Significance of matching networks in enhanced performance of small antennas when supercooled

Electrically small dipole and loop antennas are modelled to show that supercooling the actual radiating dipole element produces negligible increase in performance when the tuning and matching network is already superconducting. A modest increase in gain is obtained for the loop. It is concluded that published measured enhanced gain figures for such antennas are largely caused by the lossless matching networks.