Ken wrote:
"I have been told that wind will cause static charge to build on the
magnet wire and that a path to ground must be provided."

I`ve seen wind sweeping broadcast tower guy wires charge them until they
flashed across their insulators again and again. That means the guy wire
insulators were very good. a very small leakage is usually sufficient to
discharge a conductor, but the guy wire is broken in several places with
insulators. The voltage between segments was in kilovolts to produce
corona and flashover. A resistance so low as 1000 ohms is usually much
lower than required to drain charge.

An ungriunded conductor in air will accumulate charge from rain drops,
snow flakes, dust particles, and charged air which strikes it.

Static drain can be accomplished by a connection to ground through a
choke or transformer coil. A resistor so high in value as to not affect
operation of the "magnet wire" also is effective. Operation may be
compared with the grid resistor in a vacuum tube circuit which leaks the
charge from a grid. In the case of an elevated conductor, megohms of
resistance may be low enough to drain the charge, depending upon the
charge accumulation rate and the kilovolts required to produce corona
and flashover at some sharp projection on the charged surface.

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI