Re: Small Antenna
Yes, an air-coil wire antenna is better than a PCB antenna assuming that you are using an usual FR4 material. This due to higher loss. You can try to use a wire length of lambda/8.
Theoretically the circularly coil give the best radiated resistance. You can flattened the coil and measure what gain you get, before and after.
Below is an empirical formula to calculate the gain:
G = 11.8 + 10 * log {(C/L)^2 * N * d} [dBi]
Where C is circumference, N is nr of turns, d distance between turns, and L is the wavelength.
regards