Well, no, all it shows now, is that whilst the simple depiction of loops can be helpfull, in reality they are just helpfull constructs and not anywhere near what is actually going on.
That's exactly what they are; helpful constructs. Helpful in a way so that we do see there is more to this and so using this as a spring board to understand better what is going on. If you want, we can discuss this more technically but IME, that can be alienating to begin with.
lets say for instance, you look at the star grounding you have created by taking wires from the three elements to a common point. What would happen if you started to reduce the lenght of the center wire? Eventually it would become zero lengtt, and you would be back to convetion all buss earthing with a earth point in the center. At what length would the "star" grounding scheme fail?
This is excellent. The idea was to show the drawing and then go through a set of what ifs. OK, reducing the center wire to say a pointon the LCR network reduces the combined output loop of the 1st stage and input loop of the 2nd stage. IOW, it removes one of the unambiguous legs somewhat and its propensity to pickup interference. It still is however star earthing still and not a bus bar. A busbar is a large gauge conductor that has some length. Even using this method causes many ambiguous situations but I'd need another drawing to explain why. However to answer your question, at what lenght would it fail? I don't really know but rather than use a busbar, why not try a grounding strip, a low Z strip rather than a busbar? I did all this in stages where I reduced a busbar to a point, no leads to it longer than the leads the component comes with. It's too much like hard work hence the very small strip idea.
I agree has you have said before, that RF eathing is more complex, and distance is important, but thats because what we are considering as a ideal wire, actually has inherent reactance. In the case you have mentioned, the only thing that would cause a difference between what you have drawn and the simple bus earth, is the presence of reactance in the wires.
Quite so and the confusion these impedances have. Also many star schemes have long wires flying about in the air, no where near an earth plane and so pick up all sorts of rubbish. This is the major failing of many star schemes. Combine this with competing signals in the same wires and it all makes a difference.
All I am suggesting, is that for the idea of the loops to be taken onwards, you need to consider these parasitic effects to make the current paths make sense.
I completely agree. If you want, we can take it there next.
cheers,
Stephen
