On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 04:27:23 GMT, asym said
in rec.radio.scanner:

If your reciever sensitivity isn't up to snuff, then a lot of times it
doesn't matter how short or long your cable run is, or if it's high or
low quality.

All of them enter into it. A 30 element LPV with lossless cable,
feeding a receiver with a terrible noise figure, won't let you hear
very much.

BTW, the advantage of a discone is that it's a good match at just
about all the frequencies we're interested in. It's not much of an
antenna - it's more of a matching device between the end of the cable
and space.

Isn't that what an antenna is really all about anyway, any kind of
antenna?

That's *all* a discone is. Most antennas have some gain, even if it's
just the 3dbi of a dipole or ground plane.