I would suggest a nice flat 40 dipole if they have the room, the half squares, as stated above, have half of the perceived gain and are just two broadsided verticals in a desperate search for fantastic ground conditions, too chancy as the lower take off angle of any vertical is all due to near and far field reflection, hard to know or account for a beginner.
The delta loop has no real advantage over a dipole unless space is tight as it is basically 30% lower, even when at same physical height.. Any antenna that is chosen because it is quieter would be my last consideration for a first antenna.
Good luck,
Bob

Loose the pipe and put a 8 ft 4x4 in the ground 3 ft in post hole and backfill and tamp, concrete if permament. A couple of C pipe clips screwed in top and bottom will be fine with no guying. I have used this system with 50 metal pushups for years with no failures.
Bob

Assumed the poster is USA/ General and my answer still remains, NO, even with Advanced or Extra call the band bottom on lsb on 40 is 7128.
Bob

No, also on lsb, 7.128 is the bottom of band.
Bob

Why ?

Guess they did not get the memo, tnx for lousy music and amateur announcing, heard better from many pirate stations. One can only hope they blow up their finals!!
Bob

Sorry misread post, height good rest of answer might help.
bob

Sounds like your gonna have to let around 25 ft at each end droop down, I would tie a masonry string/insulator to the excess wire and tie off straight down if possible. You are trying to get all the wire up in the air you can 1/2 wl long so folding anything back is counterproductive. Also no mention of actual height so hopefully your at least 66 ft or so up in the air with the shortened version you describe.
Bob

James welcome to the crazy world of ham radio, if you can email me a couple of photos of your installation, feedline, center connector and wire supports I might be more helpful.
bobr1919@gmail.com
Bob

My concern for a new antenna experimenter is that a vertical is not the easiest antenna to build correctly. All the superlatives about take off angle etc, only apply to a well constructed ground system handling the near and far angle of incidence to do the reinforcing magic. If there is one antenna bound to the, location, location constraint, it is a single monople.
Horizontal wire or wires are much less influenced by ground losses near and far.
Good luck and keep building !
Bob

Well a dipole would serve you better if you have the room, that being said phase a couple and you will see a big differance, have a few articles here on eham under my callsign.
Bob

Well welcome back, nothing basic you cant do at your radio, swr, etc.
The analyser thing just saves a lot of walking on simple antennas.
Bob

There will be major penalty and mismatch and feedline loss. Even a full size non loaded 40 dipole would suffer loss on 20.
Bob

Best advice, besides the obvious stuff, was to grab the tubes from the bottom when removing. Sorry
Tom, but those tube sockets are REAL easy to dislodge, I know the design budjet contraints but be gentle with the sockets.
Bob

Try on dummy load and see if you have same problem. If not you have a bad connection at antenna or a feedline.
Remove all tuners for the above testing.
Bob