Cecil Moore wrote:
Old Ed wrote:

What could be sweeter? I'd say a 20m dipole, coax fed.


Well, a 66 ft. dipole used on 20m does exhibit gain over a
33 ft. dipole used on 20m by almost 2 dB.
. . .

Most people can't or don't rotate a 66 foot dipole, and it has that much
gain over a dipole half the length only in two specific directions. It
has a gain of one dB or more over the shorter dipole only over 60 of the
360 degrees of the compass; and for 280 out of 360 degrees, it has
*less* gain than the shorter dipole -- in fact as much as 14 dB less.
For most people the longer dipole is a poor choice unless there's a
specific narrow direction you want to favor at the expense of most other
directions.

You lose a lot of information when you reduce an antenna pattern to a
single "gain" number, just as you do in reducing complex data to an
average. Keep in mind the statistician who drowned while crossing a
creek whose average depth was only three feet.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL