I have said for a long time Bob, I could not get my Vector to work as good as my S4, so I never fixed it...with the little things I found improving my S4 over time either.
When I finally did that...the Vector model started showing the same or better results as my S4. I was surprised. I suspect that it must surprise you too...that I was surprised.
Modeling in my approach, I never know what will happen ahead of time. Even when I have a expectation of what might or should happen...I am still surprised. I know this is not normal in your experiences, but that is what happens to me and this is why I sometimes might change my mind/thinking.
I can't pin this down to any particular thing that I did, but I was amazed at the results recently...when I took some time and did a few adjustments to the Vector model. It was probably just little stupid thing, like setting the length of a radial hub wire at different length from the others, so the base was not symmetrical. You know little things.
Therefore I don't try and push a model to the limits of my imagination without first trying to get the model right and working near expectations first.
I first noticed these new effects, for me, on my FS version of the Vector, and the angle dropped. Just so you will know this will likely never have any similar effect on a model over real Earth.
Just to be clear we don't want to mix FS results with RE model results without, at least, an understanding of the difference.
I had the though that this was due to the difference in the length of the radials, but I did not have to fix the length of the radials. I also tried to reverse my steps in what I had done, a nice feature available in Eznec, but I must have made a misstep in the process, because the model was no longer tracking with the same results in each change..as I backed up.
Right now I don't even know if I'm making any sense, and I don't know why I'm trying to tell you any of this. You may not understand, but here goes.
I think I'm A-fib again, but I don't feel bad yet.
I think my point is, I can't tell you if the best J-Pole made will make gain or not, I have no way of telling about gain, except by maybe considering signals, but I don't have a setup like you Bob...so that is not possible for me. I see lots of my ham buddies running repeater stations using a two meter> J-pole antenna at the top of their stacks...and they claim they work fine. Maybe you don't need so much watts or gain to work 2 meters, so I have to believe you, the real world a J-Pole is not on par with these Sigma design.
If so, we are seeing here that modeling must be measured in conjunction with real world testing, and RW testing must prevail.
So, what does that tell us about Donald's testing, since this model is so far off?
Bob, I don't mind the "straight skinny" and getting something right...that is always my goal. But this is just like the issue with Henry's Vector model reporting 2.27 dbi @ 23* degrees, that I asked about.
From what you say, Henry model agrees with what I just reported.
I set out to show these guys that are interested...that the J-Pole is not that bad of an antenna. So can you tell us why you think we see the big difference in your report for how a real world J-Pole really works, compared to what the models show?
Here is an overlay of my Vector vs my S4 in Free Space and even though the cursor is set for the S4, you can easily see the Vector pattern is really max at or near 0* degrees to the horizon in the image and you can check the gain difference in the details to the right hand bottom data block where it shows gain at 2.49dbi @ 3* degrees for the Vector.
