so i finally got around to building a basic 40m dipole from scratch, been meaning to do this for probably two years now. used some 14 gauge stranded wire i had laying around in the garage, not sure if thats ideal but its what i had. cut each leg to about 33.5 feet based on the 468/f formula, fed it with some RG-8X i salvaged off an old CB setup. the center insulator is just a piece of PVC pipe i drilled holes through and i used dog-bone insulators on the ends.

my question is mainly about the feed point — i just twisted the coax braid and center conductor to the two legs and wrapped it in self-amalgamating tape. is that gonna be an issue long term? i was kinda worried about moisture getting in there eventually. also the whole thing is gonna be kind of an inverted V shape since i only have one decent tree to hang the apex from and the ends will slope down to fence posts at maybe 10 feet. ive read that changes the radiation pattern a bit but i dont really understand how much it matters for general HF use.

anyway planning to get it up this afternoon if the weather holds, just wanted to sanity check before i do something dumb

the self-amalgamating tape should be fine honestly, i've had connections like that hold up for years in the northeast weather. if you're really worried about it some guys pour liquid electrical tape over the whole thing or use a little plumber's putty around the joint before taping. main thing is keeping water from wicking down into the coax braid which is more of a problem at the connector end anyway.

inverted V is totally fine for 40m, probably better than a flat top in some ways since you get a bit more omnidirectional pattern, the elevation angle changes some but for regular stateside contacts you're not gonna notice. the only thing id check is that your included angle between the two legs isn't too sharp — you want at least 90 degrees or so between them or the feedpoint impedance starts drifting away from 50 ohms and you'll fight your SWR. sounds like your setup with the apex up and ends at 10 feet should be alright, just measure it out before you finalize everything. what rig are you feeding it with, does it have a tuner built in?

14 gauge stranded is what i use for everything, works great dont overthink the wire gauge too much. only thing id say is double check your actual wire length after cutting because stranded wire can stretch a tiny bit when you pull tension on it putting it up and ive had resonance shift a couple hundred khz on me before. easy enough to trim if you need to.