so ive been running a half wave dipole on 40m for about two years now, fed with 450 ohm ladder line into a tuner, and its been working pretty well honestly. but my neighbor just put up an end fed halfwave with a 49:1 unun and hes been talking about how much better it is for dx because of the radiation angle or whatever. now im second guessing everything.

my dipole is up about 30 feet, roughly horizontal, center fed, and goes to my attic tuner. his EFHW is mounted at like 35 feet on one end and slopes down to maybe 12 feet. so its not even a fair comparison really. i ran a few tests calling the same stations during the same evening and we were usually within a db or two of each other on signal reports which to me says they're basically equivalent for my situation.

anyway my real question is — is the end fed actually doing something fundamentally different pattern wise at those heights, or is this one of those cases where the difference only shows up when you get the antenna way higher than either of us can manage in a suburban lot. i feel like im missing something because he keeps insisting his is better but our rssi reports are basically the same

at 30-35 feet on 40m youre both pretty much in the same boat pattern wise, neither of you is getting a low enough takeoff angle to really exploit any theoretical advantage. the EFHW with a good 49:1 unun is a fine antenna but its not magic, and a sloper is going to have a different pattern than a horizontal dipole anyway so comparing them directly is kind of apples and oranges. your ladder line fed dipole is probably more efficient overall just because youre not dealing with any matching network losses at the feedpoint. the 49:1 unun on cheap ferrite can get warm and lossy, especially on 40 where youre running more power. if you want to actually settle the argument put both antennas on the same band at the same time and have someone on the other end flip between them, anything else is too many variables

honestly the sloper thing might be doing more work than the end fed vs center fed debate — i had a similar setup and when i put my dipole in an inverted V it changed the pattern enough that certain directions got noticeably worse. anyway dont stress it too much, 1-2 db either way is basically a coin flip on 40m with band conditions doing whatever they want. if youre making contacts youre fine