On Jun 22, 5:32 pm, wrote:

The *best* way to load a short vertical is with a large enough
capacity
hat to load the antenna with *no* loading coil needed.
And that is what your's truly would build if I had to have a contest
against his using the same height whip.

BTW, I realize if the antennas were for a low freq, I might
have to use a coil in order to avoid a hat that was just too
big to handle, but still, I would concentrate as much capacitive
loading at the top as I could, and use the minimum inductor
value to match the antenna. If we both have to use coil loading,
mine should win. The current distribution will be more linear
on mine. And in a case using a large hat, it really doesn't
matter where the coil is. The current distribution will still
be fairly linear as long as the hat is big enough.
That would be about the only case where I might consider
a base loading coil to reduce coil windings.
MK