When I look at this it suggests that a no radial 5/8 wave should have most gain at 8.3M mast height which is interesting. (although if the X axis is still height above ground for the TOA graph at 8.3M approx that is very alarming suggesting much energy is way up into high angles 46 degrees or so) It also suggests that a Gain Master type antenna seems to take a lot of the negative and cantankerous aspects away from a no radial 5/8 wave. Though in practice thus far at least on line of sight contacts they seem to do as well as each other.
I just cannot seem to experience the predictions of many graphs and plots in practice between an IMAX2000 and a Gain Master. At least not for line of sight. Maybe an IMAX with no radials on a pole would never have made a contact to New Zealand I made long path 13,700 miles if that contact relied on a nice low angle cut into the F2 layer close to the horizon.
I wish I could correlate these predictions against my experiences. It just seems the disconnect between predictions and reality (or at least operational real world DXing) are not possible to prove without 2 antennas set up identically height wise (20M distant from each other to be sure) and a switcher.
I am surprised also at the differences in your plots in take offs from your no coax/no mast plots vs one with mast connected to ground. (even though a no coax/no mast antenna system is not a real world set up)
Interesting but I never get beyond that as it is very difficult to prove/sum up/correlate to a typical days DX set up that I would use.
I can only really make comparison between IMAX2000 and a Gain Master on long distance line of sight contacts and to all intents and purposes they seem to do similarly from day to day. (even though there can be the variables of tropospheric enhancements etc.) But averaging experiences out suggests they seem similar despite suggestion that much energy may be going out at 46 degrees with the IMAX2000 (the predictions being very similar in height and mast as I had it set up last weekend 9M aluminium pole, no radials)
Maybe for line of sight contacts TOA is not particularly meaningful. Which I would find strange from a theoretical point of view as you would think energy beams closer to the ground (of course still cutting above hills buildings and obstructions at an angle) would mean better signals to RX stations and better reciprocal receive signals at my end.
