You're probably not going to do significantly better with a single
vertical radiator than your 1/4 wave vertical. There might be some
advantages to a half wave vertical, but I'd just feed it at the bottom
instead of messing around with trying to feed it as a vertical dipole.
Having an elevated coax feed coming away from the antenna would be a
pain.
I *like to think* my halfwave vertical beats the old 40 foot one on
on 40m but that's almost certainly my imagination.
(http://www.n3ox.net/projects/sixtyfootvert). I doubt that there's
much advantage to the taller vertical other than the possibility that
having the high current point above the surrounding suburban ground
clutter is somehow useful. The antenna works well, for sure, but not
enough better than a quarter-wave one to recommend it. It just so
happens that it's easy here to use the 60 foot pole on 30,40, 80 and
160 with proper matching networks.
For more gain and a real improvement, I'd second the thought to try
some sort of array. I've been thinking about it on 40m but I can't
afford any more complexity here.
A very simple way to get two phased verticals on 40m is a half-square
antenna. (http://cebik.com/scv/scv4.html) You can voltage feed it at
the bottom of one of the vertical elements. It would be easy to
convert your existing 1/4 wave vertical to a half-square by putting up
another element insulated from ground and running a half-wave wire
between the tops.
Dan
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