so ive been going back and forth on this for like three weeks now and i cant decide. currently running a basic 40m dipole up about 30 feet, works ok but i keep reading about end feds and how they're supposedly easier to deploy and multiband capable without a tuner if you get the right one. my feedline situation is kind of a mess right now because the shack is on the wrong end of the house relative to where the antenna would ideally go, so a long coax run is eating into my signal before it even gets to the antenna.

the dipole is resonant, swr is fine, but i feel like im losing a lot in the coax. running about 75 feet of RG-8X which probably isnt helping. someone at the club mentioned i should just switch to an end fed halfwave and bring the wire directly to the window and use a 9:1 or 49:1 unun, which would cut the coax run down to almost nothing. but then i hear about common mode current issues and needing a choke and honestly it starts to feel like trading one problem for a different set of problems.

anyone done a direct comparison? is the end fed actually worth it in a suburban lot situation or should i just suck it up and run better coax to the dipole

honestly the coax is probably your real issue before anything else. RG-8X over 75 feet on 40m isnt terrible but its not great either, you're looking at maybe 1.5-2dB of loss depending on frequency which actually does add up. before you tear down the dipole id at least try swapping to LMR-400 or even just proper RG-213 and see if that changes things noticeably.

that said i did run an EFHW for a couple years and yeah the convenience factor is real, especially for a weird lot. the 49:1 unun works pretty well if its wound right - i made mine on an FT240-43 core with about 14 turns primary and it loaded up clean on 40 and 20 without a tuner. common mode stuff is a real thing though, i had rf in the shack for weeks before i figured out i needed a current choke at the feedpoint. once i sorted that out it was fine. performance wise i honestly couldnt tell a huge difference vs the dipole when both were at similar heights, which makes sense because the math says they should be roughly equivalent if everything is done right.

im in a similar situation and went the end fed route last year. the 9:1 vs 49:1 thing confused me too at first - turns out 49:1 is specifically for the halfwave where the impedance at the end is really high, the 9:1 is more for random wire situations where you need a tuner anyway. if youre cutting it for a specific band go 49:1. mine works on 40 10 and 15 without touching the tuner, 20m needs a tiny nudge but nothing crazy. cant comment on the coax comparison scientifically or whatever but subjectively it feels like a cleaner install