Hi again (nyuk),
"Originally Posted by kb2vxa
Lash, what's a moonracker?
"Sounds painful!"
Less painful than a nut cracker.
"...but did have a Moonraker 4 element that I measured 30dB over a 1/2 wave ground plane..."
No you didn't, Hallicrafters had the one and only calibrated S meter, 50uV at the antenna terminals for S9. Even so it went way out of cal as the circuits aged. The only way you could have done it accurately is to have set up at an antenna test range or inside an anechoic chamber and used NIST calibrated laboratory equipment. All you proved is that a beam has considerable gain over a ground plane which is the proper reference (not that BS dBi crap) but just how much is questionable.
Oh and another thing, the proper way to call CQ on CB is "How 'bout it skipland skipland skipland, this is the Tower of Power, the man of the hour comin' acha from the top of the Gorilla Building in beautiful downtown New York lookin' over the tri-state area, the Staten Island Fairy (Is that the John F. Kennedy, the Verazano or Tinker Bell?) and all the ships at sea..." Keep this one sentence monologue up for at least half an hour before you unkey and see what comes back or if they're all bored to tears and went to another channel.
"CQ CQ CQ DX, this is kilowatt bravo two victor X-ray alpha, kilowatt bravo two victor X-ray alpha calling CQ DX and listening." works for me, I'm a ham and I know it. (;->)