"Stan Cooper" wrote
The Maco has a 16 foot boom and an advertised gain of 12.5 db, while the
JO GUNN has an 8 foot boom and an advertised gain of 14.5 db. I know there
is a lot of smoke and mirrors involved with advertised gains and so my
question is...is it possible for the JO GUNN to perform as well as the
Maco antenna?

The GUNN is of much stronger construction and a smaller windload so I'd
rather put it up, but the short boom makes me wonder if the gain and
rejection numbers are suspect.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, antenna choices, price tags and
urls below.

snip

Stan
The Maco antennas are built here in Memphis, and are not of a high
quality. If
I had to use one of their products, it would be a pair of
horizontal-stacked V-quads.
Small, light, works well and can be easily re-tuned to 10 meters later on.
The Jo Gunn model is a copy of the Charles "Gizmotchi" antenna ( still
being made,
by the way). Construction is better, tubing fit and finish are quite good,
but the gain
figures are really about 7 dbi for both of the antennas.
Gain figures are inflated to catch a sale, so I'd consider quality,
price, and strength
of materials/design as more important factors.
I've got enough tubing in my antenna junk to build a 3 element Gizmotchi
for 10
meters, and I might just do that, for the sake of having something different
in the
neighborhood.

Mike W5CHR
Memphis