On Monday, November 18, 2013 12:44:51 AM UTC-6, wrote:

But I'd be willing to bet he notices no lack of performance

for it's number of elements and boom length when listening to

other hams.

One other note though... If he is showing signs of a decoupling
problem when receiving, that means conditions are ripe for mayhem
when transmitting. He may well have skewing of his pattern.
It can skew upwards off the horizon, and you will see less gain
at the lower angles you want, and it could probably skew the
pattern as far as the heading in some cases.
So improving the decoupling will help greatly both transmitting
and receiving.
With the old Ringo Ranger verticals, the difference between
the original antenna with no decoupling, and the Ringo Ranger 2,
which had a lower decoupling section, was several S units when
tested on local signals at my QTH. Of course, the amount of
skewing can be all over the map depending on the length of the
un-decoupled feed line.
The difference in performance is reciprocal between transmit
and receive. IE: if I saw 3 db less signal on a particular
station with no decoupling vs decoupled, they would see the same
3 db less signal from me on their receiver.