I've been working in radio and electronics for almost 30 years, and this is the best explanation of transmission lines that I have ever seen.

I have worked in the radio and radar industry for over 52 years and never fully understood the operation of transmission lines. This movie taught me more in 23 minutes about transmission lines than i learned in those 52 years. Kind of makes me wonder how many antenna jobs i screwed up!!!!!

Tektronix had a CRT scope in 1950s capable of a bandwidth of a few hundred MHz, very impressive

Some people might think that this video is boring but actually it is exciting if you use imagination to understand the principals. Consider that these are also the principals of acoustics where a "reflection" is called an echo. A string on an musical instrument behaves exactly the same way constituting an acoustic transmission line with a small load, the string is plucked or bowed to create a pulse, this pulse travels to the end of the string and is inverted and reflected, then it is reflected again and re inverted off the opposite end. The pulse moves back and fourth making a tone that gradually decays. The instrument body functions as the load and the players motions as the temporarily connected battery. The pulse contains many harmonic frequencies and the nature of the load(the instrument body) verses the length and structure of the string determines the standing wave properties that filter the harmonics which provides the timbre (the tonal quality) of the instrument. Your breath is a battery, your vocal chords are a switch, your throat and nasal passage are two acoustic transmission lines and the air outside your lips and nose are the load. The transmission lines in this case are very complex with different adjustable impedance's distributed along their length( unlike an electronic transmission line with its consistent impedance) such that the end result is you can sing and speak. Most people think electronics are very abstract and remote form day to day existence but you are using these principals every to time you speak, you are appreciating these principals every time you listen to music.

I was watching this at 2× speed, kind of bored until about the six minute mark... and then I sat up and said, _whoa!_ I had to rewind because I'd never learned what characteristic impedance actually was. I knew the effect of an impedance mismatch was that the signal bounced, but I didn't get _why_ it did. In rapid succession there were three key things this video taught me about high frequency signals: 1. The insulator between conductors, even if it is air, is the "dielectric" of a capacitor. 2. Every wire, even an ideal one with zero resistance, has inductance. 3. To make it easier to conceptualize, it's okay to chop up the line into multiple segments of repeating inductors and capacitors that pass the signal one to the next. Also helpful was the reminder that the characteristic impedance Z = sqrt(L/C). Increasing the length of the cable increases L at the same rate it increases C, so it cancels out when calculating Z. Therefore, 4. Theoretically, a cable will have the same characteristic impedance no matter how long it is.

This is the first time I have understood impedance, reflection and velocity factor. Thank you for sharing this.

We used tectonic oscilloscopes, when I was employed by Western Electric AT&T. It was to me, like a mechanic is to a wrench, or to a hammer is to a carpenter. In my opinion they made the best oscilloscopes available at that time.

best depiction of basic transmission line theory in spite of age. Thumbs up.

Good stuff. For those who didn't know, the PC pci bus works like that reflected flattop signal at around 20: min. The driver only makes half the amplitude/current to get to logic level and the bus is sampled at reflection time so things see the full desired level. Fairly slick, but obviously length dependent in the extreme. If anyone worked with ECL back in the day, the only other good reference for this work was from Motorola ECL design handbook...and I still use the knowledge today.

Now THIS... is a transmission line

After watching this kind of videos you're left with a profound sensation of awe and satisfaction about the vibe and delivery of this kind of content, now old style videos. Glad some of them are preserved in time in here...

I actually screamed out loud at 13:38 because it offended my senses of what should and should not happen so deeply. I knew why and understood but never was it displayed so clearly to me.

I feel old videos somehow hearth-warming :D

If you're still having trouble, AT&T Archive has an even better video; Similarities of Wave Behavior by Dr. John Shive. Definitely worth a look.

This video not only opened my eyes, it also open my skull, erased what i thought i knew about transmission lines and put back what i should know about transmission lines. Thanks for sharing it.

Thanks a lot for this video I wish there are more of these kinds of videos explaining fundamental things in telecommunication Engineering :)

Certainly this explanation of reflected waves from transmission lines is the best I have seen.

