Topband: Cage wire performance

[Richard (Rick) Karlquist]

On 1/4/2021 7:05 AM, Kenny Silverman wrote:
where the wires connect at a point on the top, but with a 4 foot spread 
of the wires near the ground. This adds about 15-20 kc to the 2:1 
bandwidth per the model.
> 
> Will a 2-wire section like this always behave as a wide/fat conductor or do I have to worry about voltage/current in Each wire?
> 
> Regards , Kenny K2KW

Just a guess:  I would think with 2 wires, you would be fairly
successful with getting good current sharing, as long as there
wasn't some unbalancing effect, say due to having the vertical
running along side a tower.

With 3 wires, there is some reason to think that the middle
wire wouldn't carry much current if the three wires were
in a plane.  OTOH, if they formed a triangular cross section,
then it would seem likely that current sharing would be good.
In general, you want to emulate a round conductor, as opposed
to a strap.  When straps are used to make inductors, the
current crowds to the edges.  Round conductors don't have
such edges, hence they have good current sharing.

I don't believe NEC is good for modeling this.  You have
to use a tool called "HOBBIES" if you want to do this.
K6OIK has written some articles about this tool.

73
Rick N6RK