Among the obvious answers would be for broadcast/military to avoid compromised efficiency and effectiveness in that service situation. They have their own safety concerns, but it is not the same as dealing with the mass public.
IMO, Solarcon's idea was likely trying to fill a niche in the CB antenna market that was created by a Government safety mandate. They probably decided to use the natural occurrence of common mode current flows, rather than avoiding them at all costs. They produced an antenna that did not need radials---further reducing a danger in handling during installations by the public. We know this deal by the Government happened, because at some point in the past things changed concerning the marketing of all metal antennas and for a while the metal type of CB antenna all but disappeared from the market. Solarcon started selling antennas into a nearly monopolistic market for vertical CB antennas.
I can't argue the validity of you statement above, but under ordinary conditions we may not choose the Imax/A99 matching device as the most efficient regarding antenna performance, albeit a world of satisfied customers seem to prove different when in use.
The veracity of the "word" in the CB or Ham world of antennas is more often than not suspect in my book.
Concering your words on impedance varying. When I'm able to measure such variations on increasing the height or adding radials, I see impedence decreasing. I'm talking about these effects on 1/4 radiators however, and not 1/2 wave or longer.
I can't say your wrong Henry, we are talking opinions here and you have presented you ideas. The other day when you posted the chart for the ARRL, I figured someone may take issue with that presentation claiming at least the chart was directed toward ground mounted antennas. That would have been because the chart talked about radial counts of 16 - 120 which is impossible for elevated antennas. There is also a small print disclaimer regarding the facts presented in the data---as only applying to the references in the body of the text. I'm not sure what your opinion of this chart is, but IMO it is at least representative of the likely trends when adding radials. Long before I ever saw this chart, I noticed some remarkable Field Strength improvements when adding from 3 - 6 radials to a makeshift antenna similar to a Starduster, I call my Marconi 6x. This past year I attempted to repeat this comparison work with a new design, but was unsuccessful in that effort. The problem was not the lack of being able to duplicate the work, I just stopped the process due to some personal problems I was having. I think I have posted the story some where else on this forum. I still want to do that work so that I'm really convinced that adding radials to a 1/4 wave radiator really is benificial.
Hang loose,
