HF2V versus inverted-V dipole : First comparisons on 40m

Hi all,

I just finished my holidays and could
- put down the HexBeam to clean it and to raise it up again at 35 feet (it was at 20 feet high before....)
- Install an inverted-V dipole with the APEX at 25 feet high (so quite omnidirectional)...Goal is to compare it with the HF2V.

At short distance (Within Europe, less than 3000 km distance) : Reports are quite similar, with about 1-2 S-meter points better for the HF2V
At middle distance (Middle-East, Russia), the HF2V is better by about 2-3 S-meter point
At long distance (QSO with ZL4IR this morning), I noticed an almost 5 S-meter poitn difference, that's huge ! (From 5/4-5/5 up to 5/9 !!!!!)

So for any distances, the HF2V is better than the inverted-V dipole.

Now, the bad point : The HF2V is more noisy than the dipole, and the noise level increases by about 3 S-meter point.

This means that for short and middle distances, the dipole gives me a better Signal over Noise ration than the HF2V, even if the signal is stronger with the vertical (because noise is also stronger !)

I'll go on some testing using or not the RX preamplifier, as well as some testing on 80m (I suspect the HF2V to be also better there of course, but as it is a base-loaded vertical with 40 radials of 10m only each, its efficiency may not be that good on this particular band...

Ronan, F8AFC