On Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:22:08 -0500, Registered User
wrote:

I'm under the impression the current flow
is identical whether metal rods or wire mesh is used in the antenna's
construction.

A discone does not exhibit any quality of shielding, so it wanders off
in that regard.

The difference between rods, number of rods, thickness of rods, and
mesh all speak to bandwidth. 2, 3, or 4 rods will not be remarkable.
16 rods will closely approximate a cone of sheet metal (as would a
grid of similar spacing). The same can be said of the
rod/rods/mesh/sheet in the upper section approximating a solid disk.

Again, all these "appearances" are a strict function of wavelength to
physical length and spacing relationships.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC