so ive been going back and forth on this for a while now and i cant quite make up my mind. currently running an inverted V dipole for 40m, apex is at about 35 feet which i know isnt ideal but its what i can do with the trees in my yard. swr is fine, works okay but i feel like im missing stuff especially on the low end of the band around 7.005 or so where the dx tends to hang out.

a buddy of mine keeps telling me to just put up a vertical with a good radial field and be done with it. he says the low angle radiation will blow my dipole out of the water for dx. and yeah i get the theory, but my yard is kind of a mess and laying out 32 radials is not exactly something my wife is going to be thrilled about. been thinking maybe i do a compromise, like 16 radials and see what happens.

anybody actually done a direct comparison on 40? like real world not just modeling software. i trust eznec and all but sometimes the ground conditions and the neighbors garage roof and whatever else just throws everything off anyway

did this exact comparison a few years back, had both antennas up at the same time for a couple weeks which was a pain but worth it. the vertical with a decent radial field — i had 24 radials, mixed lengths mostly around 30-33 feet — did noticeably better on dx paths, particularly long path stuff toward JA and into europe at greyline. but the dipole, even at your kind of height, has a lower noise floor in my experience. the vertical picked up way more local QRM from my neighbors solar inverter and whatever else is floating around.

so its not as simple as vertical wins. if youre in a noisy suburban environment the dipole might actually be more usable day to day even if it theoretically loses a couple db on low angle. 16 radials is a reasonable starting point but honestly every one you add does help, just with diminishing returns past like 16-20 or so

honestly just try the vertical and see. you can always pull it down if you hate it. i used to overthink this stuff way too much before i just started experimenting. my 40m vertical is a random length wire with a tuner at the base and like 8 crappy radials and it still works pretty well, not gonnna win any contests but ive worked eu from the midwest on it without too much trouble