Jimmie D wrote:

I once saw a demonstration that "BIG UGLY" cb antennas, these are
approximately 1/8 wl and have a huge loading coil, have more gain than a 1/4
wl radiator. This certaily appeared to be the case when both the antenna
being test and the field strength meter's antenna were both the "big ugly"
variety and relatively close together(50'). Could this "gain" be a result of
magnetic coupling between the coils or was some other trickery being
performed.

There's no doubt this was some sort of trickery. I'd bet any amount of
money that if properly measured, the loaded 1/8 wave antenna would be
shown to have less gain due to lower efficiency. Even moderately
accurate antenna gain measurements are much more difficult to make than
most people realize, and there are many ways to be fooled. I couldn't
begin to list the all ways you could set up a demonstration like that to
get whatever result you desired.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL