[Antennas] a couple fiberglass antenna questions

[Philip, KO6BB]

Hi,

Today I snagged a 2 month old Solarcon A-99 antenna WITH the optional 
radials, at a very good price (40.00)   Said antenna is going to replace my 
home-brewed 10M ground-plane (which uses my metal mobile home roof as a 
ground-plane).  It will be primarily used for my 10 Meter beacon (running 20 
Watts from a Uniden HR-2600 24/7).

QUESTIONS:

1.  The AES catalog says the A-99 has about 3dbi of gain.  Isn't that very 
close to what a full dipole has?  It seems I recall a dipole having about 
2.8 dBi gain or so.  But then I may be full of hot air too ;-)

2.  How much do the optional radials improve performance on this particular 
antenna?

3.  Since I plan on leaving this antenna up for many years, and it's still 
like new, I'd like to protect the fiberglass from future UV damage.  Will a 
good coat of Poly varnish or similar do this job?  Or perhaps a can of gray 
Krylon spray paint would be better (and keep the white pole from sticking 
out like a sore thumb :)  Is it likely that painting this thing would badly 
detune it?  If it's likely to cause any problems I'll just keep it stock!

73 de Phil,  KO6BB
DX begins at the noise floor!

Ten Meter CW Beacon KO6BB/B, 20 Watts 24/7 on 28.248MCs.
THE BEACONEER'S LAIR:   http://www.geocities.com/ko6bb/
QSL GALLERY: http://photobucket.com/albums/f306/KO6BB/
Merced, Central California,    37.3N  120.48W  CM97sh