On May 10, 6:49*pm, Art Unwin wrote:
On May 10, 1:05*pm, Richard Fry wrote:



On May 10, 12:35*pm, Art Unwin wrote:

* .... The radiation was 35 db in a shape
close to that of a sphere. (when the resistance of the aluminum dipole
went to zero the radiation went to a perfect sphere)

The radiation was "35 db" compared to what reference value?

BTW, a single, linear radiator cannot generate a perfectly spherical
radiation pattern, no matter what your model tells you.

Even an "infinitesimally" short, center-fed linear dipole has a figure
8 radiation pattern with a directivity (gain) of 1.5 X, or 1.76 dBi
-- see any antenna engineering textbook.

RF

I believe the computer programs to be more up to date than the books!
There certainly have been more advances since they have come into
being.
The programs reflect Maxwells equations which support the presence of
particles which is what provide the radiation resistance and not the
dipole itself. The dipole will show a donut pattern that will
gradually deform to a perfect sphere when resistance drops to zero as
per Poynting.
I would also point out that the programs support the presence of
Gaussian static particles as does mathematics. I would imagine that no
matter what programs you decide to use you will get the same results
as you increase the element diameter until the impedance is zero.No
point in trashing computer programs in advance because of personal
intuition. All I have done is removing resistance losses that do not
contribute to radiation.

the programs are based on the books... but even worse, they are
digital approximations of the continuous formulas and as such are not
completely accurate. this is especially true when extremely large or
small numbers are used or there are a large number of additions done,
as is common in antenna modeling programs. there are also assumptions
made in the development of most of those programs that are often not
stated to, or not understood by, the user, such as you. so when you
set something to optimize forever or start making elements extremely
skinny, fat, short, or long, or too close together, you are most
likely going to get wrong, or physically unrealizable results.