so ive been running a 40m half wave dipole at about 30 feet for a couple years now and its done fine, worked plenty of dx, no real complaints. but ive been reading a lot lately about verticals and how they have a lower takeoff angle which is supposedly better for dx and i'm starting to second guess myself a bit.

thing is my yard isnt huge and putting up a full size vertical with a proper radial field sounds like a whole project. ive seen guys say you need like 32 or even 64 radials for a decent ground mounted vertical and thats just not happening in my backyard without my wife having a long talk with me about the lawn. anyone actually done a real comparison between the two? like not just theoretical stuff from the antenna books but actual on-the-air results where you could tell a difference.

also wondering if an elevated vertical with just a few radials is a reasonable compromise or if you really do take a big hit without the full ground system. my dipole is only at 30 feet which isnt great for 40m but it works, so im trying to figure out if the grass is actually greener here or if its just antenna envy.

honest answer is it really depends and anyone who tells you definitively one is always better is probably selling something. i ran both for about 8 months with an a/b switch feeding into the same radio and the vertical with a decent elevated radial system (i did 4 radials at about 10 feet up) was noticably better on low angle dx paths, like europe from the west coast on the long path kind of thing. but the dipole was quieter on receive by a pretty good margin and for regional stuff and anything under maybe 1500 miles it was competitive or better.

the elevated radial thing is legit btw, you dont need the massive buried radial field if you get the feedpoint up off the ground. 4 resonant radials elevated even a few feet does a pretty good job. not quite as good as 120 buried radials theoretically but way more practical and honestly closer than you'd think from reading the theory.

i went through this exact thing last year and ended up just building a fan dipole instead of switching to a vertical lol. didnt really answer your question i know. but my takeoff angle situation improved a bit when i moved the dipole feedpoint up to about 45 feet and inverted-v'd it instead of flat top, not sure if thats a real thing or just placebo honestly