so ive been running a pretty basic 40m dipole for about two years now, inverted V config with the apex around 35 feet up on a push-up pole. works okay but ive always wondered if i'm leaving something on the table by not trying a vertical. the noise floor at my QTH is already kind of rough — suburban lot, lots of switching power supplies and LED drivers from neighbors — and i keep reading that verticals are worse for that kind of thing but then other guys say theirs is quieter because of the lower angle radiation and it nulls out local junk somehow. honestly im confused.

my main use is casual ragchewing on 40 and sometimes 80, not contesting or anything serious. i thought about building a simple quarter wave vertical with a few radials just to see, wouldnt cost me much. but before i spend a weekend doing that i wanted to see if anyone has actually set both up at the same location and done any kind of real comparison. not looking for EZNEC models, i can poke around with that myself, im more interested in practical real world experience. does the vertical actually perform differently enough to notice on receive? transmit i assume theyre in the same ballpark if the radial system is decent.

yeah i did pretty much exactly this a few years back. had an inverted V for 40 at about 40 feet and put up a quarter wave vertical in the corner of my yard with about 16 radials on the ground, not buried, just laying in the grass. the difference on transmit was pretty negligible honestly, within an S unit or so either way depending on the path. but receive was noticeably noisier on the vertical — my neighborhood has similar issues with all the crap electronics people run and the vertical picked up all of it. the inverted V was quieter for me and honestly more practical to maintain.

that said i know guys who swear by their verticals for DX because of the low angle thing, and if you're trying to work Europe from the midwest on 40 late in the evening that low angle radiation probably does matter. for local and regional ragchewing though i dunno that you'd notice much difference. the dipole is probably fine for what you're doing.

the radial system makes or breaks the vertical tbh. i tried one with like 4 radials once and it was just sad. put down 32 later and it came alive. but even then my dipole at only 30 feet still outperforms it on 80 for receive at my place, too much local noise getting in. for dx on 40 the vertical is better in my experience but its not a night and day thing, more like situational. also building one is pretty fun so worth doing just for that even if you end up going back to the dipole