so ive been going back and forth on this for like two months now and i cant decide. currently running a 40m dipole up about 25 feet which i know isnt ideal, its more like an NVIS antenna at that height but its what i can do in my yard. been thinking about putting up a vertical instead, maybe a trap vertical or just a simple quarter wave with some radials.

the thing is everybodys got a different opinion. some guys at the club swear by their verticals for DX and the dipole guys say the vertical just picks up more noise. my noise floor on 40m is already pretty rough, im in a suburban neighborhood so that probably matters. i think i read somewhere that a dipole at low height actually has lower angle radiation which would be good for DX but then someone told me thats backwards. so which is it

not trying to start a war just genuinely confused and want to make a decision and stop overthinking this

the noise thing is real, at least in my experience. my vertical absolutely picks up more local crud than the dipole does, especially in the evening. but for DX the vertical has edge on me just because of the low angle radiation — a dipole at 25 feet on 40m is way too low to do much for DX, youre right that its basically NVIS at that point which is actually great for regional stuff, talking to guys 300-800 miles out works pretty well.

if you want both, honestly the cheapest thing to do is just lay out some radials and throw up a quarter wave vertical and compare them yourself. took me a weekend and maybe 20 bucks in wire. you might find the noise situation kills the vertical for you, or you might not notice it much depending on what your actual noise sources are. theres no universal answer here which i know is annoying to hear but its true

I went through this exact same thing last year. ended up building a fan dipole with legs cut for both 40 and 80, hung it up as an inverted V and honestly it works better than i expected even at the low height. not a solution to your question really but if youre already committed to a dipole design the inverted V gets the center up higher and the ends drop down which changes the pattern a bit. might squeeze some more performance out of what you have before spending money on a vertical. just a thought