so ive been running a half wave dipole for 40m up about 30 feet for the past couple years and it works fine, decent contacts, nothing to complain about really. but i picked up a used Hustler 6BTV vertical at a hamfest last month and figured id put it up and compare. got it tuned up, radials down (16 of them, cut for 40), and honestly... i dont get it. the vertical seems noisier on receive and i cant tell if its actually performing better on transmit or not.

like on some paths it seems stronger, on others the dipole clearly wins. a buddy of mine 200 miles away says im about the same signal on both but the vertical sounds a lot noisier to him too. is this just the nature of verticals and im expecting too much, or did i mess up the radial situation? i was reading that more radials help but at some point you hit diminishing returns. just not sure what i expected tbh

yeah this is pretty much the classic vertical experience honestly. they pick up more noise because theyre omnidirectional and close to ground level, so all that local QRM just piles on. your dipole at 30 feet is actually doing reasonably well at rejecting some of that because of its pattern and height. the vertical will probably shine more when youre trying to work DX at low angles - thats where the 6BTV earns its keep, especially on 40 and 80. for local and regional stuff the dipole is probably going to feel more comfortable to use just because its quieter.

16 radials is decent but honestly if you can get to 32 youll notice a difference on efficiency, not so much on noise floor though. noise is just part of the vertical life. i ran a 43ft vertical for a while and loved it for DX but always went back to my fan dipole for everyday ragchewing because my ears werent bleeding

the noise thing is real and drove me crazy when i first put up my vertical. what helped me was adding a few more radials on the noisiest direction - like if most of my local noise comes from the northeast i bunched a few more radials that way. probably voodoo but it felt like it helped lol. also are you running any kind of common mode choke at the feedpoint? made a noticeable difference for me, wound about 10 turns of coax through a FT240-31 toroid right at the base. worth trying before you give up on it