"Reg Edwards" wrote
Does it bring more than 1dB gain with it?
73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC
===============================
Richard, asking such awkward questions you get more insensitive to
people's feelings every day.
Are you not aware that a decrease in gain of even less than 1 dB can
lose a contest?
Reg, G4FGQ
__________________

This post started with a question about a 28" loaded whip operating on 10
meters, presumably to be used in a mobile application. The concern of the
post was how to model the antenna to determine whether it would have the
pattern of a 1/4 wave or a 1/2 wave vertical radiator.

But for a mobile application the affect of the auto body, the local
environment, and even the direction the car is pointing can alter the
free-space pattern of the antenna more than the difference in the relative
radiation patterns of 1/4-wave and 1/2-wave verticals -- and particularly so
for VHF/UHF antennas.

If 1dB of antenna gain is so critical to amateurs, suggest that more
attention needs to be paid in its system design to the operating environment
of the antenna. Some NEC programs make it fairly straightforward to model
the net patterns of antennas as mounted on vehicles, and should lead to a
better understanding of antenna performance in the real world.

RF