  Determining the preferred spatial location of the energy input to solar
coronal loops would be an important step forward towards a more complete
understanding of the coronal heating problem. Following on from Sarkar & Walsh
(2008) this paper presents a short 10e9 cm "global loop" as 125 individual
strands, where each strand is modelled independently by a one-dimensional
hydrodynamic simulation. The strands undergo small-scale episodic heating and
are coupled together through the frequency distribution of the total energy
input to the loop which follows a power law distribution with index ~ 2.29. The
spatial preference of the swarm of heating events from apex to footpoint is
investigated. From a theoretical perspective, the resulting emission measure
weighted temperature profiles along these two extreme cases does demonstrate a
possible observable difference. Subsequently, the simulated output is folded
through the TRACE instrument response functions and a re-derivation of the
temperature using different filter-ratio techniques is performed. Given the
multi-thermal scenario created by this many strand loop model, a broad
differential emission measure results; the subsequent double and triple filter
ratios are very similar to those obtained from observations. However, any
potential observational signature to differentiate between apex and footpoint
dominant heating is possibly below instrumental thresholds. The consequences of
using a broadband instrument like TRACE and Hinode-XRT in this way are
discussed.
