Cecil Moore wrote in message

I do think it's quite normal to have a slight taper, ....

Then you disagree with the guys who say it has no taper. Guess what,
Mark? That puts you on my and Yuri's side of the argument.

Maybe so, but I place much less importance on this than he does. To
me, it means very little, if anything. It surely will not effect how I
will design mobile antennas. After all, as Wes pointed out on his web
page, the change in radiation resistance is what really improves the
efficiency of a short loaded antenna. Not the current distribution in
itself. The improved current distibution is just a method used to
change the radiation resistance. Taper or no taper, in the usually
short 1 ft or so space a coil would occupy, "1/8 the length of a 8 ft
whip" the difference either way is not worth worrying about. And the
worrysome taper is only in the upper section of the coil, so really
it's less than 1/8 of the total antenna length. Most of the plots I
see are more bow shaped than a gradual taper due to the peak in
current. I'm glad Wes commented on the current peak...This was
something I had seen previously in modeling the antennas/coils a few
weeks ago, and had wondered about..
If we could do away with the high ground losses, we wouldn't need to
elevate the coils, or use hats. That's why often a base load 10-11m
vertical on a large car roof is about as good as a center load. Less
ground loss due to the better psuedo ground plane under the antenna.
MK