so ive been lurking here for a while and finally decided to just build something instead of buying another antenna. went with a simple half wave dipole for 40m, used 14 gauge stranded copper wire i had lying around from an old project, and got some SO-239 connectors and a chunk of PVC for the center insulator. nothing fancy.

cut each leg to about 33.5 feet using the 468/f formula, soldered everything up, and ran some RG-8X down to the shack. got it up in an inverted-V config with the apex at maybe 25 feet, ends tied off to some trees. SWR at resonance is sitting around 1.4:1 which i thought was decent but im second guessing myself now. been reading conflicting stuff about whether i need a balun or not and i just dont know what to believe anymore.

also the wire i used, is 14 gauge going to hold up or should i have gone heavier? the span is maybe 65 feet total and theres some tension on it but not crazy. just want to make sure this thing doesnt come down in a storm.

1.4:1 is honestly fine, dont sweat it. most rigs are happy with that and youre not going to notice any real difference in performance compared to a perfect 1:1. if youre running barefoot or modest power it just doesnt matter. you can always trim a little off each leg if it bothers you and get it closer but i wouldnt bother.

the balun question is one of those rabbit holes that never ends on forums lol. short answer is a 1:1 choke balun or even just a few turns of coax wound up near the feedpoint will help keep rf off the coax shield and out of your shack. not strictly required but a lot of guys notice less rf in the shack interference once they add one. i use a ferrite choke on all my dipoles now just out of habit.

14 gauge stranded should be fine for that span as long as you have decent strain relief at the endpoints and the center. where people get in trouble is putting all the tension on the solder joint at the feedpoint. if you used an eye bolt or something to take the mechanical load separately from the electrical connection youll be in good shape.

yeah the wire gauge thing depends a lot on how you've got the ends supported. i ran 18 gauge for a while on a 40m dipole and it held up for almost two years before one of the ends finally gave out in a bad ice storm. 14 is definitely better. some guys use harder drawn copper wire instead of stranded for the extra tensile strength, worth looking into if youre in an area that gets ice loading.

what feedline length are you running? sometimes a weird swr reading is the feedline length doing something funky, especially with RG-8X and no balun. not saying thats your problem but its worth ruling out.