Ian White, G3SEK wrote:
"The behaviour of loading inductANCE does not involve any variation in
current between one terminal of the inductance and the other."

Yuri has attached a photo in this thread again of an antenna loading
coil in action as a psrt of a too-short vertical antenna. RF ammeters
are mounted in series, one at the coil top and one at the coil bottom.
The lower ammeter clearly shows more current than the upper. That`s
exactly as should be expected.

The too-short whip above the coil has an impedance consisting of a high
capacitive reactance and a few ohms of radiation resistance. It`s the
coil`s job to cancel the capacitive reactance so it doesn`t oppose
current into the too-short whip.

Pure inductance alone can cancel pure capacitive reaxctance.

In an antenna loading coil as used in a "Texas Bug Catcher", the coil
resides about in the middle of the antenna. The coil has length and
current, the two factors which produce radiation.

The Bug Catcher is approximately a 90-degree antenna, including the
phase delay in the loading coil/. ON4UN shows in Fig 9-22 on page 9-15
of "Low=Band DXing", a center-loading example which may represent the
Bug Catcher

The current taper shown by ON4UN is similar to that shown by other
authors deliberately and unmistakenly.

A pure series inductance invokes a phase lag. This would be 90-degrees
in a pure inductance but we always have some resistance which reduces
the phase lag to less than 90-degrees.

In olden times, chokes were often called "retard coils".

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI