"Standard theory" has been around for over a hundred years now, and is
the basis for the design of some millions of antennas used for
everything from your cell phone to communications beyond the solar
system. Laboratories world wide measure antennas daily which have been
designed with "standard theory", and in those past hundred years plus,
no one has found any credible evidence that "standard theory" is in
error. Of course, charlatans claim it almost daily, just as they claim
the discovery of perpetual motion but inevitably their claims are shown
to fail in objective tests.

Backyard tinkerers love to fantasize that they'll be the next Galileo
and in a few hours, days, or years, make the breakthrough discovery that
shows all them eggheads a thing or two. It's pretty easy for such a
person to convince himself that he's done just that, because accurate
antenna measurements are much more difficult than amateurs generally
appreciate, and the sources of error are often subtle and require
knowledge of basic theory to understand. Another common basis for a
shouted "Eureka!" is a lack of knowledge of "standard theory", and the
gee-whiz revelation that what the discoverer mistakenly thought was true
turned out, after all, to be false. Clever ways of applying "standard
theory" to make an antenna that's more useful in some way for some
application are found frequently. Genuine evidence that "standard
theory" is wrong has happened virtually never in the past many decades.
The odds are heavily against the new Galileo springing up from the
suburbs. My money's sure not on them.

People truly wanting to make a better antenna would better spend their
time learning "standard theory" and less time tinkering in ignorance of it.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

John Smith wrote:
Well... yes... and no....
In investigating small antennas, my quest was not to find antennas which
preformed within 1 db as well, as well, or God forbid, better than their
full sized counter parts.
Rather, I was looking for antennas which preformed better than the poor
preformance which standard theory would suggest--a simple suggestion that
the theory was in error and, hopefully ones which could be utilized with
acceptable results in restricted spaces. Both of those condidtions I did
find!
While a pocket antenna which would preform as well as a half wave antenna on
low freqs (or any freq for that matter) would be fantastic, I lack the faith
to believe it possible--except at multiple Ghz, where both become the same!
However, it is very possible you might use the pocket antenna in places
where you could never never use the halfwave.
And of course, under such conditions--I would want the best possible pocket
antenna which could be constructed!

Warmest regards