so ive been going back and forth on this for a couple months now and figured id just ask. my lot is pretty small, maybe 60 feet wide, and i've got some decent trees but nothing that lines up perfectly for a full half wave dipole on 40. i can get close — maybe 62 or 63 feet of horizontal run if i really stretch it — but one end would be drooping pretty bad because the anchor tree is shorter than i'd like.

the other option i keep coming back to is a vertical. i know they have that low angle radiation thing going for them which sounds great for dx, but everyone keeps telling me ground radials are a whole project in themselves and i rent so i really cant be burying a bunch of wire. was thinking maybe a elevated radial setup with like 4 radials, has anyone done this on 40 specifically and how much of a pain was it to get the feedpoint impedance somewhere usable

mostly interested in working dx when conditions allow but i also ragchew a fair bit regionally so its not purely a dx antenna situation. just want something that actually works and doesn't drive my neighbors crazy

the inverted V might actually solve your problem here — if your center support is high enough you can get both legs down at like 45 degrees and fit it in a tighter horizontal space. on 40m an inverted V at maybe 40 feet at the apex will give you pretty usable pattern, not as flat as a horizontal dipole up high but way more practical for a small lot. the feedpoint impedance drops a bit from 73 ohms as you bring the legs down but usually still close enough that a 1:1 balun and 50 ohm coax works fine or close to it without a tuner.

i ran one for about 3 years before i got a bigger place and it was genuinely not bad. worked europe regularly during good prop on 40 ssb, nothing exotic but it did the job. the vertical elevated radial thing works but yeah getting 4 resonant radials sorted and up off the ground at the right height is more fiddly than people make it sound

honestly just do the droopy dipole and dont overthink it. antennas dont have to be textbook perfect to work. i had one end of my 40m dipole tied to a fence post for like 6 months and still made contacts into japan a couple times. real world is messy