so ive been going back and forth on this for like three weeks now and figured id just ask. im trying to decide between putting up a simple 40m dipole fed with coax up in my backyard versus one of those ground mounted verticals. my lot is maybe 80x120 feet so not huge but not terrible either. i have two decent anchor points, one on the house and one on a tree that's probably 35 feet up.

the vertical stuff i keep reading about sounds appealing because of the low angle radiation for dx but then every elmer ive talked to says just put up a dipole and work the world. i mostly want to do dx chasing on 40 and maybe 80 once i get comfortable. not really interested in contests just ragchewing and trying to grab some interesting callsigns.

the other thing is i live in a pretty average suburban neighborhood, not super strict HOA but i try not to draw attention either. thoughts? am i massively overthinking a pretty simple decision here

honestly yeah you're overthinking it a bit but that's fine, we all do it. a dipole at 35 feet on 40m is gonna be a pretty high angle radiator mostly, which isnt ideal for real dx work, but here's the thing — it'll still work. people forget how much the bands do the heavy lifting. ive worked JA and VK on a dipole at 25 feet during good conditions on 40 without trying that hard.

the vertical argument is real if you can do a proper radial field underneath it. that's the part everyone glosses over. a vertical with 4 or 8 radials is not the same animal as one with 32 or 64 and if you're just gonna throw down 4 radials and call it done you might find the dipole outperforms it on the paths you care about anyway. if you have room and the anchor points, id just throw up the dipole first, actually get on the air, and see what you can work. you can always add a vertical later and actually do an a/b comparison instead of guessing like the rest of us do on the internet.

the stealth factor alone might make the dipole the right call for you. a wire dipole painted or using dark wire basically disappears especially once leaves are on trees. a vertical sitting in the yard is harder to explain to neighbors. just my two cents from dealing with that exact situation for a few years before i moved somewhere less annoying.