On Sun, 28 Mar 2004 07:38:59 -0600, Tom Ring
wrote:

If most of the energy is going off the end(s), there can't be much left
to go off the sides, therefore it can't perform like a dipole off the
sides. Those little spikes are very misleading, and very narrow. Apply
an averaging function 2 or 3 degrees wide on the spikes and the nulls,
and you'll see a much truer picture.

The program defaulted to 5 degrees which still presented so many lobes
as to be a pin cushion. The net effect is that aside from axial
gain, off side is still pretty much dipole average. No one really
expects those sharp lobes to actually represent reality except if you
were working EME with an apeture that couldn't see ground. Such deep
nulls of only a couple degrees wide only exist in line of sight.

There's a world of difference between modeling antenna characteristics
and propagation reality.


The physics doesn't lie - antenna patterns are a have to add up to 100%
of the input power (ignoring losses). If, picking nice round numbers,
90% is in 5 degrees off the end, then only 10% is available for th.

90% for 10% coverage does not absorb all the gain available; the
multitude of sharp lobes in excess of 2dBi is abundant proof of that.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC