[Milsurplus] Car Whip Antenna "gain"

[Ray Fantini]

Wow man, lots of numbers and stuff! Been following this thread but hesitant to say anything for the fear of demonstrating my own ignorance. Back when I went thru a physics class on microwave and strip line and discovered it was almost all entirely transmission line theory it was put forth by Dr. Pramanack that there is no such thing as antenna gain. All figures for antenna gain are only relative in comparison to the isotropic dipole in free space. Lot of stuff like aperture and things figure in and in a given direction and you have thermotical gain, beyond that how can you have power gain in a passive component?  
All this starts to sound like some of the advertisements you read in QST or almost along the lines of the other claims on the internet. 
24 dB (dBi?) on a vertical, as Joe would say, Come-on on man!

Ray F/KA3EKH