Linear Waves in Electrical Transmission Lines

Abstract

Nowadays, linear transmission lines provide vital links in virtually all communications and computer systems, and the parallel-wire line is still widely used today in open-wire form, in coaxial cables and microstrips. The standard twoconductor transmission line is an important familiar system, that is able to support the propagation of transverse electromagnetic modes and is of great interest in many practical situations. We have all often studied this electrical circuit or variation of it in elementary electronics, physics, or mathematics courses (Ramo et al. 1965, Davidson 1978, Badlock and Bridgeman 1981). In fact, the study of linear transmission lines is an old problem: in their simplest forms they date from the early days of the electric telegraph and the telephone and their defining linear equations were sometimes called the telegraphist equations.