I'll go back and re-read the post to be sure, but I do seem to recall you talking about your just trying to consider what the radials were doing and not being particularly concerned about the rest of the antenna. If this is right, then we are more on the same path in understanding.
DB, you might see CMC's flowing in these 1/4 wave radials, but I see an end fed folded 1/2 wave of sorts and Antenna Mode currents flowing. I talk about this below.
Plus this 1/2 wave would show a very bad match without some sort of matching device added since it is an EF 1/2 wave. When I import your model into Eznec, it showed me a very bad match and a lot of negative gain. I wondered why.
Note: I also have my model set for material resistance to aluminum tubing, and it still shows a bad match.
As an example of what I see: back in the days of base station CB antennas there was made a 1/4 wave folded ground plain that resembles what IMO you have constructed as a 1/2 radial wave of sorts. This is just a guess, but this may be why you made the radials shorter than a 1/4 wave in the models on page #10 and #13. It could also be describe as a skinny quad too...as I also suggested in earlier remarks.
You and I were just on different wavelengths in thinking, and I did not pick up on your point of view until we talked. To me, sometimes talking tends to make things clearer.
In the image 4-22a below is a model of a 1/4 folded Ground Plane and I see this in the radial area for the cone. We just see things differently, but we should be able to talk about our differences.
If I'm even close in my comments above...then I don't think I was talking about something else. This also might help explain some of my corn-fusion. I was expecting that maybe the model you posted for me to import was going to show us the nice gain you reported earlier, but I was wrong obviously and I pray you understand I was not trying to be mean.
After you posted the patterns for the Vector and the dipole showing us the nice gain, I asked you if you could post the original model, before you modified it with the added wires. Do you recall that?
When I was finally able to get your wire descriptions into Eznec...I did not see the nice gains, and the model also had the added wires you were telling us about. I was thinking, if your model showed a nice gain that I was not able to get with my Eznec model...I wanted to see your Vector model that you started with...and compare it to my Eznec model. That was my frame of mind, not something else. I appreciated the fact you finally might have the answer...how the S4 designed worked, and that you were seeing better gain.
Can you show me the antenna view, pattern, gain, SWR/match reports from 4Nec2 that shows the nice gain for your Vector? I can't explain why your starting Vector model would be so different than mine...others I have compared to your models in the past were always very close.
Don't get upset with me DB. If you are right and you have a model that shows a superior gain like Donald and Siro report for the NV4K, then I would like to try and understand more about the model, and see if I could do the same with my Eznec model.
Thanks.
