so ive been running a 40m dipole inverted-V style for about two years now, apex at around 35 feet which i know isnt ideal but its what i can do with the trees i have. it works fine for local and regional stuff, decent on 7.200 area but anything over about 1500 miles gets inconsistent. i get into the midwest from the southeast pretty reliably but the west coast is hit or miss and dx is mostly miss unless conditions are screaming.

been thinking about putting up a vertical, probably something like a trap vertical or maybe just a dedicated 40m quarter wave with a decent radial field. read a bunch about how verticals have lower takeoff angles which should help with dx but then you hear just as many guys saying their dipole blows away their vertical and im going back and forth on this. part of the problem is i dont have a lot of room to lay down a good radial field either, maybe 20-25 radials at 16 feet each which i know isnt textbook.

anybody actually done a real a/b comparison on 40m between these two? not looking for theoretical stuff, just what you actually heard on the band.

ran both for a while when i was experimenting, had a dipole at 40 feet and a vertical with about 30 radials averaging maybe 20 feet. honest answer is it depends way too much on the time of day and where you're trying to work. during the day when you want NVIS-ish angles the dipole at that height just wins, no contest. but late evening into night when the skip goes long the vertical definitely had an edge into europe and the pacific. i ended up keeping both and just switching based on what i was trying to do, which i know isnt the answer you were looking for.

the radial situation matters a lot more than people admit. i added more radials in batches and honestly didnt notice much after about 30-32 of them at decent length, but going from 8 to 20 was a real difference i could actually hear. 25 radials at 16 feet will work, its not optimal but you wont be hamstrung by it either.

I went through this exact same thing last year. ended up building a fan dipole with elements cut for 40 and 80 instead of going vertical and honestly kind of glad i did just because i didnt want to deal with the ground radial situation. my lot is pretty rocky and getting anything buried is a pain. but yeah if you have even halfway decent soil a vertical with a reasonable radial field is probably worth trying for dx. the low angle radiation thing is real, its not just theory. just dont expect miracles if your radials are short.