RE: Whip Antenna
The way I understand it Curtis (and I am not an RF expert) is that EVERY base loaded antenna HAS to reduce your range, ALWAYS. I have typically seen figures like a 10% reduction quoted. A full length whip will always be better than a base loaded for reception. But where a base loaded shines is in an installation where the owner is unwilling to use the best solution, the full length whip, perhaps because of scale appearance concerns. In that situation, using a base loaded whip can sometimes (obviously this is dependent on installation geometry) be better than the original string because it can get the meat of the antenna further away from noisy electronics (pump, ECU, etc) and actually increase the apparent range over the string antenna. But a full length is always better (string or whip) when judged independent of sources of noise. Obviously tuning the receiver to work with the base loaded will improve the situation, but I don't think it gets you back to the same performance as the full length. And some manufacturers won't do that.
A buddy I grew up with has been doing small military drone stuff for 25 years or so. He once told me that they used many consumer R/C receivers over many years and had experimented with different antennas. They always came back to a string or full length whip as the best for range. He once did some experimentation to determine optimum string antenna orientation. He told me that the absolute best way to mount the string was to get it in the airframe's Z axis. In other words, up, away from all of the wires, pushrods, etc. Exactly what you end up with when you use the full length whip.
Don't get me wrong, lots of guys get away with the base loaded set-up, but I believe they are accepting less than max range that way. Make more sense on a heli to me, but if its adequate for a jet, then its OK!