[Antennas] End-fed half-wave religion

[Harvey&Bessie]

This thread reminds me of the stories old timers told me when I was
getting started in ham radio in the thirties. In the early days of ham
radio everybody was using Marconi type antennas. These were multi-wire
flat-tops with (usually) a multi-wire cage down-lead. These were worked
against ground--(as extensive a ground system as one could afford.)
These early hams almost to a man believed that the radio waves were
transmitted from the antenna and needed the "ground return" to complete
the circuit from the analogy with the land-line telegraph circuit, which
used the ground connection for the DC return.
When the Hertz type antenna (half-wave horizontal dipole) was introduced
in the twenties it absolutely "blew their minds" trying to understand
how it could possibly work!!! No ground return! NO WAY! But, of course
it did work--all the way across the Atlantic in 1922.
73,
Harvey/W4TG