Just wanted to thank everyone for allowing a debate to take place here without it turning into a huge flame war. It's so easy for these things to turn into something personal. I encourage everyone to try and keep their posts centered on the issue being discussed.
So far - I have only seen one UNSUBSCRIBE request as a result of the current discussion. I do have a technical opinion on the subject - but I think I will keep quiet about it for now. I am talking to some PHDs at work and using this as an opportunity to learn something new - and also impress them with how much I have thought about this "problem". One thing to think about in this discussion - is where the current "goes" as it diminishes as you work your way along a 1/4 wave wire (let's not bring the inductor into it just now for this discussion). I have never really thought about this - but one of our signal integrity engineers quickly said "return current". Thinking about that - I guess it is pretty obvious that the current in the ground connection of a vertical near the feedpoint is equal to the current going to the antenna element. Return current can also be thought of as radiation. Probably radiation resistance enters into this somewhere - but I am not smart enough yet to understand how that works. :-) Tree N6TR _______________________________________________ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
