"Cecil Moore" wrote
... If 99.9% of the power is being radiated by the outside
braid of the coax, then the reflected power cannot be
more than 0.1% of the power and as a result of that
fact, the SWR on the feedline must necessarily be
very low, i.e. close to 1:1 ...
_____________

.... and therefore incapable of melting down the inner conductor of the coax,
and/or causing catastrophic failure of components in the output network of
the tx PA.

But, given enough tx power, these failure events are common when a tx tries
to supply its full output power into a very high mismatch at the end of a
run of coax. I have had to fix some of these systems after this happened to
them.

Please explain how this fits with your theory, Reg.

RF