so i finally stopped procrastinating and threw together a 40m dipole out of some 14 gauge stranded wire i had sitting in the garage, nothing fancy just cut it to roughly 66 feet total and fed it with some RG-8X i had leftover from another project. got it up in an inverted-V config with the apex at about 25 feet off the ground which i know isnt ideal but thats all i could manage with the tree situation in my yard.

SWR is actually pretty decent, sitting around 1.4:1 at 7.200 which i can live with. my tuner handles it fine anyway. but im getting this weird thing where the pattern seems really wonky when im trying to work stations to the northeast, like theyre coming in weaker than i'd expect given the reports im getting on other bands. not sure if thats the low height causing high angle radiation or something else going on. anyone built something similar and noticed this? wondering if raising just one end would help or if i should bother.

also used a 1:1 choke balun i wound myself on a FT-240-43 toroid, about 8 turns of RG-8X through it. hoping that's enough common mode rejection but honestly not sure i wound it right, the info online varies a lot on turn count.

25 feet apex on 40 is pretty low yeah, youre gonna get a lot of high angle radiation which is great for regional NVIS type contacts but not so great if youre trying to work DX to the northeast or anywhere really. the inverted V configuration also narrows the pattern compared to a flat top so youre already giving up some in that direction depending on which way the wire runs.

raising just one end wont help as much as youd think, the apex height is really what matters most for that high angle stuff. if you can get even 10 more feet on that center point youll notice a difference. i ran mine at 35 feet for a couple years and it was a night and day improvement over where i started at around 28.

on the balun, 8 turns on a 43 mix toroid is on the lighter side for 40m, most guys wind 10-12 turns to get the impedance up high enough to be effective. might be worth rewinding it. the W1JB stuff on common mode chokes is worth reading if you havent gone down that rabbit hole yet.

honestly 1.4:1 at the feedpoint without a tuner on a homebrew dipole is pretty solid work, i spent two weekends fighting my first one before i figured out i had measured from the wrong end of the coax or something dumb like that. anyway the height thing is a real issue on 40, 25 feet is basically like a low band antenna at that point in terms of takeoff angle. i dont have a great solution because im also stuck with trees but i ended up just accepting my dipole is mostly good for stateside stuff.