I believe you're making some assumptions... It's not a dipole and it doesn't say that it is on our site. The angle influences gain, and the angle on that model is about 48 degrees. Typically, the angle on a standard dipole is going to be around 65 to 70. If anything, we understate some specs. Our rail and AIS models were tested by a very reputable government contractor, and those actually showed 3.6 at the resonant freq. We list it as 3 on the site. Theory is great, but there are small variances in actual practice. We aren't comparing to theory. I myself have often been surprised while building prototypes, at how different something can actually perform 'real world', compared to the theory of what it should do. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. However, I will be the first one to admit... It is in fact a numbers game... If I had my way, I wouldn't even put up a gain number. But that is what the consumer looks for. However, I don't know who would be foolish enough to purposely lower their figures to the absolute lowest number they can calculate it to, when no other manufacture is going to do that... Unless they secretly wish their business to fail.
Dave
DPD Productions