On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 05:58:44PM +1000, edgar wrote:

> Surely every conductor in the unit will have a difference in potential
> due to being in a electromagnetic field.
> Even in the legs of the FET. Although the potential will be extremely small.

Yes, of course that's correct.

I should have written that with a fiber optic cable instead of the coaxial 
cable, all circuit elements are coupled to the field at _almost_ the same 
place, and thus are at _almost_ the same potential, and thus _almost_ no 
signal will come out: very much less than with the coax still in place.

B.t.w., some mini-whips are built using a metal can as the probe, with
the entire electronics inside the can; such an arrangement would get
quite close to zero output when the coax is replaced by the fiber optics.

Anyway, it was originally claimed that the functioning of the mini-whip
does not depend on the coaxial cable; I just intended to explain why I
think it does.

73, Pieter-Tjerk, PA3FWM