John Popelish wrote:
But from the concept of a standing wave producing a current distribution
along the center conductor, the shield performs the function of ground.

But that is irrelevant. The relevant fact is that there is NO
third path to ground yet the standing waves exist anyway.

That seems to indicate that the displacement current path
to outside world ground is a secondary consideration compared
to the superposing of the forward and reflected waves.

If you are prepared to reject the distributed network model,
are you also prepared to reject Maxwell's equations?

Please note that rejection of the distributed network
model leaves you with only a model known to fail under
certain conditions.

In any case, you haven't explained how the unchanging
phase in a standing wave current can be used to measure
phase shift through a wire or a coil. EZNEC says it
is not a valid approach at:

http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp/travstnd.GIF
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp