In
telecommunication, the term attenuation constant has the following meanings: 1. The real part of the
propagation constant in any electromagnetic propagation
medium. The
attenuation constant is usually expressed as a numerical value per unit length and may be calculated or experimentally determined for each medium. The attenuation constant, which is in the "natural" units of
nepers/meter can be broken down into two components, one representing metal loss, the other representing dielectric loss: The loss of most transmission lines are dominated by the metal loss, which varies by approximately
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