so ive been going back and forth on this for like two months now and i keep changing my mind. currently running a 40m dipole up about 30 feet fed with coax, works okay but i feel like im missing stuff to the east and my signal reports that direction are always a bit soft. a buddy suggested i just put up a vertical with some radials and call it day.

thing is i actually built the dipole myself and it works fine on 40 and i can load it up on 80 in a pinch with my tuner. vertical would need radials and i dont really have a huge yard, maybe 50x60 feet, so laying out a good radial field seems like itd be tight. anyone actually compared these two on 40 specifically? i feel like the dipole at 30ft is basically NVIS territory anyway so maybe the vertical makes more sense for dx. or is 30ft actually okay for some low angle radiation? i never know how much to trust the modeling software results vs just real world experience

30 feet on 40m is about 0.22 wavelengths height which yeah, you're going to get a pretty high angle lobe out of that. good for regional stuff, not great for dx. a vertical will definitely give you better low angle radiation if you can get the radials sorted out. even 16-20 buried radials would make a real difference, you dont need the full 120 to get most of the benefit. the first 16 or so give you the biggest jump in efficiency and after that its diminishing returns.

that said if you raise the dipole even to 50 feet you'd see a noticeable improvement in the low angle stuff. half wave at 40m is about 66 feet of height to really sing on dx. hard choice if you cant get higher supports but id lean vertical if you truly cant get the dipole up higher and you care about working dx.

i ran a hamstick vertical on 40 for a while in a small yard situation and honestly i was surprised how well it did with just 8 radials on the ground. not a full size vertical obviously but still. if you go full size you'll do better. the dipole height thing is real though, 30ft on 40 is pretty much only good for talking to people a few hundred miles out, anything over maybe 1000 miles and you're fighting the takeoff angle. just my experience anyway