so ive been running a flat 40m dipole at about 35 feet for the last couple years, fed with coax through a 1:1 balun, oriented roughly northeast to southwest. works okay but ive always wondered if i was leaving something on the table by not going inverted V. the thing is my center support is a tree thats maybe 45 feet up and i could probably get the ends down to about 10 feet off the ground if i let them slope, which feels low but ive heard guys say it doesnt matter much.

the reason im even thinking about this is my buddy runs an inverted V on the same band and swears it works better, but he's also got a better location than me, less RF noise, not surrounded by houses. so hard to compare really. i did some modeling in EZNEC a while back and the flat dipole showed a slightly lower takeoff angle which should be better for DX but honestly i rarely work DX on 40, mostly regional stuff 500-1500 miles.

anyone actually done a side by side with these two configurations and noticed a real difference? or is this one of those things where the answer is always 'it depends' and i should just leave well enough alone

honestly for regional work on 40m the inverted V is probably fine and might even be better — higher angle radiation is what you want for 500-1500 mile paths anyway, especially at night when the skip is doing weird stuff. the flat dipole advantage on DX is real but pretty marginal in practice, like maybe a dB or two at most depending on height and ground quality.

the bigger thing i'd worry about with those end heights is ground interaction. 10 feet is pretty low and if you've got lossy suburban soil it can start eating your efficiency. i ran an inverted V for years with ends at about 12 feet and it worked fine, but i did notice when i raised them to 18 it cleaned up a bit, particularly on receive. probably worth trying if youve already got the center support sorted, worst case you just go back to what you had.

yeah i switched from flat to inverted V last spring mostly because i lost my far support in a windstorm and was too lazy to put it back up. been running the V since then and honestly cant tell much difference for the kind of operating i do which is similar to you, mostly midwest and east coast from here in ohio. i think people overthink this stuff sometimes. both work, both get out, just put it up and get on the air