If i binge watched these videos 20 years ago in college, things would have been different 😅❤❤❤ magnificent..

Wow! I stepped in a time machine here! That is some old footage. Best explanation I have heard on what is characteristic impedance. Very good info here!

These old videos explain principles and examples so much better than modern videos! 👍🍻

it is stupid that this video is more clear up to me than google search on 2023 and my elec engineering course.

Wow - how good was that eh? Brilliant. So well explained. Thank you for uploading it and making it available for us to learn from.

Thanks for posting this!! Best explanation ever! Now I understand the basics that I've been looking for. These old training videos destroy anything produced today. If anyone wants to see some great explanation of antenna theory, look up the old videos titled "Antenna Fundamentals"

This is such a well made lecture !

Bless your mind for uploading thid! Lots of love!

Thank you very much for sharing this gem.

Great video, and great job explaining this concept from the ground up.

this is the best video I have ever seen about impedance matching, thank you !

Old, but gold

Best explanation of transmission lines I ever saw. Simple, clear, concise, complete, tranquil, structured. Leads by example.

Thanks for the video! That's what i've been looking for.

A fantastic lesson, a masterpiece of explanation.

Cool video. I think we had an o scope like that in school in the 70's.

This is so amazing yet simple at the same time. I was wondering wtf that 50 Ohms thing was, the video makes it so intuitive>

Thanks for sharing this video.

Better than tutor I met before. Thanks for the video.

Well presented and fun explanation - good job.

it have been explained well....now i had go idea about transmission line...thanks

*Beautiful.*

Great video ! TNX 4 the upload !

great video. seeing is believing.

Great video !

Fantastic!

That was an awesome video!

This should be required viewing for any radio amateur seeking a license beyond technician-class.

nothing less than pure gold

Wow...the vid was amazing.

And here I thought I got recommended a sick techno track. Bamboozled again!

thanks for sharing

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.... so that's what termination is. This video makes things so much clearer.

Ok. With a title like that I thought it was gonna be an electro-industrial track.

Amazing! i watched this with plesure

Wish I had this video when I was in engineering school "a million" years ago.

very good explanation...

Timeless

Lernen unter optimalen, ist gleich beruhigenden Bedingungen. Sprecher, Musik, Geschwindigkei, perfekt.

Is this a transmission line? Is that a transmission line? Am I a transmission line? Are you a transmission line?

They don't teach like this anymore

Now I finally understand transmission lines, characteristic impedance, and reflections. Now to apply this knowledge in the real world to RF and in helping better understand antenna theory. Though I still wonder why impedance matching and reflections aren't an issue at low frequency, with electrically short conductors (transmission lines). Particularly in the Audio world where power amp output impedance is ideally 0 Ohms, going into a load of a few to a few hundred Ohms. Oh, is it that the characteristic impedance of a transmission line is high enough to be negligible at low frequencies?

that was my first experiment with an oscilloscope 6 years ago

Is mayonnaise a transmission line?

Point 95!

University programs are mostly overpriced trash. More often then not someone has to get over a language barrier before they can start to understand and integrate the basics. I love these videos.

The current (electrons) are not moving lightning fast, the field (volt) is

+3 dB

More Tek Awesomenessness!!! Why would you buy any other CRO if you had the money!

Do we know who the narrator was?

where can i find this kind of old videos bout electronics and communication? please help!

I'd have never guessed that Ronald Reagan knew so much about transmission line theory. Must have been between Hollywood gigs. ;)

Jamie well done! fantastic find. Do you know if there are any more old videos like this anywhere?

All wires are transmission lines.

At 14:18 can someone tell me why those two waves on scope screen do not combine?

wait...its all transmission line?!

For a short circuit, the return signal was said to be reflected. But aren't the short circuit's 2 emitted pulses each just transmitting through the short circuit to cross to and return in the opposite line, which explains the short circuit return signal's opposite polarity?

Guy sounds a bit like Spock.

watch?v=DovunOxlY1k This one's better, but doesn't have the same feel.