I'm curious, what is the point of posting that here now? Everyone that has posted in this thread has seen that image, and many of us have referred to it over the years...
Bob and Donald see it as evidence for common mode currents, however I see something completely different, I see the three dimensional fields generated by the currents on the different elements, including the vertical element. If the cause was common mode currents are as they say I think the animation would look very different.
I can simply ask, if common mode currents are causing the two different polarity fields to appear on either side of the radials, what is causing the same thing to happen on the vertical element where we have no common mode currents? This is the key to my concern and part of why the common mode currents explanation makes me uncomfortable.
That is also not to say I'm against entertaining the idea of common mode currents theory, if you will. I have no qualms with whatever comes out of that line of thinking, an advance is still and advance. On the same note, I also know that the first idea that someone comes up with isn't always correct, even if it explains something beautifly. I can point to many times that has happened since the birth of modern science.
The Newtonian Laws of Physics, for example. They work well as long as you stay in an environment that we have on the surface of the Earth, however, if you try and use them to explain how the earth revolves around the sun they fail miserably. I can point to countless examples from recent history that tell you the same thing.
I personally think that the theory of common mode currents on the Vector antenna design has its flaws, which opens me up for other possible explanations that others who treat it as absolute fact don't even consider. While I, personally, believe that this theory is wrong, that does not mean that the gain they think it is causing doesn't exist, I simply think the gain comes from other means.
As a hint of what I think is actually happening, the currents that people are so focused on, to me, are only indicators of the three dimensional charged fields that they generate. Those fields are evident on the animated picture shown, one side of any given element has one charge and the other side has the other. By themselves currents can only tell you so much It is in the study of the fields they generate that I think the truth of the additional gain this antenna design has lies.
The DB
