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Old 15-Dec-2010, 12:56 PM   #4
dprljackson
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 18
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Loudin View Post
You are correct about decibels. However, the field strength of an electromagnetic wave decays by the square of distance, not linearly.
Yes I know that. That's why I said a doubling of the distance results in a quarter of the field strength. To make up for that factor of 4 drop off, it seems like the antenna would need an additional gain of 6 dB.

So that is why I was confused as to the claims of 25 miles/50 miles for the two different antennas with relatively similar gains (1-2 dB). It would seem to me that in order to claim that an antenna is good at "twice the distance" it would need a gain that is approximately 6 dB more. I'm guessing the one antenna is probably slightly better than 25 miles (maybe 30-35) and the other is slightly worse than 50 miles (maybe 40 or so). That would make more sense.

Thoughts?
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