so ive been going back and forth on this for probably two months now and i need someone to just talk me off the ledge or push me one way. my situation is a small suburban lot, maybe 60 feet usable in the backyard, HOA that technically says no antennas but the neighbors dont care as long as its not obvious. i currently have a trapped vertical which i put up last spring and honestly it works okay but 40m has been disappointing — like im getting out but not nearly as well as i expected based on what people say about verticals and low angle radiation and all that.

i keep reading that a dipole at even 30 or 40 feet will outperform a vertical on 40m for most practical purposes, especially if your ground isnt great. and my ground is definitely not great, i havent done any radials to speak of, just the four that came with the antenna kit. so part of me thinks im blaming the wrong thing. but the other part says a dipole at 40 feet on 40m is pretty compromised too since thats only about a third wavelength up.

anyone run both and actually done a real comparison, not just theoretical? im not trying to work dx necessarily, mostly domestic stuff, some nets, maybe the occasional contest. space is the limiting factor more than money at this point.

the radial situation is almost certainly your problem before anything else. four radials on a vertical is not enough to really evaluate it fairly — you want at least 16 if you can manage it, ideally more, even if they're short. i ran a trap vertical for years thinking it was mediocre and then laid down 24 radials and it was like a completely different antenna. the improvement on 40m specifically was pretty dramatic. so before you pull it down and start stringing wire between trees id try fixing the ground system first, its way less work than building a new antenna.

that said if your lot is 60 feet and you can get a dipole up at 35-40 feet its genuinely not bad for the domestic stuff you're describing. the radiation angle wont be ideal but at those distances it doesnt really matter, youre not fighting for low angle dx you're just trying to hit a net in the next state. either antenna will do that fine once the vertical has a real ground plane under it.

yeah what he said about radials is true but also — what feedline are you running to the vertical and have you checked for common mode current? i had a vertical that was acting weird and turns out i had RF coming back down the coax shield and the whole feedline was radiating. threw a few snap on ferrites on there and the noise floor dropped and the signal reports got better. probably not your main issue but worth checking before you do a ton of work on radials.

for what its worth i have a fan dipole at about 38 feet for 40 and 20 and it works pretty well for domestic, never tried it back to back with a vertical so i cant really give you numbers, just anecdotal.