Homer, i agree with everything in your last paragraph, as thats how i see it also.
one thing to remember is that the cap hat over the coil (in the right place) allows you to use less inductance in your coil, which means less resistance from the coil itself.
about the ground losses, i think this depends greatly on frequency/wavelength.
we have to remember when reading the ARRL handbook, that while its good info, they tend to "cover their a$$es" so to speak by wording things in a way that covers all of the HF bands from 3-30 mhz.
this means that things like ground losses in a mobile installation can seem a bit overstated when applied to a radio service that only serves a .5mhz spread, at 27mhz.
i dont know how much of a consideration the ground losses at 27mhz are though, and would be grateful to anyone who wished to enlighten me on that.
and just so that no one in the future misunderstands what we're talking about; ALL of these things are compromises when compared with a full sized 1/4 wave vertical radiator.
LC
