Rodney is right by my experience, if the plane is on the ground and the antenna is out the bottom the range check will be reduced compared to the antenna running out the top of the fuse and back to the tail. Set the plane up on a table or a stand and check it again, you may be suprised. Something else to consider. If you have 10 inches of "extra" antenna hanging off the end of the plane and that "extra" length is enough to touch the grounbd when the plane is at rest, just for fun do a range check with the antenna touching the ground on a wet day. I tried that once and got less then 20 feet before I began to see a loss of signal.