so ive been going back and forth on this for a while now and figured id just ask here. i have a 40m dipole up about 30 feet, fed with RG8X, and its been working ok but i keep reading that a vertical would be better for dx and honestly my main interest is more like regional stuff, 200-500 miles, not really chasing dx that much. neighbor about two miles away runs a vertical with a pretty serious radial field and he always seems louder on the local nets than i am even though i think my dipole should theoretically be doing more low angle stuff at that height... or does it? im not totally sure actually.

anyway wondering if anyone has done a real side by side or has opinions on this. i know the usual answer is "it depends" but im trying to nail down something more specific. my lot is maybe 60x120 so i have some room but not a ton. could probably get the dipole higher if thats the real issue.

30 feet on 40m isnt really getting you much low angle radiation, youre probably looking at a takeoff angle somewhere in the 60-70 degree range which is honestly pretty good for that 200-500 mile regional stuff you're talking about. your neighbor with the vertical and a good radial field is going to be better at low angles, like under 20-25 degrees, which matters more for real DX. so in theory your dipole should actually be winning for the near regional skip if everything is working right.

that said, 30 feet isnt a lot of height and ground effects on a dipole can be weird. if you can get it to 50 or 60 feet youll notice a real difference. also how many radials does he have out? because a vertical with only like 8-10 radials can actually lose to a decent dipole even on the low angle stuff. theres a reason guys who are serious about 40m verticals lay down 60+ radials.

honestly i had almost the same setup question last year and just ended up putting both up and doing comparisons on the same qso's. what i found was the dipole killed it on anything inside about 400 miles and the vertical was noticeably better once you got past 1000 or so. for the in between range it was kind of a coin flip depending on conditions. if regional is your thing id just work on getting more height on the dipole before spending money on a vertical and a bunch of copper wire for radials