Antenna question…

[Md116]

Why would my 1/4 wave dual band antenna (150/450) with unity gain receive better than my other dual bander with 3/6 gain? Both antennas were place in the same exact location too. This may be obvious to a lot of people but you would think it would be just the opposite.

 

[Ubbe]

Why would my 1/4 wave dual band antenna (150/450) with unity gain receive better than my other dual bander with 3/6 gain?

Maybe its' the receivers fault? If a receivers amplifier stage receives too much signal it starts to get saturated and actually loose sensitivity. It's always a good help to use a variable 0-20dB attenuator when using external antennas and change the attenuation while listening to a weak signal in analog mode to see if sensitivity change to the better using more attenuation.

Antennas with gain often have a more narrow frequency bandwidth and could work worse outside of the exact frequency it's tuned to. It's also more sensitive to have the antenna in an exact vertical position. Sometimes (always?) antenna manufactures exaggerates their gain figures.

/Ubbe