so ive been running a half wave dipole for 40m for about two years now, fed with coax and hung inverted-V style off a 35ft mast in the backyard. works fine, i get decent contacts, nothing to complain about really. but my neighbor just put up one of those trap verticals and he keeps talking about how much better his low angle radiation is for DX and it got me thinking.

my dipole is only about 30ft up at the apex which i know isnt ideal, honestly probably acts more like a cloud warmer at that height. ive been reading about verticals and the ground radial situation seems like a massive pain but im curious if anyone has actually done a side by side comparison at similar power levels. like real world, not antenna modeling software. im running 100w from an ic-7300 if that matters.

not really looking to tear everything down, just trying to figure out if its worth experimenting with. maybe a fan dipole at higher elevation would be a better use of my time and money than messing with radials

honestly at 30ft on 40m your dipole is probably doing better than you think for regional stuff, the low angle thing is real but it only really matters when youre trying to work deep DX consistently. for casual contacts and even a lot of DX it probably doesnt matter as much as people make it sound.

that said i ran a vertical with 32 radials on 40m for about a year and a half and it was genuinely noticeably better into europe from the west coast during the grey line. like not subtle, actually pulling signals out that i couldnt hear at all on the dipole. but the radial situation is exactly as annoying as everyone says - i spent two weekends burying wire and it still wasnt perfect. if you have the space and patience it can be worth it but a dipole at 50-60ft would probably get you most of the way there without the hassle

fan dipole at height is probaly the move if you want multiband without the radial headache. i put one up last spring covering 40/20/15 and it was way easier than i expected. the 40m element is only about 45ft up but it still outperforms my old trap vertical on anything but the flattest low angle paths. trap verticals specifically have extra losses in the traps that people dont always account for - a good resonant dipole even at modest height usually beats them except in the specific scenarios where low angle radiation is everything