Wow, what a difference getting the Comet CHA250HD mounted away from the house made. It dropped the noise level and improved listening by 3-4S units. It is now very competitive with the G5RV jr, and beats the G5RVjr on 10m by 3db ,12m by 4db ,15m by 15db, 17m by 3db, and 80m by 2db in FT8. G5RVjr wins on 20m by 2db and 40m by 1db.
I tried mounting it without radials, then with radials. The radial increased signal by at least 1S unit across all bands! So just the ground mount helped, but radials improved it.
I used the DX Commander manual suggestion of installing 16x 5m radials at the base.
Below is a picture of what the profile of the hill looks like.
Here is a terrain map of the hills around my house (at the red pin):
Facing north:
Facing East:
Facing South:
Facing West: