ok so ive been going back and forth on this for a while now and i figure ill just ask because im not getting anywhere reading specs sheets. my situation is a suburban lot, maybe 60x120 feet, typical neighborhood with houses on both sides. i currently have an inverted V dipole fed with coax up about 30 feet at the apex, resonant on 40m, been using it for about two years now and its fine but im wondering if im missing something.

a buddy of mine keeps telling me a quarter wave vertical with a good radial field would crush my dipole for DX because of the lower takeoff angle. and i get that in theory, but also my lot is basically all clay soil and i dont exactly have room to lay down 60 or 100 radials. so is a mediocre vertical going to actually beat a decent inverted V or am i going to regret ripping everything down to try something different. i mostly work DX casual, not contesting, and i do some rag chew on 40 too.

anyone actually compared these side by side? not looking for simulation data, i mean real world use.

ran almost exactly this comparison a few years back. had an inverted V at 35 feet and put up a 40m vertical with about 16 radials on the ground, which honestly is the real world number most people end up with not the theoretical 120. the vertical did do better on the long DX paths, europe and japan from the midwest, but it wasnt some massive difference, maybe a half S unit on average and sometimes the dipole was actually better depending on conditions and time of day. the vertical also picked up way more local noise for me because of the omnidirectional pattern, which is kind of annoying for rag chewing when youve got a plasma TV two houses down.

if your soil is poor clay the radial situation matters a lot. with a skimpy radial field youre probably burning power in the ground. my honest take is if your inverted V is working and youre making the contacts you want, the juice might not be worth the squeeze. now if you could get the dipole up higher, like 50-60 feet, that would probably do more for you than switching to a vertical with limited radials.

the takeoff angle thing is real but it only really matters when propagation is supporting those low angle paths anyway. ive found on 40m at night when the band is open properly both antennas kind of equalize. i switched to a vertical a couple years ago and honestly miss the inverted V for local and regional stuff, the vertical just kind of hears everything including all the garbage. depends what you want i guess