More of the sky? An aircraft could never get high enough, even directly
overhead not to be heard with a low angle antenna. I have communicated
with aircraft on VHF out to 200mi runing a 5w transceiver and a 1/4
wavelength antenna right on the transceiver. Signals were perfect copy
and virtually unchanged until the last few minutes of travel as the
aircraft headed away from me. GPS was used to determine distance. On
another occasion, the exact same radio was used with a large (11dBD
gain) yagi antenna and the distance obtained was about 250mi. Signals
held in a little longer but the ultimate distance was not much more. The
yagi pointed away from the aircraft at close distance and directly below
picked them up just fine. Bottom line is, if your antenna is in the
clear of obstructions, you should pick up aircraft from very high
altitude overhead and out to the horizon + a little more with no
problem. Unless something is broken...
Mike


Right Rev. Ronnie wrote:
On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 19:26:44 GMT, Mike
wrote:


Why would you want a mil air antenna with a high angle of radiation? At
an extreme distance you would want the pattern at the horizon.
Mike


Depends on what you are listening to.

For distance, yes. You would want a 5/8 wave to maximize the horizon.

For local use, I'd want the high angle of radiation to capture more of
the sky.