so ive been running an inverted V for about two years now, center fed with 450 ohm ladder line into a tuner, apex is at maybe 35 feet which is about the best i can do with what i have in the backyard. works fine, no real complaints, but i keep reading stuff online that a flat top would be meaningfully better and im not sure if i buy it or if its just one of those things people repeat because someone wrote it in a handbook decades ago

i guess my main question is whether the pattern difference actually matters in practice or if its one of those things that looks huge in EZNEC but in real life the difference gets swallowed up by everything else going on. my ends would only be maybe 8 feet off the ground if i went flat top which feels low, or i could do a compromise and raise the center to 40 feet and drop the ends a bit. not sure thats worth the hassle of rerouting the feedline

anyone actually done a side by side comparison or have a strong opinion on this? im on 40m mostly with occasional 20 and 80

honestly the pattern difference is real but whether it matters depends a lot on what you're trying to do. the inverted V has more of an omnidirectional pattern which isnt a bad thing at all for general operating, and the flat top starts favoring broadside to the wire which can help if you know where you want to point. but at 35 feet on 40m neither one is doing anything dramatic, youre mostly getting a cloud warmer either way at low angles

where i think the flat top genuinely wins is if your ends are at a decent height, like 20+ feet. if your ends are going to be 8 feet up youre going to have ground losses eating into you and the inverted V with a higher center might actually outperform it in practice. i ran both back to back a few years ago on 40m and the difference was maybe a couple S units at most in any given direction, and it went back and forth depending on conditions. i wouldnt tear down a working inverted V to put up a flat top unless youve got the real estate to do it right

yeah this is one of those arguments that never really dies on forums lol. i modeled a bunch of variations in 4nec2 last winter when i was bored and the takeaway i got was that apex height matters way more than the shape, like whether its V or flat. get the center up as high as you can and dont stress the rest too much. also ladder line into a tuner is already doing you favors so id just leave it alone if it's working