I have a question that's probably easy for anyone with practical experience
building UHF antennas. I need to make a shortened dipole (from tubing) at
450 MHz without sacrificing too much gain compared to full-size.

I have a design based on EZNEC. Total shortened "half-wave" dipole length
is 0.32 lambda. Half of that of course is in each of the two elements.
There is a loading coil in the middle of each element. EZNEC assumes zero
length, non-radiating coils. In reality, the coil length is significant
compared to the element length.

So, how do I build this thing considering the real coil length? Can the
coil be inserted in the middle of each element without reducing the element
length by the length of the coil? In other words, would final element
length be 0.32 lambda plus coil length? Or, should the elements be
shortened to maintain overall 0.32 lambda end-to-end length?

Thanks.

George K6GW