Bob, you will be draging me out of my commitment to concede my position on the S4 design until DB has finished his project that shows us more...regarding the improved gain he has reported in his thread, "Question on the Vector".
I agree with what you suggest, but I think of CMC only exist on the outer shield of coax feed lines, and not the out-side of these antenna elements as noted on the S4 cone. Do CMC's act like the currents on the antenna elements...yes the can.
Adding a wire directly to the antenna can change everything for the model, and adding a feed line by adding a wire so we can see the currents as I have modeled the idea...does not alter the model much if at all. If you better understood what this feed line feature does and how...I think you might agree with me on its use.
I think this idea of adding wires is mistakenly applied, but I'm waiting for DB to show us more, and I want to see the performance reports for his model that shows the improved gain he has reported.
I can agree with you except....I'll explain more later if I can remember.
I also think there are transmission line currents flowing between the radials and the out of phase monopole. This happens, because these currents are virtually equal in magnitude and opposite in phase...according to what I see with my Eznec model of the S4.
These currents are a bit different on my Vector model, because I can not fix the NEC requirement to always connect, wire 1 end 1 to wire 1 end 2, and visa-versa with every wire in the model. The 3 radial S4 allows me to fix this issue completely, but the 4 radial Vector does not, even so the differences are insignificant at best.
On this very point I might consider that Cebik knew this when you two talked, and this was what he considered to be a dubious effort...that might make such a model difficult to impossible. Considering that you don't know for sure Bob, my guess might be as good as yours.
