so ive been running a simple 40m dipole for about two years now, center fed, decent height maybe 30 feet at the apex, and it works fine. but i keep reading about end fed half waves and how some guys swear by them for convenience especially if you're limited on space or trees in the right spots. my property is kind of awkward, long and narrow, so a proper inverted V is about the best i can do with the dipole.

my question is — has anyone actually done a real comparison like same band, same conditions, same time basically, and found a meaningful difference? i know on paper they should be roughly equivalent if the EFHW is set up right with a decent 49:1 or whatever transformer, but im wondering if the real world matchup is more complicated than that. also curious if the feedline common mode stuff is more of a headache with end feds because i've heard mixed things.

not looking to spend a ton, just wondering if its worth experimenting or if i should just put effort into getting the dipole a little higher instead.

honestly in my experience getting the dipole higher is almost always going to do more for you than switching antenna types, at least on 40m. i went through this exact thing a few years back and spent way too long fussing with different antenna configurations when the real problem was just height above ground. that said, the end fed is genuinely more convenient to deploy if your lot is weird shaped, and with a good choke on the coax at the feedpoint the common mode stuff isn't really worse than any other antenna — its just that a lot of guys cheap out on the transformer or skip the choke entirely and then wonder why their noise floor is a mess.

if you do try an EFHW, wind your own transformer. the commercial ones are hit or miss and its not hard to build one that actually covers the bands you want cleanly. plenty of good info on the K9YC and W8JI sites about that.

i run both and tbh on 40 i cant tell a huge difference on receive, maybe slight edge to the dipole on noise but that could be placebo. the efhw is just way easier for me to throw up in the backyard without arguing with my wife about where the stakes go lol. common mode can be annoying with the end fed if you dont sort out the feedline, had some rfi getting back into the shack before i added a 1:1 choke near the rig end.