so ive been running a simple 40m dipole in an inverted V configuration for about two years now, center fed at maybe 35 feet with a 4:1 balun, and honestly it works fine. decent reports on SSB, picked up a few DX contacts, nothing crazy but im happy enough with it.

but ive been reading a lot lately about how a vertical with a good radial field can really outperform a low dipole for DX because of the lower takeoff angle and i keep going back and forth on whether to try building one. the problem is i live on about a third of an acre and running 30+ radials is going to be a project and my wife is already side-eyeing the wire sticking out of the back of the house.

has anyone actually done a comparison like this with real results not just modeling software? im curious if the real world difference is noticeable or if im chasing something that wont matter much at my power level (running 100w). also wondering if a vertical with a mediocre radial system is worse than just leaving the dipole up.

yeah this is something i went through a couple years back. short answer is a vertical with a bad radial field is genuinely worse than a dipole at 35 feet, at least in my experience. i put up a quarter wave vertical for 40 and was really disappointed until i got serious about the radials. started with 8 radials and it was noticeably noisier and my signal reports were actually worse than the dipole in some directions.

once i got up to around 24 radials, each about 33 feet long, things started to click and it did pull ahead of the dipole for DX. low angle stuff, europe from the midwest, that kind of path. but for regional stuff within like 500 miles the dipole still wins because of the higher angle radiation. so it kinda depends what you're actually trying to work. if you're hunting DX it can be worth it but dont tear down the dipole, they do different things.

honestly i modeled both configurations in EZNEC and the difference at low angles is real but not huge unless your dipole is really low. at 35 feet on 40m youre probably sitting at like a 45 degree takeoff angle or something in that range which isnt terrible. a vertical with a solid radial system drops that down considerably but were talking maybe 6 dB on the best DX paths, which is meaningful but its not going to make or break most contacts at 100w. the radial work is legitimately annoying though, i wont lie about that.