so ive been going back and forth on this for a while now and figured id just ask. my backyard situation is not great - i can get maybe 65 feet end to end if im lucky, which obviously isnt going to cut it for a full size 80m dipole. ive got a decent 40m dipole up right now, inverted-V off a 35 foot mast, works pretty well for what it is.

the question is whether i add a second set of elements and make it a fan dipole for 80, or just go with loading coils mid-element to shorten the 80m legs. ive read a bunch of stuff saying the fan dipole is more efficient because youre not losig anything to a coil, but the coil option seems a lot simpler to actually build and get up in the air. my current feedline is already routed and i really dont want to re-do all that.

anyone actually run both and have opinions? or is this one of those things where the difference is basically unnoticeable in practice and im overthinking it

ran a fan dipole for 40/80/15 for about three years before i moved and had to take it all down. the fan setup works really well honestly, but getting the elements to not interact and mess up the resonance on each band takes some fiddling. you end up having to trim and adjust more than you'd expect because the elements do influence each other a bit depending on the spread angle. once its dialed in though the swr curves are clean and yeah youre not burning power in a coil so the efficiency argument is real.

that said i also had a trap dipole before that and the difference on received signals was... honestly not dramatic. on 80m especially the noise floor at most locations is going to matter more than a few percent of efficiency loss in a loading coil. if your coil Q is decent you're probably fine. id almost say just do the coils if the fan layout is going to be a pain, get on the air, and revisit it later if you feel like youre missing contacts

I went with the fan dipole route last fall and it wasn't bad to build but I definitely had to retune my 40m legs after I added the 80m ones, they pulled it off resonance by more than I expected. Just something to watch out for. The coil option always seemed fiddly to me in a different way - getting the coil positioned right on the element and weatherproofing it so it doesn't turn into a disaster six months later. Either way you're dealing with something.