Tom Ring wrote:

I not convinced that corona is what I'm hearing, but I'm no longer
convinced it's not, either.

That's good. You shouldn't be convinced. Especially if it is something
just accepted and circulated without experimental results confirming
it.

There are a lot of odd ideas that are deeply rooted, especially when it
comes to electric fields, noise, and charges.

Look at the shielded loop thread that just went on! Someone started a
whole thread just to show the shield blocked electric fields and
"noise", when all the shield really does is help balance the antenna
and eleimnate common mode responses.

The "dc path eliminates noise" and the "noise comes from each particle
hitting the antenna and a dc path reduces it" are nearly as far
fetched.

The potential difference is between the earth and space above the
earth. Clouds can also become "charged" and have a large potential
difference to earth and anything connected to earth, especially in bad
weather. That's why the world has lightning hits!

Anything connected to earth and sticking up and out in the air will
have a huge potential difference between it and anything in the space
around it at the same height or higher.

The sharper, higher, and more extended the conductive protrusions are
the worse the problem is, and the best ground connection in the world
won't reduce it (it can actually only make it worse). Rain or snow or
dust won't make the problem less either. Neither will high humidity.

I spent a lot of time and money trying to fix what I thought was the
problem (the particles making noise) until I learned the folklore was
wrong.

73 Tom