so ive been going back and forth on this for like three weeks now and im starting to drive myself crazy. currently running a 40m dipole at about 25 feet, fed with coax, works okay but i feel like im leaving something on the table especially on DX. a buddy of mine keeps telling me to just put up a vertical and call it a day because of the low angle radiation but i dunno, every time i look into it the ground loss thing starts to worry me. i dont have a great spot for a radial field — backyard is pretty small and my XYL already has opinions about the garden beds.

the dipole does fine for stateside stuff and i can work some DX when conditions cooperate but i feel like signals are kind of middling. is it worth the hassle of switching or should i just try to get the dipole up higher if i can. the support situation is kind of awkward, i have one decent tree and a fence post thats... not that sturdy.

not really looking to put up a beam, at least not yet, just trying to figure out which direction makes more sense before i spend money on wire or a vertical. anyone been through this same decision

honest answer — 25 feet on 40m is pretty low, you're probably getting more high angle radiation than you want for DX, which means it's working great for regional stuff but the low angle stuff is suffering. getting it up to 40 feet would make a noticeable difference before you throw money at anything else. half wavelength at 40m is roughly 66 feet so the higher you can get it the better, even going from 25 to 35 makes a measurable change.

as for the vertical thing your buddy isn't wrong about the low angle advantage but he's glossing over the ground loss issue. a vertical with a crappy radial system can actually perform worse than a mediocre dipole. ive seen guys put up a nice vertical, lay down like 4 radials and then wonder why it sounds awful. you really want at minimum 16-20 radials to get useful efficiency and even then elevated radials can help a lot if you can manage it. given your yard situation i'd honestly try to get the dipole up higher first, it's free and you already have it.

im kind of in the same boat actually, been running a trapped vertical for 40 and 20 with only like 8 radials and honestly results are mixed. works but i always wonder. one thing i haven't seen mentioned — have you thought about an inverted vee instead of a flat dipole? if you only have one good support point that might let you get the feedpoint up higher even if the ends droop down, and the pattern opens up a bit more which can actually help depending on where your DX targets are. just a thought, worked better for me than i expected when i was in a similar situation with a single tree.