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One very important issue in all of this is that the aperture defined for a dipole is NOT the physical surface area of the antenna element. It might seem that by making the surface area of the Wi-Fi antenna much larger (thicker) that the gain would increase. This is not the case. The effective capture area is a theoretical concept and for a dipole cannot be determined by it's thickness.

However, with a parabolic antenna, the physical capture area (physical aperture ) IS closely related to effective aperture area.

To show how complex this becomes (and this is all tied into the whole FSPL, "Attenuation" ) thingy, here is a clip from a forum where even some physicists are confused !!

http://www.advancedphysics.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-1073.html

Dave