so ive been putting off building my own antennas forever and finally just did it last weekend, threw together a simple 40m dipole out of some 14awg stranded wire i had in the garage and a SO-239 chassis connector i got from the parts bin. cut each leg to about 33 feet which i know is the basic formula, 468/7.150 or whatever, ended up around 32.8 per side.

the thing actually works and im kind of shocked honestly. got it up in an inverted V config with the apex at maybe 25 feet off a fiberglass push-up mast. SWR at my target freq is sitting around 1.4:1 which i figured was pretty decent for a first attempt with no tuner inline.

my question is about the feedpoint connector situation. i just twisted the two wire ends through the holes on the SO-239 center pin and the ground lugs and soldered them, then wrapped everything in self-amalgamating tape. is that going to hold up or am i asking for trouble? also noticed the impedance feels like its a little low - not sure if thats the inverted V angle doing that or if my legs are maybe a touch long. havent trimmed anything yet.

its currently pointed roughly east-west if that matters at all for any of this.

the feedpoint connection sounds fine for now, honestly that's how a lot of guys do it for temporary or semi-permanent installs. the self-amalgamating tape is the right call, just make sure you stretched it properly when you wrapped it so it actually fused to itself. if you didnt it'll wick moisture eventually. some people pot the whole thing in a little PVC junction box with some silicone sealant which is cleaner if you want it to last years without thinking about it.

on the impedance thing - yeah the inverted V absolutely does lower the feedpoint Z compared to a flat dipole. a flat dipole at a decent height is nominally 72 ohms but when you fold it into a V the angle of the legs brings that down, could be 50-60 ohms depending on how steep your V is. so actually at 1.4:1 into 50 ohm coax you might just be sitting right where you'd expect. i wouldn't mess with the length too much if you're happy with where the resonance landed. maybe try it on a different part of the band and see how it tracks before you start trimming.

what coax are you running down from the feedpoint? that can change things a lot if its a lossy cable or a weird length. also 25 feet apex on 40m is kinda low, you might get better reports if you can get it higher but i know thats not always possible. mine was at like 20 feet for a while and it still worked, just dont expect DX to be knocking down your door at those heights. nice work getting it up though, first homebrew antenna is a good feeling