Questions about Antenex 700-900 Mhz Omnis

[mtindor]

I'm considering one of the following Antenex omnis for 800 mhz:

FG8240 824 - 896 Mhz unity gain (860 Mhz center freq)
FG8243 824 - 896 Mhz 3 dB gain (860 Mhz center freq)
FG8246 824 - 896 Mhz 6 dB gain (860 Mhz center freq)

This will be for receive only.

One would typically think "the bigger the antenna the better." 800 Mhz reception is finicky. You can move a ducky 3 inches in one direction and pick up a signal full scale while moving a multi-dB gain commercial antenna 3 inches in the other direction and have nearly zero signal. Placement is often crucial for 800 Mhz. One would also tend to believe that if the antenna is larger (more capture area), as long as it's designed for the frequency range you want to listen to, then it is going to pick up better than it's smaller counterparts.

My question is this - For all of you who have used commercial 800 Mhz base antennas of various sizes/gains, do you really feel that there would be such a significant improvement using the 6 db antenna above ( 65" long ) over the 3 db antenna ( 25" long ) and the unity gain antenna ( 15" long )?

I'm guessing that I should at least go for a 3 db antenna - a 25" antenna is much less of an "eyesore" than a 65" antenna is. But if one thinks I would get significantly better reception of 800 Mhz by merely jumping from the 3db ant to the 6 db ant I'd like to know.

Your thoughts?

Thanks,

Mike