a pneumatic tire and monitoring device for monitoring an engineering condition of a pneumatic tire includes a pneumatic tire having a sidewall and a plurality of reinforcing cords carried in the sidewall . the monitoring device includes a sensing element that senses at least an engineering condition of a pneumatic tire and transmits the gathered data from the monitoring device to a data gathering device outside of the tire . the transmission occurs through a dipole antenna that is in communication with the sensing element . the dipole antenna is disposed substantially perpendicular to the reinforcing cords in order to maximize the probability of signal propagation through the tire sidewall .