Jessica Wilson

so anyway i finally started doing this too after my buddy told me about it. i kept thinking i had to be DOING something when i got on the air but honestly just listening is half the fun when the bands cooperate. 40 gets weird and wonderful after like 9pm local. also heard some spanish language traffic last week which i think was south america but im still figuring out propagation so who knows

so ive been going back and forth on this for a while now and figured id just ask here because i keep reading contradictory stuff online. im running a modest setup, IC-7300 into a LDG tuner, and right now i have a half wave dipole for 40m strung up inverted-V style about 30 feet at the apex. its fed with RG-8X into the shack. works okay i guess but im wondering if a vertical would do better for DX since ive read a bunch of times that verticals have a lower takeoff angle and thats better for longer paths.
the thing is i also read that verticals need a decent radial system or they just suck up the RF into the ground and you lose half your power anyway. and i dont really have the yard space to bury like 60 radials or whatever the recommendation is. i was thinking about one of those trap verticals or maybe even just a simple quarter wave with like 4 or 8 radials elevated a couple feet off the ground.
current dipole does get me into europe from the midwest pretty regularly on 40 when conditions are up but im wondering if im leaving contacts on the table. anyone actually compared these two antenna types head to head at their own station? not looking for theoretical stuff, just real world experience from people who have actually used both.

did this exact comparison a few years back, had both antennas up at the same time for a couple weeks which was a pain but worth it. the vertical with a decent radial field — i had 24 radials, mixed lengths mostly around 30-33 feet — did noticeably better on dx paths, particularly long path stuff toward JA and into europe at greyline. but the dipole, even at your kind of height, has a lower noise floor in my experience. the vertical picked up way more local QRM from my neighbors solar inverter and whatever else is floating around.
so its not as simple as vertical wins. if youre in a noisy suburban environment the dipole might actually be more usable day to day even if it theoretically loses a couple db on low angle. 16 radials is a reasonable starting point but honestly every one you add does help, just with diminishing returns past like 16-20 or so

general is definitely a step up from tech but honestly not by as much as you'd think. the question pool is bigger and yeah some of the electrical theory stuff can trip you up if you're not used to thinking about things like impedance or how a superheterodyne receiver works, but you don't need to actually understand all of it deeply to pass the test, you just need to recognize the right answer
hamstudy is exactly what i used and it works great, just do the practice exams over and over until you're consistently hitting like 85% or better and you'll be fine on test day. the propagation stuff sounds scary but its actually pretty interesting once it clicks, like understanding why 40m works great at night and 10m is all over the place depending on the solar cycle. that stuff starts making sense pretty fast
30 minutes a night for 3 or 4 weeks should be plenty honestly. and once you get that general ticket the whole HF world opens up and you'll wonder why you waited so long. 40 meters alone will keep you busy for years

honestly i tried js8call twice and both times just sat there for like 45 minutes hearing nothing so i went back to ft8. maybe im on the wrong frequencies or wrong time of day idk. what dial frequency are you guys actually finding activity on 40m