Quarter-wave or db 3 gain

[bmendez]

hi everybody I ahev em wave 1001 anttenta and I live in rural county area what is better a quarter wave or a 3db gain anntenta

 

[prcguy]

Depends on what the gain is referenced to. If its 3dBi gain then its maybe 1dB better than a 1/4 wave and that usually goes unnoticed. If its 3dBd then you might notice a slight improvement.

hi everybody I ahev em wave 1001 anttenta and I live in rural county area what is better a quarter wave or a 3db gain anntenta

 

[paulears]

What is more important is how high it is, and the direction of it's maximum signal. 3dB gain is worthwhile if your incoming and outgoing signal paths are really going to have that gain. 3dB gain on an aircraft at 5000ft could be good, but if you live on high ground and want the gain from the directions below you, that 3dB might be irrelevant.

 

[sonm10]

Gain and bandwidth are (usually) inverse of each other. Being in a rural area like myself, I would go with a higher gain antenna. However, this will degrade performance in other bands.

I am working on improving my setup now by using a triplexer to combine 3 high gain, band specific antennas.

If you just want one antenna, however, I would go with a quarter wave, or a discone, which is more broad banded.

The other thing to consider is this for inside or outside? An inside antenna will suffer slightly from signal degradation. An outside antenna, the importance is to get out and up. Anything above the roofline will be a great improvement.

 

[paulears]

I’m a believer that gain is not the most important, it’s height, lack of screening, and angle of maximum radiation. I do lots of marine band antenna work and marine antennas are designed to be as low and angle of radiation as possible, so 0dB gain antennas are the most popular by a long way. The vessels with longer grainy antennas often have to tilt them forward when the vessel is at rest, so that they become vertical when on the plane. Otherwise their forward radiation pattern misses ships totally!