yepper. and taking that 1/4wave antenna's round basketball shaped radiation pattern and squishing it down - like putting your hand on top of it and pushing down - of course does increase the radiation distance horizontally in an omni directional way, so the net effect is the same as a directional gain antenna - it goes further horizontally, so the effect is the same - it works farther. The 18db based on 1/4 wavelength and length of my 18db antenna is probably only 15db gain in reality. I think our amateur radio mfgrs are the only ones still rating db gain on dipole as it should be, and even a lot of them are now comparing to 1/4wave too for sales propaganda instead. But this beats the flat thing shipped on the receiver hands down.
AC8V