miles on a flat band it gets rough. that might just be conditions though, hard to say.

one thing nobody told me before i built it — get your apex as high as you can even if it means the ends droop more than you'd like. i had mine at like 20 feet at first and moving it up to 28 made a noticeable difference. not huge but real.