@thor Think of it in terms of speed-of-light delay.. an electron can know what is terminating the far end (a resistor, open, short) until the electron (or rather the 3wave of energy through the electrons) physically gets to that point, and then transmitts that information back to the feedpoint somehow.

So any wire **must** act like a wire capable of conducting and identical to any other wire regardless of what lies at the far end... at least as long as the speed of light would take to go both ways. After that then things can change...