Hello Steve,

Yes, a quarter wave radiator fed over 4 quarter wave radials is a good
antenna, it performs almost equally as a vertical dipole. The main
advantage over the vertical dipole is that you can mount it on top of a
mast and you do not need a balun.

Because of the 4 quarter-wave radials, you will get a good virtual
ground avoiding common mode current into you 50 Ohm coaxial feeder and
or the mast. You do not need any further matching. Make sure that the
ends of the radials do not touch ground. If the ends are close to
ground, probably you have to shorten them a bit to account for the
capacitive effect caused by the ground. I would recommend you to higher
the feed point of the antenna.

When you want more gain and are able to do the construction work, you
may extend to close to a 5/8 wave, you only need a series coil to do
the matching. Using a halve wave radiator (fed over the 4 radials) is
also possible, but the impedance is in the kOhm range and therefore
matching is somewhat more difficult.

I hope this will help you.

Wim
PA3DJS