so ive been running a hustler 6BTV for about two years now and i just cant seem to get it dialed in on 40m no matter what i do. radials are laid out, i've got maybe 16 of them at various lengths, SWR sits around 1.8:1 at best which i know isnt horrible but the bands feels dead compared to when i was visiting a buddy who runs a simple wire dipole in his attic of all places and he was working stations i couldnt even hear. like that really got to me.

so now im thinking about throwing up a simple center-fed dipole for 40m, probably just cut it resonant and run coax down to the shack. lot in the backyard is about 80 feet wide and maybe 120 deep so i think i could manage an inverted V if not a flat top. my question is mainly about height — i keep reading conflicting stuff about whether getting it up to a half wavelength is really necessary or if something like 30-35 feet is going to be close enough to make it worth the switch. i have a 35 foot fiberglass push-up pole already so that'd be the center support.

also wondering if feedpoint impedance is going to be a mess with the inverted V configuration, like do i need a 4:1 balun or is 1:1 fine. i've seen people go back and forth on this and i honestly dont know what to believe anymore.

35 feet is going to be fine for 40m as a center support, honestly for an inverted V you'll have better results than you might expect. the angle of the legs matters a lot — try to keep it above 120 degrees included angle between the two legs if you can, going too steep makes it more of a dummy load than an antenna. at those heights you're not going to be a DX machine but for regional stuff and even some decent skip you'll be surprised.

on the balun question — run a 1:1 choke balun at the feedpoint, not a 4:1. the impedance of an inverted V at that height usually lands somewhere in the 45-60 ohm range depending on soil and leg angle, so a 4:1 would be transforming you in the wrong direction. a few turns of coax wound into a choke or a proper ferrite choke balun does the trick. and honestly compared to fighting a vertical with marginal radials the wire dipole is going to be a revelation, dont overthink it and just put it up.

yeah the attic dipole thing is wild but low verticals on 40 really do struggle, especially receive. i went through something similar a couple years back. threw up an inverted V at like 28 feet at center because thats all i had and it wasnt perfect but the noise floor dropped noticeably and i started actually copying stations that were just mush before. sometimes getting away from ground level matters more than the math says it should.