don't underestimate the humble dipole

[Andrew (grayhat)]

see here

https://www.voacap.com/2023/antennas/sq ... of-dipole/

to learn how to squeeze 8 dBi from a dipole, just by raising it tto the proper height

and if 8dBi doesn't ring a bell for you, try using this

https://m0ukd.com/calculators/erp-eirp-calculator/

[N5FY]

Voacap is fantastic. I shared the tool with my club a couple months back, was well received. Nice write up on Dipole as well. Thanks for sharing!

[Andrew (grayhat)]

Voacap is fantastic. I shared the tool with my club a couple months back, was well received. Nice write up on Dipole as well. Thanks for sharing!

I agree regarding VOACaP but my post was mainly about the best height for a dipole and it starts at a minimum of 0.6 wave height, a dipole at such height will offer a gain of around 8dBi, then willing to raise it from 0.6 just add 0.5 wave to get up to 1.1, 1.6 and so on up to more thsn 2 Lambda notice that the same applies to most horizontally polarized antennas like Yagi-Uda and so on and it's valid for V/UHF as well ...

[Andrew (grayhat)]

also see

https://www.onallbands.com/dipoles-a-do ... et-weapon/

[Andrew (grayhat)]

and then here are some considerations regarding vertical antennas

https://practicalantennas.com/designs/v ... s/5eights/

HTH