Roy Lewallen wrote:
A single conductor doesn't have a characteristic impedance --

On the contrary, that is a false statement. In my
"Electronic Equations Handbook", it gives the
characteristic impedance for a single horizontal
wire about ground. Obviously, ground is the missing
conductor. I believe that equation is also given in
ARRL publications. A horizontal #14 wire 30 feet
above ground has a characteristic impedance very
close to 600 ohms. Since all of our antennas are
located a finite distance from ground, your assertion
seems ridiculous.

I actually built a vertical, loaded it with one, and made
careful measurements which I posted on this newsgroup several years ago.
Cecil is still complaining about it.

Yes, because the current on a standing wave antenna
doesn't change phase through the coil no matter what
the delay through the coil. EZNEC agrees with me.
Here is what EZNEC says about the current through
90 degrees of antenna:

EZNEC+ ver. 4.0
thin-wire 1/4WL vertical 4/21/2009 5:50:11 PM
--------------- CURRENT DATA ---------------
Frequency = 7.29 MHz
Wire No. 1:
Segment Conn Magnitude (A.) Phase (Deg.)
1 Ground 1 0.00
2 .97651 -0.42
3 .93005 -0.83
4 .86159 -1.19
5 .77258 -1.50
6 .66485 -1.78
7 .54059 -2.04
8 .40213 -2.28
9 .25161 -2.50
10 Open .08883 -2.71

How do you explain the fact that the current changes by
less than 3 degrees in 90 degrees of antenna? How can you
possibly measure the delay through a coil, or through a
wire, using a current like that?

The displacement current flowing through those capacitances, not some
"effective degrees of antenna" phenomenon, is what causes the current
along a solenoidal loading coil to vary.

Rhetorical question: Did you know that "displacement current"
is a patch added to the lumped circuit model to try to make
get closer to reality?

You've kind of lost me here, since I can't see how you've replaced a
two-terminal coil with a four-terminal transmission line. And a
transmission line doesn't radiate, so that sometimes-important property
of a solenoidal coil is ignored.

You wouldn't be lost if you knew that a single horizontal
wire above ground is a transmission line.

Me, too. The thing which prompted me to add the automated helix
generation feature to EZNEC was the realization that lumped loads so
often did a poor job of simulating solenoidal loading inductors.

Too bad you don't accept the EZNEC results of that addition
which I have posted on my web page and you have ignored.

P.S. Roy has threatened to refund my purchase price for EZNEC
and declare my copy of EZNEC to be a pirated copy unless I stop
using it to prove him wrong.
--
73, Cecil, IEEE, OOTC, http://www.w5dxp.com