so ive been going back and forth on this for probably three months now and i cant make up my mind. currently running a 40m dipole fed with ladder line through a tuner, its up about 30 feet which i know isnt ideal but its what i can do with my lot. works okay but i keep reading about how a vertical with a good radial field can outperform a dipole at low angles for DX and that kind of makes sense to me propagation-wise but then i also read the opposite from other people so who knows

the thing is i dont have a ton of space for radials either. my backyard is pretty small and the neighbors are already suspicious about the wire going to my fence post. was thinking maybe 16-20 buried radials could work but digging in this clay soil is brutal. anyone actually done a comparison or am i just going to keep reading conflicting stuff forever

not really interested in a beam right now, thats a whole other conversation about towers and money i dont want to have

honest answer? both camps are right depending on what youre trying to do. a dipole at 30 feet on 40m is basically an NVIS machine, great for regional stuff but yeah the takeoff angle is pretty high. the vertical with a decent radial system will beat it for DX contacts no question in my experience, but "decent radial system" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. ive seen guys with 8 radials wonder why their vertical is noisy and underperforming and the answer is usually just... more radials. the old ON4UN low band book has some good data on the diminishing returns curve, basically you get most of the benefit somewhere around 30-60 radials and after that youre just digging for fun

16-20 buried radials will get you maybe 80% of the way there though, its not like you need a full 120 to make it worthwhile. clay is annoying but a flat spade and some patience works. i did mine over a couple weekends. what tuner are you running with the ladder line setup?

i had almost this exact same situation last year, ended up just keeping the dipole and raising it another 8 feet with a push-up mast from the hardware store. made a bigger difference than i expected honestly. the vertical idea kept nagging at me but the radial thing felt like too much work for maybe marginal improvement on a small lot

that said i did work JA a couple times off the dipole so its not like its useless for DX, just takes patience and good conditions. also way quieter than my neighbors vertical which picks up every switching power supply on the block