Cecil,

I asked this question about a year ago in some other group but the
posting went unanswered. Here's (more or less) what happened about 4
years ago during a conversation I had with a fellow who emigrated from
Russia many years ago. (It was a Sunday morning coffee shop ritual where
my wife and I would walk to a nearby Starbucks and meet with a small
group and discuss life, the universe, and everything as we overdosed on
several venti lattes with two extra espresso shots...) He once mentioned
a Russian text that detailed a mercury filled collinear antenna. It was
not completely filled with HG but had electrodes at the ends that
connected to cylinders of mercury. The article claimed wideband
performance and low noise. I asked him to sketch out the illustration
(bear in mind he's not a radio guy) and he sketched a collinear antenna.

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This is the best (crude) ascii rendition of the sketch on the napkin,
but you get the picture.
He described the ends were electrodes protruding into a cylinder of HG.
I have yet to build the thing, but I do have a source of HG if I need
it. he claimed the book was a KGB cold war technical manual (obviously
written in russian) that he happened upon. I cannot testify to the
authenticity of the article nor its origin, but I reiterate, he was not
a radio literate fellow, but very well read in a broad field of mainly
business, economic and political topics. When he sketched the
illustration from memory, he even said "I'm not even sure it this is
right, but this is how I remember it..." and yet the scribble was accurate.

I still intend to try it out, but as usual, procrastination rules!!!

Pat