so ive been running a 40m dipole at about 25 feet for the last year or so and its been decent, working europe occasionally from the midwest when conditions cooperate. but my neighbor keeps telling me i should put up a vertical instead because of the low angle radiation and dx and all that. he's got a big fancy ground mounted vertical with like 60 radials under it.

thing is, 25 feet isnt great for a dipole on 40, i know that, you really want it closer to a half wave up which would be like 66 feet or something ridiculous i cant do in my yard. but i also dont really want to bury 60 radials. is the vertical actually going to outperform what i have for dx or is he kind of overselling it. i feel like my dipole even at that height does okay and im not sure the radial work is worth the payoff unless im totally wrong about this

honestly your neighbor isnt wrong but hes also not telling you the full picture. a vertical with a good radial system will beat a dipole at 25 feet for low angle dx stuff, thats just kind of physics. but 60 radials is the ideal, not the minimum — even 16 or 20 decent length radials gets you most of the way there and the improvement curve flattens out pretty fast after that. so the labor isnt as insane as it sounds if you dont go full overkill on it.

that said, a dipole even at 25 feet isnt useless, you're still making contacts and it has better high angle radiation which actually helps for regional stuff, nets, that kind of thing. if you mostly care about dx and can stomach laying down some wire, the vertical would probably open things up a bit. if you're happy with what you're working now, maybe dont fix what aint broke. i ran a similar setup for years before i finally went vertical and yeah it helped but it wasnt like night and day, more like a consistent improvement on marginal paths.

i had almost the exact same debate with myself last spring. ended up building a fan dipole instead of going vertical and i dont regret it, covers 40 and 20 without a tuner and fits in my backyard without any ground work. probably not the answer you were looking for but worth considering if radials are the main thing putting you off the vertical idea