so ive been going back and forth on this for probably two months now and i cant decide. currently running a wire dipole for 40m, its up about 30 feet which i know isnt ideal but its what i can do in my backyard. works okay but i feel like im missing stuff, especially into europe from the east coast.

someone at the club kept telling me to put up a vertical because low angle radiation blah blah and honestly it sounds right but then i read all this stuff about verticals needing a good ground radial system and my yard is basically a rectangle with a concrete patio taking up half of it. i could probably lay down 16 radials maybe, not the 60 that everyone seems to say you need for a proper ground mounted vertical.

so is the dipole at 30ft actually beating a vertical with a mediocre radial field on 40m or should i just accept the compromise and try the vertical anyway? or is there some third option im not seeing. i have maybe $200 to spend if i go the vertical route, was looking at the Hustler 6BTV or something homebrew.

Honest answer - 30 feet on 40m is pretty low, you're getting more high angle radiation than you probably want for DX. That said a vertical with only 16 radials isn't going to blow you away either, you'll have meaningful ground losses. The 6BTV isn't bad for the money but it really does want a decent radial field.

What I'd actually try before spending anything is raising the dipole if at all possible, even getting it to 40 feet makes a noticeable difference on the low angle stuff. Or look at an inverted V configuration if you can get the apex higher - it's not perfect but it changes the pattern a bit. Alternatively a sloper off whatever support you have, those can do surprisingly well for DX with the right orientation.

If you're dead set on vertical, 16 radials is workable, just dont expect it to stomp the dipole across the board. It'll do better on low angle and the dipole will likely win on nearby stuff. Depends what you care about more.

i went through basically this exact thing last year. ended up putting up the 6BTV with about 24 radials, mix of lengths, nothing scientific. compared it side by side with my 40m dipole at like 35ft for a few weeks. europe was definitely better on the vertical on average, but there were nights where the dipole just smoked it for whatever reason, propagation does weird things.

thing nobody tells you about the 6BTV is the 40m loading coil connection gets corroded pretty fast if you dont seal it, had intermittent issues six months in and couldnt figure out why for the longest time. just something to watch for.